John Bowlby (1907-1990) was a British developmental psychologist of the psychoanalytic tradition. He was responsible for much of the early research conducted on attachment in humans. At an early age, in accordance with upper-middle-class British tradition, he was send to a boarding school. The experience of which propelled him to study mother-child attachment relations. See Attachment theory.

Study on attachment and separation

He identified three stages of separation response amongst children:

1. Protest to the mother figure for re-attachment (related to separation anxiety)
2. Despair and pain at the loss of the mother figure despite repeated protests for re-establishment for relationship. (related to grief and mourning), and
3. Detachment or denial of affection to the mother-figure. (related to defence).

These phases are universally seen in children who go through separation, either by loss of parent/s due to death, divorce or through boarding school.

"No variables have more far-reaching effects on personality development than a child's experiences within the family. Starting during his first months in his relation to both parents, he builds up working models of how attachment figures are likely to behave towards him in any of a variety of situations, and on all those models are based all his expectations, and therefore all his plans, for the rest of his life." (J. Bowlby, Attachment and Loss (1973, p.369))

Selected bibliography

• Bowlby, J. (1960) Separation anxiety. International Journal of Child Psychoanalysis 4t: 89-113.

• Bowlby, J. (1973) Separation: Anxiety & Anger. Vol. 2 of Attachment and loss London: Hogarth Press; New York: Basic Books; Harmondsworth: Penguin (1975).