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 […]

Introduction In this blog series I would like to comb through the pages of Elkhonon Goldberg’s book The Wisdom Paradox looking for bridges or connections between Bowlby’s theory of attachment with its focus on ethology and animal studies, and modern attachment theory with its focus on interpersonal or social neurobiology. Why on earth would I […]