Dr Bowlby: a psychiatrist for our times

Abstract

Inspired by his experience as a teacher in a special school, John Bowlby became a doctor in order to give psychological treatment to children and their families. His debt to psychoanalysis is evident, while his determination to give external life events at least equal weight with mental states led him towards attachment theory. This pathway is well known, but Bowlby's parallel career as a child psychiatrist doggedly independent of psychoanalysis or medical practice, is not. His intelligent curiosity about human relationships took him beyond the prevailing scientific and clinical fixation with diagnosis, which persists to this day. Dr Bowlby's clinical approach is a model for modern child and adolescent psychiatrists.