From its humble beginnings geology has always been a systems science. It was Charles Darwin who brought those systems to life. In the year of his passing (1990) John Bowlby released his last great work: A biography of Charles Darwin’s life and times entitled Charles Darwin—A New Life. Interestingly in a chapter entitled Geology Carries […]

I have often said that Bowlby’s early thinking about attachment theory took place against the backdrop of Britain’s involvement in WWII, which started in 1939. During the war Britain engaged in a far-reaching and complex program to evacuate children (and some adults) from city centers to not only the countryside but also to other countries […]

I have a confession to make. When it comes to Bowlbian attachment theory, I am “team developmental psychology.” How many teams are there? you may ask. As pointed out in the 2015 edited volume entitled Attachment Theory and Research: New Directions and Emerging Themes, there are two main camps. The first camp—developmental psychology—hinges around the axis […]

The work by Nobel laureate Herbert Simon and others has shown that pattern recognition is among the most powerful, perhaps the foremost mechanism of successful problem-solving. … Research has shown that even the most elementary pattern-recognition brain machinery requires some “finishing touches” to be provided by the environment in order to become fully functional.  —Elkhonon Goldberg Probably […]

Introduction: What Is Bowlbian Attachment? — From time to time I am asked What the heck is attachment? Given that I have immersed myself in Bowlbian attachment theory and related areas since the early 2000s, I’m a bit baffled that I do not have a good answer. I think I know why. As I have […]