John Bowlby: biography (and the foundations of his Attachment Theory)

Perhaps today it seems obvious to us to think that the relationship between a mother and her baby has great importance in human development, but this idea has not always been so obvious.

The idea of ​​the importance of attachment in childhood has often been present in different societies, but it would not be until the creation of the Attachment theory in which the effects of its presence or absence would be analyzed. This theory was elaborated by John Bowlby, of whom we leave you a brief biography.

Biography of John Bowlby

Edward John Mostyn Bowlby, more popularly known as John Bowlby, was born in London on February 26, 1907. Son of Sir Anthony Alfred Bowlby, who would have the title of baron as surgeon of the royal house, and of Mary Bridget Mostyn, he was raised as the fourth of six siblings in a wealthy high society environment bourgeois.

At that time the upper classes used to leave the little ones in the care of the service, having nannies who looked after them.

Childhood

John Bowlby's early years were spent in the care of a caregiver named Minnie, having little contact with her mother. However, when she was four years old, she would leave the family's domestic service, causing her departure great suffering and a sense of loss for the little one. Although she was replaced by her, the new babysitter had a cold nature that did not make him feel comfortable.

In 1914 the First World War broke out, which caused the minor's father to enlist and become an absent figure of the one that Bowlby and his siblings would hardly have news as their mother did not share the content of the letters that he sent.

A few years after that he would be sent to boarding school, partly as a way to keep them protected in case of attack. This set of events would cause him great pain, which probably he contributed to the fact that over time he felt the need to work on aspects such as bonding, separation anxiety and fear of loss in minors.

Academic training

After several years of internship, he studied at Dartnorth Naval College. After that he would try to enter to study medicine at the University of Cambridge, but during the completion of these studies he began to see he attracted by psychology and abandons them to later begin to train in psychology at Trinity College of the same University of Cambridge. His main interest was in childhood and the developmental period.

After graduating, he began to do various studies on delinquent and maladjusted minors, noting that they often came from unstructured families or had suffered mistreatment.

Union of the British Psychoanalytical Society

In 1929 he would enroll in the University School of London, finishing his studies in Medicine (as well as in Surgery) in 1934. But his concerns with psychology had not ended, training in psychoanalysis.

During the year 1937 he would be accepted as a psychoanalyst in the British Psychoanalytical Society, being analyzed by Riviere among others. After that he would be trained by Melanie Klein in child psychoanalysis and would begin to perform the analysis of minors. Despite his association with this author, the perspectives of both will differ, granting Bowlby a greater importance to environmental and nurturing factors and to the actual relationship between mother or maternal figure and child. This will cause him to be rejected and criticized by the psychoanalytic school by leaving aside aspects as central to this theory as the unconscious.

In 1938 he married Úrsula Longstaff, with whom he would have four children. That same year he would receive the proposal to preside over Trinity College, a proposal that he would accept. In addition, he began working in the child psychiatry unit of a Canonbury clinic. However, World War II would lead him to be drafted. He would go on to have the position of lieutenant colonel, in the medical corps.

Tavistock Clinic and participation in WHO

After the war, he would accept a position as deputy director at the Tavistock Clinic in 1950, being able to observe first-hand the effects of the war on the psyches of his patients. In this clinic, he would end up meeting and working with Ainsworth (who later expanded his attachment theory and made numerous contributions in this regard).

That year Bowlby would also begin to be consulted by the World Health Organization in the face of advise on the possible mental health of those children who had been left homeless after the war. This contribution would go a long way toward creating the Charter of the Rights of the Child.

The following years the author would carry out numerous experiments and studies that would allow him to understand child development. Maternal Care and Mental Health would be one of his most prestigious publications of that time, being the preamble to his attachment theory.

Formulation of Attachment Theory

Bowlby's best-known contribution to psychology would take place between 1969 and 1980, with the emergence of Attachment Theory as description of the relationship between emotional experiences and relationships during childhood and behavior, establishing the need to forge bonds of secure attachment.

Aspects such as the effects of abandonment or ambivalence and the innate need for maternal care that generates the feeling of attachment are studied. Attachment is described as an adaptation mechanism based on the search for protection against possible hostile agents, as well as the consequences of severing said link or not satisfying this need.

Death and legacy

Bowlby retired in 1972, although he continued to write for the rest of his life and carry out research assignments. This important psychoanalyst died on the Scottish Isle of Skye on September 2, 1990, at the age of eighty-three.

His legacy is extensive: despite the fact that his theory has undergone various modifications and has been interpreted by multiple authors, continues to present a great influence in psychology emphasizing the importance of affective bonding with our parental figures in childhood. He has also served to develop different evaluation techniques and mechanisms, such as the Ainsworth Strange Situation.