The Life and Works of John Bowlby

John Bowlby was born in 1907. After his graduation he pursued his new found interest through volunteering at two progressive schools, the second a small analytically- oriented residential institution that served about 24 maladjusted children, aged 4 - 18 years. Two children there had an enormous impact on him. One was a very isolated, remote and affectionless teenager with no experience of a stable mother figure. This child had been expelled from his previous school for stealing. The second was an anxious boy of 7 or 8 who trailed Bowlby around and was known as his shadow. An additional major influence on Bowlby was John Alford, one of the other volunteer staff at the school. It was with him that Bowlby spent many hours discussing the effect of early experience, or lack of it, upon character development. …