Loss - (Basic Books Classics) by John Bowlby (Paperback)

About the Book

This third volume of his "Attachment and Loss" series explores the implications for the psychology and psychopathology of personality of the ways in which young children respond to a temporary or permanent loss of a mother figure.

Book Synopsis

The classic work of psychology that transformed our understanding of how children mourn the loss of a parent

"[Bowlby's] contributions have given psychoanalysis a shot in the arm." ―Sunday Times

Intimate attachments to other human beings are the hub around which a person's life revolves. Psychiatrist John Bowlby pioneered attachment theory to explain how our experience of attachment in infancy and childhood condition our enjoyment of life in maturity. Loss builds upon his previous analysis of the child-parent relationship by exploring how children respond to the temporary or permanent loss of a mother-figure. Blending psychoanalytic theory with empirical observation, he offers rare insight into the dynamics of mourning in very young children, the subsequent experience of depression, and the processes of accommodation and healing.

Gracefully upending the Freudian understanding of loss, personality development and psychopathology, Loss is a fitting conclusion to Bowlby's groundbreaking Attachment and Loss trilogy.

From the Back Cover

This is the third and final volume of a work that explores the implications for the psychology and psychopathology of personality of the ways in which young children respond to a temporary or permanent loss of mother-figure. The primary data are observations of how young children behave in defined situations; in the light of these data an attempt is made to describe certain early phases of personality functioning and, from them, to extrapolate forwards.

About the Author

John Bowlby (1907-1990) was a British psychiatrist and longtime director of child psychology at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. Celebrated as "one of the most fertile, incisive thinkers about children of our century" (New York Times), his work pioneered attachment theory. He was the author of A Secure Base as well as the highly influential Attachment and Loss trilogy, whose Attachment, Separation, and Loss transformed psychoanalysis, childcare, and the study of attachment behavior.