Bowlby, John

   (1907–1990).

   Known for his "attachment theory" of maternal–infant bonding, Bowlby was born into a patrician medical family—his father, Sir Anthony Bowlby, was president of the Royal College of Surgeons—and discovered an interest in psychoanalysis during his years at Cambridge (1925–1928). Following graduation, he first observed the importance of separation while working at a school for emotionally maladjusted children. From 1929 to 1933, he read medicine at University College Medical School, then trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital between 1933 and 1936, during which time he was a student-candidate at the British Psychoanalytic Society, analyzed by Joan Riviere (1883–1962), and supervised by Melanie Klein. In 1936, he came on staff at the London Child Guidance Clinic and began the study of the relationship of early life events to the formation of neurosis in adults, his first publication on the subject appearing in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 1940. After the Second World War, in 1946 he became head of the children’s department of the Tavistock Clinic, where he remained until his death. In his three-volume trilogy on Attachment and Loss, Bowlby revised classical psychoanalytic theory by arguing that neurosis stemmed from real-life experiences of the mother and child with attachment and dependency rather than from unconscious fantasies. He said that the bond between infant and mother was not merely derived from primeval appetites for food and sex, but served an evolutionary function— protecting the child from predators, and could be elicited experimentally among primates. Volume one in the triology discussed Attachment (1969); volume two explored Separation: Anxiety and Anger (1973); and volume three was given over to Loss: Sadness and Depression (1980). These became classic works in developmental psychology and influenced much research on "maternal–infant bonding," and the importance of the mother (or a similar caregiver) in the playroom of the child.