John Bowlby's Theory Of Early Attachment

Early attachment is defined as an emotional bond between the child and the primary caregiver. The first theorist who worked on this was a British psychologist John Bowlby who described attachment as a lifelong connectedness between human beings (Bowlby, J. 1980). Bowlby had an interest in understanding the distress and separation anxiety that a child goes through when detached from a primary care giver. Children who develop close emotional bonds with their primary caregivers are said to have develop secure early attachment which lays foundations for later healthy psychological and psychosocial developments whereas weak emotional bonds or insecure attachments lead to disordered social behaviors.
Early attachments and interpersonal relationships are critical in understanding developmental psychopathology. It helps to define conditions, contexts and nature of psychopathologies. Disturbed social relationships are contexts where most of the psychopathologies of childhood and
1987). Research has revealed that the emotionality or neuroticism which is one dimension of temperament, is involved in the etiology of child psychopathology (Calkins & Fox, 2002) children with high emotional reactivity seem to have high pathological symptoms however small number of children or youth are referred to treatment in response to their symptoms. In most cases these symptoms disappear with time but in some cases they remain to appear in long terms and act as precursor of the disorders. Along with emotionality/neuroticism there is another factor, which is the regulatory process of temperament commonly known as effortful control. high emotional reactivity combined with low effortful control makes children prone to develop psychopathology. (Calkins & Fox,