Attachment and Loss. Vol. I

It is difficult to give a full assessment of this book (which was previewed at last year's Mental Health Congress) since it is the first part of a two volume work, which should no doubt be viewed as a whole. Nevertheless, the important place it will have in the field of psychiatric literature is already obvious. Whereas many psychoanalysts have tended to harden in their views with the passage of years?as do people in all walks of life?Bowlby has taken the opposite course. On the basis of his trained sensitivity to human behaviour, he has reached out to such new sciences as animal ethology and cybernetics, which were unknown in Freud's day. The result is provocative, enlightening and profoundly stimulating, though not everyone will be able to accept fully the mixture that emerges. The concept of instinctive behaviour in man still remains profoundly difficult, though the author's version is a more acceptable one than most which have been offered before. As far as the mother-child tie is concerned, this makes infinitely more sense in the light of human evolution?as interpreted by Bowlby?than on the basis of conventional psychoanalytical theory. Those who do not have the chore of reading this book in full will be able to get an impression of its most important parts from Bowlby's contribution to the 1968 Congress proceedings, which are to appear shortly. The present work is a worthy successor to that now classic monograph on maternal separation with which the author came to the world's attention in 1951.