Attachment, Loss, and the Experience of Grief

Abstract

Before one can fully comprehend the impact of a loss and the human behavior associated with it, one must have some understanding of the meaning of attachment. There is considerable writing in the psychological and psychiatric literature as to the nature of attachments-what they are and how they develop. One of the key fi gures and primary thinkers in this area is the late British psychiatrist John Bowlby. He devoted much of his professional career to the area of attachment and loss and wrote several substantial volumes as well as a number of articles on the subject. Bowlby's attachment theory provides a way for us to conceptualize the tendency in human beings to create strong affectional bonds with others and a way to understand the strong emotional reaction that occurs when those bonds are threatened or broken. To develop his theories, Bowlby casts his net wide and includes data from ethology, control theory, cognitive psychology, neurophysiology, and developmental biology. He takes exception to those who believe that attachment bonds between individuals develop only in order to have certain biological drives met, such as the drive for food or the drive for sex. Citing Lorenz's work with animals and Harlow's work with young monkeys, Bowlby (1977a) points to the fact that attachment occurs in the absence of the reinforcement of these biogenic needs.