The Development Of John Bowlby's Attachment Theory

The attachment theory is developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.The concepts were devised from ethology,cybernetics,information processing ,developmental psychology, and psychoanalysts. Bowlby drafted the basics of the attachment theory. He initiated the deliberation of child’s connection to its mother and how it can be disturbed because of separation, deprivation, and bereavement. Ainsworth’s involvement is this theory with the different methods that were used to test it. Additionally, she also assisted in developing the new directions that the theory is presently going toward. Ainsworth implemented the concept of “the attachment figure as a secure base from which an infant can explore the world.” She also devised the idea of a mother being sensitive toward a her child’s signals and how it develops a connection pattern. Ainsworth as well as Bowlby were both influenced by Freud and also other psychoanalytic thinkers.

Bowlby’s Ideas …show more content…
“Bowlby proposed that I 2-month-olds’ unmistakable attachment behavior is made up of a number of component instinctual responses that have the function of binding the infant to the mother and the mother to the infant. These component responses mature relatively independently during the first year of life and become increasingly integrated and focused on a mother figure during the second 6 months.” Bowlby had also made sure to draw a bold line between the old social learning theory concept of dependency and the new concept of attachment. He said attachment is a instinctive, healthy, function even in adult