The nature of the child's tie to his mother.

The Nature of the Child's Tie to his Mother John Bowlby Psycho-Analysts are at one in recognizing the child's first object relations as the foundation stone of his personality: yet there is no agreement on the nature and dynamics of this relationship. No doubt because of its very importance, differences are sharp and feelings often run high. In this paper I am taking it for granted that today we are all agreed on the empirical fact that within 12 months the infant has developed a strong libidinal tie to a mother-figure and that our differences lie in how this has come about. What in fact are the dynamics which promote and underlie this tie? My plan will be to begin by describing very briefly four alternative views which in greater or less degree of purity are to be found in the psycho-analytic and other psychological literature and to sketch a fifth which I believe may account more adequately for the data. I shall then attempt to assess what have been and are the views advanced in their writings by a number of leading analysts. Before elaborating the view which I favour it will be necessary to discuss in rather summary fashion, first, some notions, including those of Piaget, regarding the development of perception and cognition and, secondly, some of the more recent theories of instinctual behaviour. Indeed, in writing it I have wondered whether this paper should not have been preceded by three others—one on cognitive development, a second on instinct, and a third on the comparative advantages and disadvantages on the one hand of direct observation of infants and on the other of reconstructions based on the psycho-analysis of older subjects. However, I have not taken this course, and instead am presenting a paper in which, I am acutely aware, despite its length a number of crucial matters are treated both controversially and cursorily. The four theories regarding the positive aspects of the child's tie which are to be found in the literature can be described briefly. They are:— i. The child has a number of physiological needs which must be met, particularly for food and warmth, but no social needs. In so far as a baby becomes interested in and attached to a human figure, especially mother, this is the result of the mother meeting the baby's physiological needs and the baby in due course learning that she is the source of gratification. I propose to call this the theory of Secondary Drive, terminology which is derived from Learning Theory. It has also been called the cupboard-love theory of object relations. ii. There is in infants an in-built need to relate themselves to a human breast, to suck it and to possess it orally. In due course the infant learns that, attached to the breast, there is a mother and so relates to her also. I propose to call this the theory of Primary Object Sucking. iii. There is in infants an in-built need to be in touch with and to cling to a human being. In this sense there is a need for an object independent of food which is as primary as the need for food and warmth. I propose to call it Primary Object Clinging. iv. Infants resent their extrusion from the womb and seek to return there. This I shall call the theory of Primary Return-to-Womb Craving. In this nomenclature, it should be noticed, the terms primary and secondary refer to whether the response is regarded as built-in and inherited or acquired through the process of learning; throughout the paper they will be used in this sense. The terms have no reference either to the period of life when the response appears or to the primary and secondary processes postulated by Freud.