The making and breaking of affectional bonds

Originally published in 1979 by Tavistock Publications. Republished by Routledge in 1989. Published in Routledge Classics in 2005 with a new introduction by Richard Bowlby.

1. Psychoanalysis and child care (1956-8) -- 2. An ethological approach to research in child development (1957) -- 3. Childhood mourning and its implications for psychiatry (1961) -- 4. Effects on behaviour of disruption of an affectional bond (1967-8) -- 5. Separation and loss within the family (1968-70) -- 6. Self-reliance and some conditions that promote it (1970-3) -- 7. The making and breaking of affectional bonds (1976-7).

Helping both parents and psychologists to arrive at a better understanding of the inner emotional world of the infant, this selection of key lectures by Bowlby includes the seminal one that gives the volume its title. Informed by wide clinical experience, and written with the author's well-known humanity and lucidity, the lectures provide an invaluable introduction to John Bowlby's thought and work, as well as much practical guidance of use both to parents and to members of the mental health professions.