Psychodynamics - John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth - Attachment Theory

Attachment Theory

John Bowlby was a follower of the Freudian tradition at the Tavistock Clinic in London, who broke away from Freud's key ideas and revolutionised the field. Freud had based his theories on the concept of a given source of psychic energy or libido in the human mind, which was transformed or diverted by mental functions. His only basis for this idea was Brucke's misunderstanding of the first law of thermodynamics, which could never be relevant to thought processes. Bowlby's inspiration came from reading the work of Konrad Lorenz, the famous Nobel-Prize winning founder of the field of Ethology or animal behaviiour. In particular Bowlby was struck by the phenomenon of Imprinting, which Lorenz had studied in Birds, and he saw the possibility that infants might imprint on their mother in a similar way. Along with his student Mary Ainsworth he studied infant behaviour, and developed what he called Attachment theory. He rejected Freud's ideas of damage caused by frustrated impulses, in favour of the idea that maternal privation or deprivation is a major cause of disturbed development and later psychological problems. Later he realised that infants need a stable, safe person or persons to provide a feeling of security from which they can venture out and explore. Many other workers in the field have since carried out experiments on infants and on animals which seem to confirm and refine this idea.

Bowlby's work led to a major change in hospital practice in the UK, where children admitted to hospital had not been allowed visits from parents during their stay. Contact with parents was said to unsettle the children and interfere with ward routine. Many people who were admitted to hospital, often for routine tonsillectomy, in the 1950s, remember being traumatised by the way their parents deceived them into thinking they were going on special outings and then left them in a strange place without any explanation. On top of the trauma such children were often left with distrust and anger towards their parents for the rest of their lives. An account of such a case is related in the book Hilary and Jackie in respect of the famous Cellist Jacqueline du Pre. Today, parents are encouraged to stay with their children in UK hospitals, or visit whenever they want.