John Bowlby Quotes

“For to have a deep attachment for a person (or a place or thing) is to have taken them as the terminating object of our instinctual responses.”

“If a community values its children, it must cherish its mothers.”

“If we value our children, we must cherish their parents.”

“Life is best organized as a series of daring ventures from a secure base.”

“Since, pending more evidence, there is no reason to suppose that the so-called transitional objects play any special role in a child's development, cognitive or other, a more appropriate term for them would be simply 'substitute objects'.”

“The human psyche, like human bones, is strongly inclined towards self-healing.”

“The propensity to make strong emotional bonds to particular individuals is a basic component of human nature”

“The stark nakedness and simplicity of the conflict with which humanity is oppressed – that of getting angry with and wishing to hurt the very person who is most loved.”

“We do as we have been done by.”

“We're only as needy as our unmet needs.”

“What cannot be communicated to the [m]other cannot be communicated to the self.”

“Young children, who for whatever reason are deprived of the continuous care and attention of a mother or a substitute-mother, are not only temporarily disturbed by such deprivation, but may in some cases suffer long-term effects which persist.”