John Bowlby Archives - Public Seminar

Witnessing the trauma of child separation

In his three-volume work on the child’s tie to his mother, Bowlby includes this passage from a colleague’s description of the young child who has been separated from his mother. At the time, parent-child separation happened in routine circumstances, like the hospitalization of the mother or the child. Before it ...

Feature

Separation Is Never Ending: Attachment Is a Human Right

Why 40 researchers say attachment is a basic right and separation a clear wrong

July 3, 2018 • by Howard Steele

For over 75 years, psychologists and psychiatrists have known that abrupt and/or prolonged separation can have major implications, including depression, anxiety, and behavioral disturbances. In 1952, Bowlby & Robertson argued, “There is now evidence that prolonged periods of maternal deprivation in very young children can, in some cases, give rise to extremely ...