British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266 doi: 10.1111/bjp.

12149

T H E U N A C K N O W L E D G E D H I S TO RY O F J O H N
B O W L B Y ’ S AT TA C H M E N T T H E O RY

JOSEPH SCHWARTZ
I argue that attachment theory is a central part of the history of psycho-
analysis, although in a form not easily recognizable partly because of
Bowlby’s unique formulation of the centrality of relationships in terms of
attachment for understanding the dynamics of the human inner world and
partly because of certain defensive features of psychoanalysis that makes
changes in thinking difficult and results in the marginalization of dissident
voices. Bowlby’s unrecognized antecedents extend back to Bleuler in
Switzerland and include White, Sullivan and Thompson in the United
States and Fairbairn and Winnicott in the UK. A dangerous clinical
consequence of the lack of acknowledgement of Bowlby’s contribution to
psychoanalysis has been a widespread ignorance of the difference
between an attachment bond and a trauma bond. An attachment bond
provides safety and a trauma bond provides harm. Victims of abuse can
mistakenly be encouraged to remain in abusive relationships in the name
of attachment because trauma bonds can be strong even though they are
harmful. This is a dangerous misreading of attachment theory stemming
from the marginalization and ignorance of Bowlby’s work.
KEY WORDS: ATTACHMENT THEORY, BOWLBY, HISTORY, ABUSE,
TRAUMA BOND

PERSONAL INTRODUCTION
Before becoming a psychotherapist, I had a career as a physicist. As an undergraduate
and graduate student at Berkeley from 1955 to 1964, I was very lucky to be able to
observe physics being done at the very highest level of accomplishment. My boss,
Luis Alvarez, won the 1967 Nobel Prize in physics as the head of a group that made
unexpected discoveries of new elementary particles, leading directly to Gell-Mann’s
quark model of the particle spectrum. Alvarez’s group consisted of some 20 physi-
cists, 15 graduate students and over 200 technicians. This was big physics.
Particle physics in Alvarez’s group bore very little relationship to the romantic
stories of the so-called string and sealing wax physics of Rutherford’s McGill–
Manchester–Cambridge journey of accomplishment or to Faraday’s virtuoso magnet
and wire experiments of the early to mid-nineteenth century. Physics in Berkeley also
bore no relationship whatsoever to the tidy little fables of ‘scientific method’ told in

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

252 Joseph Schwartz
the philosophy of science. Experimental physics was a lot of hard work, was entirely
opportunistic in its methods, not easily summarized in a few simple words such as ‘the
scientific method’. Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shift (1962) was good as far as it went
but it leaves the reader with little understanding of the dynamics of paradigm shifts,
the why and how of paradigm shifts.1
For me, the most important lesson of actually occurring natural science relevant to
Bowlby’s achievement in psychoanalysis is the saying in physics: great discoveries
are made one year before they are inevitable. Paradigm shifts are really consolida-
tions. Paradigm shifts put together what is in the air of a given research community.2
But the difference between natural science and psychoanalysis is that in psychoanaly-
sis great discoveries are made not one year but more like 100 years before they are
inevitable. Why is this?

THE UNACKNOWLEDGED HISTORY OF ATTACHMENT THEORY

Attachment theory has frequently been dismissed as ‘not psychoanalysis’. At the
Tavistock Clinic Bowlby was so marginalized that he had to hire his own secretary.
Fonagy has described the situation metaphorically as bad blood between psychoanaly-
sis and attachment theory (Fonagy, 2001; Fonagy and Campbell, 2015). Bowlby is one
of many historical players in the shift in thinking from instinct to relationality starting
with Bleuler in the late nineteenth century (Holmes, 1993, 2015).
Paradigm shifts in psychoanalysis take a long time due to certain features unique
to psychoanalysis. In natural science the relationships under investigation are our
relationships to the natural world (Bernal, 1973). We poke nature with our experi-
mental tools and see how nature responds. And whereas science investigators can be
ruthless with each other in terms of ego, ambition and piracy3 the object of the
enquiry, nature, may be subtle, but it is not malicious. The same cannot be said about
psychoanalysis where the relationships to be explored are relationships between
human beings, which are far more complex. Nature does not set out to fool us.
People frequently do.
The history of bitter conflict within psychoanalysis has been well documented,
from Freud’s own accounts (Freud, 1914) continuing straight through to Ward and
Zarate’s Graphic Guide (2011), with important stops along the way, particularly King
and Steiner’s account (1991) of the famous Controversial Discussions held in London
from 1941 to 1945. The literature shows clearly that the sense of community in
psychoanalysis has been characterized far more by conflict than cooperation, far more
by rigidity than flexibility, far more by defensiveness than curiosity. The reader will
recall the split in our generation in London between the UKCP and the BCP in 1992.
I do not believe this characterization is unduly negative. It is a symptom of how
difficult the practice of psychoanalysis is.
During the Controversial Discussions, Majorie Brierley (1942a) wrote to Klein that
her attitude left something to be desired: ‘Various labels have been attached to this
subtle something in attitude from time to time. They might be summed up in the

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
 John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory 253
phrase ‘insufficiently scientific’. Brierley had in mind Klein being insufficiently
curious (scientific) about what really was the case rather than rigidly fixed upon what
she believed to be the case.4
Joan Riviere responded: ‘The principle difficulty about your point of view is that
you do not define precisely what is wrong with our “attitude to the work”. In what way
is it “unscientific?” ’ (Riviere, 1942).
Trying again, Brierley wrote:
I will only say now that I believe it to be an ‘objective’ fact that your attitude has
been a source of fairly widespread uneasiness, and it has sometimes hampered
people in arriving at a just appreciation of your work. I used the term ‘insuffi-
ciently scientific’ as the most general term I could find to cover all the various
experiences I have heard used by different people at different times. I called it a
‘subtle something’ because it is intangible. To my mind it is far more a mental
attitude and emotional atmosphere than of words and deeds. (Brierley, 1942b)
Brierley wrote to Fairbairn asking for his opinion. Fairbairn wrote back:
What they have done as far as I see it, is to adopt new ideas while retaining old
views so far as these suited them without considering how far the two sets of
views are compatible. The result has been a considerable amount of confused
thought, even amounting at times (e.g. in some of Melanie Klein’s sentences) to
complete nonsense. (Birtles and Scharff, 1994, p. 445)
Kate Friedlander, in the thick of the Controversial Discussions, challenged Klein’s
concept of neonatal phantasy on biological grounds: ‘Mrs Klein’s theories of phan-
tasies . . . are in complete contradiction to the anatomical and physiological knowl-
edge of the development of the brain during the first year of life’ (King and Steiner,
1991, p. 402). Sylvia Payne challenged the death instinct:
Personally, I cannot see that her findings require the theory of a death instinct . . .
I think that if we examine the clinical facts we shall find more direct evidence that
aggression manifested actively is either a defensive reaction or in combination
with the libido is manifested as a perversion than it is a sign of the existence of
an active death instinct. (King and Steiner, 1991, p. 746)
In 1956, Donald Winnicott challenged the concept of the good breast/bad breast as a
thing rather than a channel for a relationship:
The good breast is not a thing. It is a name given to a technique. It is the name
given to the presentation of the breast (or bottle) to the infant, a most delicate
affair and one which can only be done well enough at the beginning which I for
the time being call the State of primary Maternal Preoccupation. Unless she can
identify very closely with the infant at the beginning she cannot ‘have a good
breast’ because just having the thing means nothing whatever to the infant.
(Newman, 1995, p. 181)
In an interview a few years ago, Hannah Segal praised Klein’s open-mindedness
while at the same time acknowledging her intransigence when it came to her own
work (Pick & Roper, 1999):

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
254 Joseph Schwartz
LR: Was it difficult to work with Klein? What was it like to work with her?
HS: . . . working with her, which I did later, was not difficult at all. She didn’t
have any side or pretentiousness. She was extremely open to new ideas. She
would only get fierce if one undermined her basic concepts derived from her
discoveries, then she got very fierce.
In 1954, Winnicott described his experience of sectarian conflict with Melanie Klein:
When people like Marion Milner or myself for that matter write papers we do not
write them in order to show each time that we have grasped Melanie Klein’s
contributions to theory, but we write them because of an original idea that needs
ventilating (King, 2004, p. 34).
But in 1961 Winnicott, in turn, opposed the publication of Bowlby’s work. In a letter
to Pearl King, editor of the International Library of Psychoanalysis, he wrote:
. . . I think that it is unlikely that one of Bowlby’s books, of which he has given
us samples, would qualify for publication in the International Library, and I
doubt whether the Society would be satisfied if it were found that Dr Bowlby’s
offer of a book had been accepted. (Kahr, 2004, p. 26)
The point is that disputes within psychoanalysis have been bitter and hot, uncollegial
and, as Majorie Brierley put it, insufficiently scientific.5
Bowlby was in supervision with Klein and in analysis with Riviere. As Bowlby
(1984) later recalled:
At that time I had not realised that my interest in real life experiences and
situations was so alien to the Kleinian outlook; on the contrary I believed that my
ideas were compatible with theirs. Looking back on the years 1935–1939, I think
I was reluctant to recognise the divergence. That became crystal clear to me only
after the war, especially as I became shocked by their intransigent attitudes.
But many others at the time were looking in the direction of real life experiences rather
than unconscious fantasy derived from putative innate drives. Middlemore (1941) was
writing about the relationship between mother and infant, and her findings led to
Winnicott’s famous later aphorism (1965) that there is no such thing as a baby, there
is only a mothering pair. Bowlby himself acknowledged the importance to his thinking
of the publication of Ian Suttie’s famous book The Origins of Love and Hate (Suttie,
1935). Fairbairn (1946) was arguing that the human being was object seeking, not
pleasure seeking.

THE FIRE WAS SMOULDERING. IT WAS JUST WAITING TO BE

FANNED INTO LIFE
In my experience of working in this field for nearly 50 years, both as a researcher and
clinician, it has proved difficult to ask the question: ‘What is the case?’ Bowlby of
course asked just this question: What is the case? Is aggression innate or is it a
response to threat? Fairbairn (1946) did the same: Is the human being pleasure seeking
or relationship seeking. What is the case?

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
 John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory 255
In principle, raising these questions should not be occasion for polemics. Clinical
work is intellectually challenging in ways not dissimilar to physics and in principle
discussion should be collegial. Understanding is important. But there is a fundamental
difference between the practice of physics and the practice of psychotherapy. The
physicists do not have the high stakes of clinical work to contend with. They can take
their time. They can make mistakes. They can live with not knowing for long periods
of time without ruining or failing to repair damaged human lives. Research physicists
do not face the pressures clinicians routinely face almost on a daily basis because
researchers are only charged with finding out what is the case whereas clinicians are
charged, in the first instance, with treating mental illness/distress. The question – what
is the case? – may be irrelevant in treatment if the treatment works. But treatment may
be more effective if clinicians do know what is the case. Is envy innate or a response
to deprivation? (Polledri, 2012).
The precursors of Bowlby’s attachment theory arguably can be traced back to
Eugen Bleuler (1857–1939), a contemporary supporter of Freud. Bleuler in his work
at the Rheinau Hospital for the Insane in Switzerland was among the first clinicians to
try to establish contact with people so seriously distressed that they had given up all
hope of contact with other human beings. Bleuler introduced the concept of schizo-
phrenia to describe a fragmentation of the psyche preventing any communication with
others, anticipating the central importance of attachment for human mental health
(Bleuler, 1911).6
In the meantime, working in a similar setting to Bleuler, William Alanson White,
the head of the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington DC from 1903 to
1937, insisted that it was necessary to establish relationships with people in severe
non-communicating distress (Grob, 1985): ‘I believe that a tremendous amount of
suffering is still the lot of the insane person because he is misunderstood’ (p. 72). Late
in his career, White (1937) summarized his basic clinical outlook that the causes of
psychopathology were failures of attachment: ‘. . . when the individual is separated
from those whom he loves or upon whom he is dependent . . . then there develops the
separation anxiety which is at the bottom of neuroses and psychoses’(p. 459).
In 1963, only six years before Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) published the first of his
trilogy of Attachment and Loss, Fairbairn wrote a summary of his view that the human
being is fundamentally relationship seeking not pleasure seeking.
1. An ego is present from birth.
2. Libido is a function of the ego.
3. There is no death instinct; and aggression is a reaction to frustration or deprivation.
4. Since libido is a function of the ego and aggression is a reaction to frustration or
deprivation, there is no such thing as an ‘id’.
5. The ego, and therefore libido, is fundamentally object-seeking.
6. The earliest and original form of anxiety, as experienced by the child, is separation
anxiety.
7. Internalization of the object is a defensive measure originally adopted by the
child to deal with his original object (the mother and her breast) in so far as it is
unsatisfying.

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
256 Joseph Schwartz
8. Internalization of the object is not just a product of phantasy of incorporating the
object orally, but is a distinct psychological process.
These considerations form the basis of a theory of the personality conceived in the
form of object relations in contrast to one conceived in terms of instincts and their
vicissitudes.
Fairbairn, as opposed to Bowlby, was not ostracized by the London establishment.
But he was isolated in Scotland and, with the exception of Harry Guntrip (1961), his
papers tended to be ignored by his contemporaries. Fairbairn is now more a part of
mainstream psychoanalytic training and debate (Clarke and Scharff, 2014).7

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS
Bowlby framed attachment theory in terms of a human drive for attachment with the
basic underlying determinant of human psychology being the success or failure of
human interpersonal relationships (Schwartz, 2012). For Bowlby, as for Fairbairn,
aggression is a response to threat and not genetically pre-programmed, with a need to
be civilized.
In psychoanalysis in the 1920s, the repetition-compulsion was an expression of a
proposed death instinct (Freud, 1920). For Klein (1957) envy was innate: ‘I consider
that envy is an oral-sadistic and anal sadistic expression of destructive impulses,
operative from the beginning of life and that it has a constitutional basis’. Nowadays
genetics continues to offer a ready-made, culturally sanctioned way of circumventing
questions about the complexity of human behaviour, motivation, culture and history.
The current ubiquity of such explanations is given in an ‘A–Z’ in the Appendix.
I have argued elsewhere that very few people feel that they can challenge such an
entrenched framework, a framework that can, with reason, be called genetic funda-
mentalism (Schwartz, 1997). Bowlby had the confidence, of class and of evidence, to
do so. Bowlby, like Fairbairn, was a good scientist in the sense that I am stressing. He
asked: What is the case? (Schwartz, 2014).
The overall clinical approach is summarized by Slade (2006): ‘Attachment theory
informs but does not determine clinical work’. Within this flexible clinical framework,
in which attachment theory informs but does not determine clinical work, there are a
number of features in common with other orientations and a number of features that
perhaps distinguish attachment-based clinical work from other psychoanalytic orien-
tations. As in the history of attachment theory these connections and differences are
only observed from an uninformed distance.
Practices in common with other psychoanalytic orientations might be: the framing
of the therapist as more an experienced guide on a highly individual journey, rather
than a knowing expert; a reliance on countertransference as the royal road to uncon-
scious processes (Lomas, 1987; Racker, 1968); and an inclusive approach to treatment
as opposed the exclusivity informed by Freud’s elitism. As Freud (1923) wrote: ‘. . .
since [psychoanalysis] necessitates the devotion of long and intense attention to the
individual patient, it would be uneconomical to squander such expenditure upon
completely worthless persons who happen to be neurotic’ (p. 250).

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
 John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory 257
In common with other orientations, and in further opposition to Freud, is a practice
that includes the treatment of psychosis (Benamer, 2010). Freud (1914) singled out
schizophrenia as untreatable by psychoanalysis: ‘[Schizophrenic patients] display two
fundamental characteristics, megalomania and diversion of interest from the external
world – from people and things. In consequence of the latter change, they become
inaccessible to the influence of psychoanalysis and cannot be cured by our efforts’ (p.
66). As we noted above, Freud’s views on psychosis were rejected in the US by
William Alanson White and the Washington School of Psychiatry who, following
Bleuler, found ways to establish relationships with these severely traumatized patients
(Sullivan, 1925): ‘The incomprehensible is to be regarded as fragments of intent
which has come to light after the patient has ceased his efforts at and abandoned his
hopes of communicating with the environment’ (p. 72). We now have evidence that the
aetiology of schizophrenia lies in previous abuse and trauma (Read et al., 2014).
Clinical features of attachment theory which perhaps define, not necessarily
uniquely, attachment-based clinical work are:
1. Affect regulation, attunement and the processes of rupture and repair as essential to
the ongoing process of co-creating with the client what can be called a secure-enough
base.
2. The secure-enough base as then the platform from which the therapist can bear
witness to childhood trauma and from which a narrative of a traumatized past can be
created (Bowlby, 1979, pp. 145–6).
3. An intake interview that concentrates on the attachment history of the prospective
client and the feelings in the room. The word assessment is rarely used. The DSM may
be used for insurance purposes but diagnostic categories are avoided.
4. The different attachment styles – secure, ambivalent, anxious, avoidant, disorga-
nized – are used to describe the possible outcomes of early childhood relationships.
Disorganized attachment, in particular, where the needed attachment figure is also a
threat, can be a helpful framework for understanding the inner world of adult survivors
of physical, sexual and/or organized abuse.
But where attachment theory may differ most significantly from other orientations is
in the wide range of applications outside psychoanalysis. When Freud was hauled
before the tax authorities in Vienna in 1918 because they didn’t believe he was paying
enough tax, they said: but surely Professor Freud your reputation extends far beyond
the borders of Austria. And he said no, my reputation begins at the borders of Austria
(Schwartz, 1999).
In the case of Bowlby, a recognition of the centrality of attachment for human
mental health begins at the borders of psychoanalysis not near the centre. In the US,
research using attachment theory is widespread and routine (Eagle, 2013). Clinically,
attachment theory is used internationally as a framework of choice in the treatment of
trauma (Arikan & Karanci, 2012; Zurbriggen, Gobin & Kaeler, 2012). And attach-
ment theory as an orientation that informs but does not determine clinical work has
meant that it informs a wide range of applied clinical work: forensic psychotherapy
(Adshead, 2013); the prenatal loss of a co-twin (Hayton, 2009); abusive mothering
and parenting (Adshead et al., 2010; Amos, Furber & Segal, 2011), organized abuse

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
258 Joseph Schwartz
(Barouk Epstein, Schwartz & Wingfield-Schwartz, 2010). The International Attach-
ment Network is a further source of information about the applications of attachment
theory in medicine, social work, education, probation and family law.

FATAL MISUNDERSTANDING OF ATTACHMENT THEORY: THE DIFFERENCE

BETWEEN AN ATTACHMENT BOND AND A TRAUMA BOND

The criminal case concerning the continued beatings and subsequent death of Baby
P in Britain in 2007 (see, among many accounts, ‘Death of Baby P’, Wikipedia)
highlighted a dangerous misunderstanding of Bowlby’s attachment theory. For
Bowlby the point of human attachment is safety. An attachment bond makes the infant
safe and is the basis of Winnicott’s facilitating environment. The trauma bond is not
safe. It is a desperate exercise in self-preservation. Brian Keenan’s powerful account
(1992 ) of his torture and four-year incarceration in Beirut, An Evil Cradling, vividly
shows the difference between his attachment bond to fellow prisoner John McCarthy
and his trauma bond to his captors. The trauma bond has an extensive literature,
particularly in relation to battered women (see, for example, Dutton & Painter, 1981).
It also has an extensive literature in hostage situations where it is known as capture
bonding or the Stockholm syndrome (Auerbach et al., 1994; Cantor & Price, 2007;
Herman, 1992; Şar, Middleton & Dorahy, 2014).
The confusion between the attachment bond and the trauma bond affects both
clinical work and social work. The social workers in the Baby P case and in other
similar fatalities tended to be working in a practice framework where any attachment
is seen to be better than none, which makes it difficult to remove a child who is being
abused by their parents. In clinical work with adults, there can be a tendency to collude
with a patient in their difficulties in leaving an abusive relationship because of the
misunderstanding of the difference between the often very powerful trauma bond that
binds the patient to the abuser and an attachment bond which would provide safety and
growth. For most attachment-based clinicians, myself included, a first step in treating
survivors of abuse is to assist the client in leaving the abusive relationship. If this
proves not to be possible, therapy is not possible and the relationship with the client,
I would say on ethical grounds, needs to be ended. Otherwise we become collusive in
enabling the abuse to continue.
The differences between attachment bonds and trauma bonds are summarized in
Table 1.

CONCLUSION: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

From its earliest days, psychoanalysis has had a history of being ridiculed and
dismissed as black magic, perhaps something that is only fit for women, as a matter of
mere ‘women’s intuition’. In a best-selling book that went through 21 printings from
1908 to 1932, George Lincoln Walton, a consultant neurologist at the prestigious
Massachusetts General Hospital, wrote (Walton, 1908): ‘Between getting up and
doing something and analysing a dream it seems to me an ounce of Muldoon is worth

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
 John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory 259
Table 1: Attachment versus trauma bonds (Baker & O’Neil, 2011)

Secure attachment Trauma bond

Based on Love, reciprocity, caring Terror, domination, unpredictability

Develops Slowly Instantaneously
Other Experienced as essential for survival Experienced as essential for survival
Proximity leads to Feeling safe (pleasure) Conflicting feelings
(alarm/numbing/relief)
Individuation Individuated, but dependent on other Not separate – an extension of other’s
needs ‘You have to be the way the
other wants you to be’
Autonomy, freedom Autonomous Obedient to the will of the other,
‘extreme need, because there’s terror
we’ll do anything’

a pound of Freud’ (p. 638). In 1935, William Alanson White had to defend Freud’s
contribution to psychiatry to his sceptical colleagues (White, 1935): ‘The most impor-
tant thing stressed by Freud and his followers has been the deterministic attitude
towards psychological facts . . . No longer is it possible to rest content with calling a
given idea a delusion or describing the products of delirium as incoherent’ (p. 542). In
1997, Edward Shorter, a leading historian of psychiatry, wrote that psychoanalysis had
been not only an unfortunate deviation from medical treatment, but a Jewish deviation
to boot (Shorter, 1997).
As I have previously written (Schwartz, 1999), psychoanalysis as a knowledge
discipline is unique in Western culture. Whereas other knowledge disciplines (sci-
ences) are products of the great advances of the Industrial Revolution (Schwartz,
1992), psychoanalysis has been charged with the responsibility of cleaning up the
mess caused by the brutalities of the Industrial Revolution (Armstrong, 2000). But
there would seem to be internal reasons as well for the current re-marginalization of
psychoanalysis. Our sectarianism, our lack of discipline and a lack of a common front
regarding how to treat certain conditions has left us struggling for legitimacy, when we
should be being celebrated for everything the field has learned over the last century of
clinical work: transference–countertransference re-enactments, repression, splitting,
projection, introjection and above all perhaps, the use of Freud’s invention of the
analytic hour to hear the messages that come from the human inner world.
Fifteen years ago, Bob Hinshelwood (founder publisher and editor of the BJP) and
I had a spirited exchange of e-mails on theory in psychoanalysis. Hinshelwood was a
Kleinian. I was attachment based. He asked me why couldn’t there be a drive against
attachment (death drive) as well as a drive for attachment as posited by Bowlby? And
that was exactly the point of our exchange: what is the case? Is there a death drive or
not? I think I convinced him there was no evidence for an anti-attachment drive
although in principle there could be.
I and others have since argued that there is no death drive and that Freud was wrong
(Black, 2001; Schwartz, 2001). Similarly, the human being isn’t pleasure seeking in

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
260 Joseph Schwartz
the first instance. The human being is relationship seeking (object seeking) in the first
instance. Pleasure seeking is a deterioration of object relations (Fairbairn, 1946,
1963). But we seem to be so undisciplined that we simply ignore the arguments of our
most important theorists in favour of what we simply choose to believe or have been
trained to believe to be the case rather than being open to what is actually the case in
the interest of our clients. A relationally oriented colleague insisted to me that she
intended to keep the concept of the good object even, though Fairbairn explicitly
argues that there is no such thing as a ‘good’ object because object formation occurs
when there is a bad experience to manage (Fairbairn’s point number 7 above: ‘Inter-
nalization of the object is a defensive measure originally adopted by the child to deal
with his original object (the mother and her breast) in so far as it is unsatisfying’).
Good (enough) experiences simply get metabolized – there is no need for the defen-
sive measure of object formation (Schwartz, 2014).
Readers will be perfectly aware that the commonalities in our different orientations
can be disguised by differences in terminology. In physics, sometimes the point is to
show that differing theories are in fact equivalent. It is not generally known that there
are four different ways to understand the force of gravity. Three of them are equiva-
lent. One, Einstein’s, is not. Famously in the 1920s, Carl Eckart showed that
Heisenberg’s matrix mechanics was completely equivalent to Schroedinger’s wave
mechanics. Bowlby’s RIGS (Representations of Interactions that have been General-
ized) are roughly equivalent to Fairbairn’s bad objects.
But some ways of understanding can be better than others even if they may be more
or less equivalent in clinical situations. Is Bowlby’s attachment theory based on the
vicissitudes of relationships actually a better theory than Freud’s theory based on the
vicissitudes of instincts? How could we possibly go about deciding? Even though it
would be good to have the coherence of a unified framework that we mostly could
agree on, it would seem that live and let live is the best we can do in our complex
difficult, perhaps impossible profession (Malcolm, 1977). Perhaps we are still having
to work through the central feature of attachment theory – that psychopathology is to
be located in the vicissitudes of attachment, separation and loss.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I want to thank Robert Snell and Ann Scott for their thoughtful, critical readings of the
manuscript.

NOTES
1. The post-positivist literature considerably advances our understanding of what actually
happens in the labs and offices: Fleck (1979) dissects the step-by-step process by which the
Wasserman test for syphilis was invented; Latour and Woolgar (1986) discuss how scientific
facts get constructed; Shapin (1994) shows the social/historical processes involved in estab-
lishing truth; Pickering, Constructing Quarks (1984), and Galison, How Experiments End
(1987), show how theory and experiment come to be established in modern particle physics.

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
 John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory 261
And Paul Forman (1971, 2007) has spent his career pioneering the integration of cultural theory
and history into the history of science in his analyses of both theory and practice, particularly
in physics.
2. Gunther Stent (1972) emphasized that the same thing happens in art. With Picasso and the
Cubists in Paris in the first two decades of the twentieth century, a community of artists shared
ideas and a common outlook about the problem of representation (Berger, 1972).
3. Watson (1968) is a prime case. Watson was sardonically called by his colleagues at the time
‘Lucky Jim’ for his unauthorized using of Rosalind Franklin’s x-ray images of crystallized
DNA to beat Pauling to the structure of DNA (Sayre, 2000).
4. Klein tended to refer to her ideas as discoveries, rather than as her ideas (Pick & Roper, 1999).
5. This is not to deny Klein’s importance. As Fairbairn later acknowledged: ‘The point of view
which I have developed is admittedly of Kleinian lineage, although privately I regard it as a
definite advance beyond the Kleinian standpoint’ (Birtles & Scharff, 1994, p. 444). Marie
Langer (1989) credits Klein for bringing women’s experience to the forefront of psychoanalysis
in Latin America by taking analysis back in time to the pre-oedipal phase. Klein invented object
relations. She introduced the concept of projective identification. And her description of emo-
tional horror is unparalleled. As Riviere wrote: ‘The content of the depressive position (as
Melanie Klein has shown) is the situation in which all one’s loved ones within are dead and
destroyed, all goodness dispersed, lost in fragments, wasted and scattered to the winds; nothing
is left within but utter desolation’ (Hughes, 1991, p. xiii).
6. Freud tried to recruit Bleuler to the psychoanalytic movement. But as much as Bleuler
valued Freud he was not bothered about whether Freud’s work would prevail sooner or later. He
wrote Freud: ‘I am therefore less tempted than you to sacrifice my whole personality for the
advancement of the cause’ (Alexander & Selesnick, 1965, p. 5).
7. Bowlby stayed on the margins of mainstream psychoanalysis for most of his working life,
getting final satisfaction by ‘being proved right’ (Bowlby, private communication, 2007).

REFERENCES
Adshead, G. (2013) All words make a life sentence: Attachment and narratives in forensic
psychotherapy. Attachment: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanaly-
sis 7: 1–19.
Adshead, G., Paz, I., King, C. & Tagg, A. (2010) Attachment and risk: A therapeutic risk
assessment group for parents who have hurt their children. Attachment: New Directions in
Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis 4: 203–15.
Alexander, F. & Selesnick, S.T. (1965) Freud–Bleuer correspondence. Archives of General
Psychiatry 12: 1–9.
Amos, J., Furber, G. & Segal, L. (2011) Understanding maltreating mothers: A synthesis of
relational trauma, attachment disorganization, structural dissociation of the personality and
experiential avoidance. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation 12: 495–509.
Arikan, G. & Karanci, N. (2012) Attachment and coping as facilitators of posttraumatic growth
in Turkish university students experiencing traumatic events. Journal of Trauma and Dis-
sociation 13: 209–25.
Armstrong, K. (2000) The Battle for God. New York: Ballantine.
Auerbach, S.M., Chiseler, D.J., Strentz, T., Schmidt, J.A. & Serio, C.D. (1994) Interpersonal
impacts and adjustment to the stress of simulated captivity: An empirical test of the Stock-
holm syndrome. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 13: 207–21.

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
262 Joseph Schwartz
Baker, S. & O’Neil, J. (2011) Have we all gone mad? Understanding and working
with complicated client–therapist interactions and covert communications in complex
trauma and dissociative disorders. 28th Annual Conference of the International Society for
the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, Montreal, Canada. Pre-Conference seminar, 3
November.
Barouk Epstein, O., Schwartz, J. & Wingfield-Schwartz, R. (eds) (2010) Ritual Abuse and Mind
Control: The Manipulation of Attachment Needs. London: Karnac.
Benamer, S. (ed.) (2010) Telling Stories? Attachment-Based Approaches to the Treatment of
Psychosis. London: Karnac.
Berger, J. (1972) The Success and Failure of Picasso. New York: Vintage.
Bernal, J.D. (1973) Extension of Man: A History of Physics Before the Modern Age. New York:
HarperCollins.
Birtles, E.F. & Scharff, D.E. (eds) (1994) From Instinct to Self. Selected Papers of W.R.D.
Fairbairn. Vol. II Applications and Early Contributions. London: Jason Aronson.
Black, D. (2001) Mapping a detour: Why did Freud speak of a death drive?. British Journal of
Psychotherapy 18: 185–98.
Bleuler, E. (1911) Dementia Praecox of the Group of Schizophrenias (trans. J. Zinkin). New
York: International Universities Press.
Bowlby, J. (1969) Attachment and Loss: Volume 1, Attachment. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Bowlby, J. (1973) Attachment and Loss: Volume 2, Separation: Anxiety and Anger.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Bowlby, J. (1979) The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds. London: Routledge.
Bowlby, J. (1980) Attachment and Loss: Volume 3, Loss: Sadness and Depression.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Bowlby, J. (1984) John Bowlby to Phyllis Grosskurth. Bowlby Papers. London: Wellcome
Institute.
Brierley, M. (1942a) Letter to Melanie Klein, 21 May 1942. Brierley Papers. London: Institute
of Psychoanalysis.
Brierley, M. (1942b) Marjorie Brierley to Melanie Klein, 5 June 1942. Brierley Papers. London:
Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Cantor, C. & Price, J. (2007) Traumatic entrapment, appeasement and complex post-traumatic
stress disorder: Evolutionary perspectives of hostage reactions, domestic abuse and the
Stockholm syndrome. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 41: 377–84.
Clarke, G.S. & Scharff, D.E. ( 2014) Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition: Lines of
Development, Evolution of Theory and Practice over the Decades. London: Karnac.
Dutton, D.G and Painter, S.L. (1981) Traumatic bonding: The development of emotional
attachments in battered women and other relationships of intermittent abuse. Victimology:
An International Journal 1: 139–55.
Eagle, M.N. (2013) Attachment and Psychoanalysis: Theory, Research, and Clinical Implica-
tions. London: Guildford Press.
Fairbairn, W.R.D. (1946) Object-relationships and dynamic structure. In: Fairbairn, W.R.D.,
Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality, pp. 137–51. London: Bruner-Routledge (1952).
Fairbairn, W.R.D. (1963) Synopsis of an object-relations theory of the personality. Interna-
tional Journal of Psychoanalysis 44: 224–5. In: Scharff, D.E. & Birtles, E.F. (1994) From
Instinct to Self: Selected Papers of W.R.D. Fairbairn. Vol. 1 Clinical and Theoretical
Papers, pp. 155–6. London: Jason Aronson.
Fleck, L. (1979) Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
 John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory 263
Fonagy, P. (2001) Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis. New York: The Other Press.
Fonagy, P. & Campbell, C. (2015) Bad blood revisited. Attachment and psychoanalysis. British
Journal of Psychotherapy, this issue.
Forman, P. (1971) Weimar culture, causality, and quantum theory, 1918–1927: Adaptation by
German physicists and mathematicians to a hostile intellectual environment. Historical
Studies in the Physical Sciences 3: 1–115.
Forman, P. (2007) The primacy of science in modernity, of technology in postmodernity, and of
ideology in the history of technology. History and Technology 23: 1–152.
Freud, S. (1914) On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, pp. 63–128. Pelican Freud
Library, vol. 15. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Freud, S. (1920) Beyond the pleasure principle. SE 18: 7–67.
Freud, S. (1923) Psycho-analysis. SE 18: 235–54.
Galison, P. (1987) How Experiments End. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Grob, G.N. (ed.) (1985) The Inner World of American Psychiatry 1890–1940. Selected Corre-
spondence. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Guntrip, G. (1961) Personality Structure and Human Interaction. The Developing Synthesis of
Psychodynamic Theory. London: Karnac.
Hayton, A. (2009) Attachment issues with the loss of a co-twin before birth. Attachment: New
Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis 3: 144–56.
Herman, J. (1992) Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse
to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books.
Holmes, J. (1993) John Bowlby and Attachment Theory. Makers of Modern Psychotherapy.
London: Routledge.
Holmes, J. (2015) Attachment theory in clinical practice: A personal account. British Journal of
Psychotherapy, this issue.
Hughes, A. (ed.) (1991) The Inner World and Joan Riviere. Collected Papers 1920–1958.
London: Karnac Books.
Kahr, B. (2004) Introduction of Pearl King. In: Bowlby, R., Fifty Years of Attachment Theory.
The Donald Winnicott Memorial Lecture, pp. 27–30. London: Karnac.
Keenan, B. (1992) An Evil Cradling. London: Hutchinson.
King, P. (2004) Recollections of Donald Winnicott and John Bowlby. In: Bowlby, R., Fifty
Years of Attachment Theory. The Donald Winnicott Memorial Lecture, pp. 31–8. London:
Karnac.
King, P. & Steiner, R. (eds) (1991) The Freud–Klein Controversies 1941–1945. London:
Routledge.
Klein, M. (1957) Envy and Gratitude. London: The Hogarth Press
Kuhn, T. (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
Langer, M. (1989) From Vienna to Managua. London: Free Association.
Latour, B. & Woolgar, S. (1986) Laboratory Life. The Construction of Scientific Facts, 2nd
edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lomas, P. (1987) The Limits of Interpretation. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Malcolm, J. (1977) Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession. New York: Aronson.
Middlemore, M.P. (1941) The Nursing Couple. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Newman, A. (1995) Non-Compliance in Winnicott’s Words. A Companion to the Work of
Donald Winnicott. London: Free Association Books.
Pick, D. & Roper, L. (1999) Psychoanalysis, dreams, history: An interview with Hanna Segal.
History Workshop Journal (49): 161–70.

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
264 Joseph Schwartz
Pickering, A. (1984) Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Polledri, P. (2012) Envy is not Innate: A New Model of Thinking. London: Karnac.
Racker, H. (1968) Transference and Countertransference. Madison, CT: International Univer-
sities Press.
Read, J., Fosse, R., Moskowitz, A. & Perry, B. (2014) The traumagenic neurodevelopmental
model of psychosis revisited. Neuropsychiatry 4: 65–79.
Riviere, J. (1942) Joan Riviere to Marjorie Brierley, 29 May 1942. Brierley Papers. London:
Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Şar, V., Middleton, W. & Dorahy, M. (eds) (2014) Global Perspectives on Dissociative Disor-
ders: Individual and Societal Oppression. London: Routledge.
Sayre, A. (2000) Rosalind Franklin and DNA. New York: Norton.
Schwartz, J. (1992) The Creative Moment: How Science Made Itself Alien to Modern Culture.
New York: HarperCollins.
Schwartz, J. (1997) The soul of soulless conditions? Accounting for genetic fundamentalism.
Radical Philosophy (86): 2–5.
Schwartz, J. (1999) Cassandra’s Daughter: A History of Psychoanalysis in Europe and
America. London: Viking/Penguin. Reissued London: Karnac (2003).
Schwartz, J. (2001) Commentary on David Black: Beyond the death drive detour – how can we
deepen our understanding of cruelty, malice, hatred, envy, and violence. British Journal of
Psychotherapy 18: 199–204.
Schwartz, J. (2012) Attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapy. In: Feltham, C. &
Horton, I. (eds), The Sage Handbook of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 3rd edition. Los
Angeles: Sage.
Schwartz, J. (2014) Fairbairn’s accomplishment is good science. In: Clarke, S. & Scharff, D.E.
(eds), Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition: Lines of Development, Evolution of
Theory and Practice over the Decades, pp. 411–17. London: Karnac.
Shapin, S. (1994) A Social History of Truth. Civility and Science in 17th Century England.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shorter, E. (1997) A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac.
New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Slade, A. (2006) Attachment Theory and Research: Implications for the Theory and Practice of
Individual Psychotherapy with Adults. In: Cassidy, J. & Shaver, P.R. (eds), Handbook of
Attachment: Theory, Research and Clinical Applications, 2nd edition, pp. 762–81. London:
The Guildford Press.
Stent, G.S. (1972) Prematurity and uniqueness in scientific discovery. Scientific American 227:
84–93.
Sullivan, H.S. (1925) Peculiarity of thought processes in schizophrenia. American Journal of
Psychiatry 17(old series 82): 21–86.
Suttie, I.D. (1935) Chapter VI, The taboo on tenderness. In: The Origins of Love and Hate.
London: Free Association Books (1988) (foreword by John Bowlby and introduction by
Dorothy Heard).
Walton, G.L. (1908) Why Worry? Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott.
Ward, I. & Zarate, O. (2011) Introducing Psychoanalysis: A Graphic Guide. London:
Icon.
Watson, J. (1968) The Double Helix. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.
White, W.A. (1935) Outlines of Psychiatry, 14th edition. Washington DC: Nervous and Mental
Disease Publishing Co.

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
 John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory 265
White, W.A. (1937) Review of the origins of love and hate. Psychoanalytic Review 24:
458–60.
Winnicott, D.W. (1965) The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment. New
York: International Universities Press.
Zurbriggen, E.L., Gobin, R.L. & Kaeler, L.A. (eds) (2012) Special Issue: Trauma, attachment,
and intimate relationships. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation 13: 127–257.

APPENDIX: AN A–Z OF GENETIC THEORIES OF THE VICISSITUDES OF

HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

Aggression Morrell, V. (1993) Evidence found of a possible ‘aggression gene’.

Science 260: 1722–3.
Anti-semitism MacDonald, K. (1998) Towards an Evolutionary Theory of
Anti-Semitism. New York: Praeger.
Anxiety Lesch, K.-P., Bengel, D., Heils A., Sabol, S.Z., Greenberg, B.D., Petri, S.,
Benjamin, J., Müller, C.R., Hamer, D.H. & Murphy, D.L. (1996)
Association of anxiety-related traits with a polymorphism in the
serotonin Transporter gene regulatory region. Science 274: 1527–31,
1483.
Autism Holden, C. (1997) A gene is linked to autism. Science 276: 905.
Stokstad, E. (2001) New hints into the biological basis of autism. Science
294: 34–7.
Behaviour Science (1994) Genes and behavior. Science 264: 1686–739.
Black athletes Entine, J. (2000) Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why
We’re Afraid to Talk About It. New York: Public Affairs
Criminal behaviour Simm, M. (1994) Violence study hits a nerve in Germany. Science 264:
653.
Genius McCrone, J. (1993) Is there a gene for genius? Independent on Sunday 2
May: 52–3.
Homosexuality Hamer, D.H., Hu, S., Magnuson, V.L., Hu Nan, P. & Angela, M.L.
(1993) A linkage between DNA markers on the X chromosome and
male sexual orientation. Science 261: 321–7, 291.
Holden, C. (1992) Twin study links genes to homosexuality. Science 255:
33.
Hyperactivity Science (1993) Hyperactivity tied to gene defect. Science 260: 295.
‘It’s not bad parenting, overcrowded schools or unmotivated kids. ADHD
is a neuropsychiatric problem based on brain physiology.’ Even though
the suspected gene, a thyroid receptor, affects ‘no more than 5% of
ADHD cases’.
Intelligence Plomin, R. (1999) Genetics and general cognitive ability. Nature 402:
25–9.
IQ Holden, C. (1991) On the trail of genes for IQ. Science 253: 1352.
Male and female brains Baron-Cohen, S. (2003) Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male
and Female Brain. London: Allen Lane.
Mental illness Science (2003) Decoding mental illness. Science 302: 2039.
Pitch perception Drayna, D., Manichaikul, A., de Lange, M.S. & Spector, T. (2001)
Genetic correlates of musical pitch recognition in humans. Science
291: 1969–72.

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266
266 Joseph Schwartz
Promiscuity Barash, D.P. & Lipton, J.E. (2001) The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and
Infidelity in Animals and People. San Francisco: Freeman.
Vedanta, S. (2003) Desire and DNA: Is promiscuity innate? Washington
Post 1 August: A01.
Race and IQ Sarish, V. & Miele, F. (2004) Race: The Reality of Human Differences.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Rape Burn, J. (2000) Is the unspeakable truth about rape that it is natural?
Times 23 January.
Thornhill, R. & Palmer, C.T. (2000) A Natural History of Rape:
Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Sex crimes Nature News (2001) Y-chromosome analysis urged for sex crimes. Nature
413: 6.
Spite Reynolds, J. (2004) Spite? It’s all down to nasty genes. Scotsman 3
September.
A study of bacteria and insects.
Xenophobia Rushton, J.P. (2005) Ethnic nationalism, evolutionary psychology and
genetic similarity. Nations and Nationalism 11: 489–507.

JOSEPH SCHWARTZ PhD is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in London.

He is a member of the Guild of Psychotherapists. His books include Cassandra’s Daughter: A
History of Psychoanalysis in Europe and America and Einstein for Beginners. He is co-editor
of Sexuality and Attachment in Clinical Practice. His papers and reviews have appeared in
Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Attachment and Human Development, British Journal of Psy-
chotherapy, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Psychoanalysis and History, Behaviour Genetics,
Nature, Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, and the Journal of Counselling
Psychology. He was the founding editor of the journal Attachment: New Directions in
Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis. Address for correspondence: [josephschwartz
@btinternet.com]

© 2015 BPF and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

British Journal of Psychotherapy 31, 2 (2015) 251–266