| Summary: | "Attachment between an infant and his or her parents is a major topic within developmental psychology. An increasing number of psychologists, evolutionary biologists and anthropologists are articulating their doubts that attachment theory in its present form is applicable worldwide, without, however, denying that the development of attachment is a universal need. This book brings together leading scholars from psychology, anthropology and related fields to reformulate attachment theory in order to fit the cultural realities of our world. Contributions are based on empirical research and observation in a variety of cultural contexts. They are complemented by careful evaluation and deconstruction of many of the underlying premises and assumptions of attachment theory and of conventional research on the role of infant-parent attachment in human development. The book creates a contextual cultural understanding of attachment that will provide the basis for a groundbreaking reconceptualization of attachment theory"--
"Attachment theory developed amidst the talented group of psychologists and clinicians who surrounded John Bowlby in London between the publication of his memorable report on maternal deprivation for the World Health Organization (Maternal care and mental health) in 1951 (a more popular version was published by Pelican as Child care and the growth of love in 1953) and the publication of his article on "The nature of the child's tie to his mother" in 1958. As subsequently elaborated in the trilogy Bowlby published between 1969 and 1980, attachment theory represented a synthesis of the available clinical evidence, sensitive observations of young children experiencing stressful separations, and comparative experimental research by scientists such as Harry Harlow, a psychologist, and Robert Hinde, a behavioral biologist, all viewed in the context of the integrative control systems theory view then emerging. The tremendous power of that synthesis has been demonstrated conclusively over the course of the ensuing decades as attachment theory has come to be recognized as the most coherent and predictively useful theory describing human developmental processes"--
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