Bonding and Attachment
'In 1971, Robertson, in coordination with his wife Joyce, began to publish influential articles...us the term bonding for parent-to-infant attachment'. For the Robertsons, '"bonding" refers to the feelings parents have for their children and "attachment" to the feelings children have for their parents...they run in parallel'. They distinguished the two on the grounds that 'Bonding is a mature form of loving. But the attachment of child to parent is an immature form of loving - unstable in the early months and years'. They considered that 'bonding progresses down the generations to promote the well-being of each new batch of babies...where the parents are not bonded to the children, the children are put at risk'.
Read more about this topic: James Robertson (psychoanalyst)
Famous quotes containing the words bonding and/or attachment:
“Attachment to a baby is a long-term process, not a single, magical moment. The opportunity for bonding at birth may be compared to falling in love—staying in love takes longer and demands more work.”
—T. Berry Brazelton (20th century)
“The English, besides being “good haters,” are dogged and downright, and have no salvos for their self-love. Their vanity does not heal the wounds made in their pride. The French, on the contrary, are soon reconciled to fate, and so enamoured of their own idea, that nothing can put them out of conceit with it. Whatever their attachment to their country, to liberty or glory, they are not so affected by the loss of these as to make any desperate effort or sacrifice to recover them.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)