Attachment and loss / John Bowlby.

Includes bibliographical references (volume 1, pages 379-401; volume 2, pages 409-437; volume 3, pages 443-462) and indexes.

Volume 1. Attachment. Point of view -- Observations to be explained -- Instinctive behavior: an alternative model -- Man's environment of evolutionary adaptedness -- Behavioral systems mediating instinctive behavior -- Causation of instinctive behavior -- Appraising and selecting: feeling and emotion -- Function of instinctive behavior -- Changes in behavior during the life-cycle -- Ontogeny of instinctive behavior -- The child's tie to his mother: attachment behavior -- Nature and function of attachment behavior -- A control systems approach to attachment behavior -- Beginnings of attachment behavior -- Focusing on a figure -- Patterns of attachment and contributing conditions -- Developments in the organisation of attachment behavior.

Volume 2. Separation: anxiety and anger. Prototypes of human sorrow -- The place of separation and loss in psychopathology -- Behavior with and without mother: humans -- Behavior with and without mother: non-human primates -- Basic postulates in theories of anxiety and fear -- Forms of behavior indicative of fear -- Situations that arouse fear in humans -- Situations that arouse fear in animals -- Natural clues to danger and safety -- Natural clues, cultural clues, and the assessment -- Rationalization, misattribution, and projection -- Fear of separation -- Some variables responsible for individual differences -- Susceptibility to fear and the availability of attachment figures -- Anxious attachment and some conditions that promote it -- Overdependency and the theory of spoiling -- Anger, anxiety, and attachment -- Anxious attachment and the phobias of childhood -- Anxious attachment and agoraphobia -- Omission, suppression, and falsification of family context -- Secure attachment and the growth of self-reliance -- Pathways for the growth of personality.

Volume 3. Loss: Sadness and depression. The trauma of loss -- The place of loss and mourning in psychopathology -- Conceptual framework -- An information processing approach to defence -- Plan of work -- Loss of spouse -- Loss of child -- Mourning in other cultures -- Disordered variants -- Conditions affecting the course of mourning -- Personalities prone to disordered mourning -- Childhood experiences of persons prone to disordered mourning -- Cognitive processes contributing to variations in response to loss -- Sadness, depression and depressive disorder -- Death of parent during childhood and adolescence -- Children's responses when conditions are favorable -- Childhood bereavement and psychiatric disorder -- Conditions responsible for differences in outcome -- Children's responses when conditions are unfavorable -- Deactivation variants and some conditions contributing -- Effects of a parent's suicide -- Responses to loss during the third and fourth years -- Responses to loss during the second year -- Young children's responses in the light of early cognitive development.

Provides a comprehensive report on the mother-child bond and the emotional effects of and behavioral response to maternal deprivation.

A young child when removed from his mother and placed with strangers is distressed; subsequently he often becomes despairing and, later still, detached. There is evidence that reactions of this kind may underlie much psychopathology. In these volumes, John Bowlby, a pioneer in the field, considers the implications of these observations for psychoanalytic theory. Volume 1, Attachment, is devoted to an analysis of the nature of the child's tie to his mother. An examination of instinctive behavior leads to a theoretical formulation of attachment behavior- how it develops, how it is maintained, and what function it fulfills. Volume 2, Separation, will apply this theoretical scheme to the problems of separation anxiety and grief and the pathological forms they often assume. Volume 3, Loss, develops the study into consideration of mourning, depression, and defensive processes. The research contained in this volume set is based on years of observation and study, and is a pioneering work on several counts. Not only is it the most ambitious and exhaustive study of the subject ever undertaken, it also embodies a departure in psychoanalytic investigation. From Freud onwards, most analysts have worked from an existing condition backward to an earlier development. Dr. Bowlby here extrapolates forward from potentially pathogenic events to illuminate the pathways of the developing personality.

Also issued online.