Attachment Theory and Research. Группа авторов
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anxiety is either by direct observation of a child undergoing an anxiety‐provoking experience or by a clinical examination in an analytically oriented child guidance clinic, in which treatment is given to both child and parent and a detailed history can be obtained both of main events in the child’s life and of parental attitudes towards him. When we review the reasons why in some children expectant anxiety in regard to separation and loss of love exist in pathogenic degree, observations made in such settings suggest there are four main ones:
1 One determinant is undoubtedly the actual experience of a period of separation. In addition to our own observations (Bowlby, 1951, 1954; Robertson, 1953a), those of Edelston (1943), Prugh et al. (1953), Heinicke (1956) and Schaffer (1958) provide abundant evidence that the child who returns after not too long a period with strangers, whether in hospital or elsewhere, will soon attach himself with great tenacity to his mother and show intense anxiety at any threat of a repetition of the experience. Many cases of older children and adults who respond to separation with unusual anxiety are most readily understood in terms of the persistence of such a psychological state.
2 Another determinant is the excessive use by parents of threats of separation or withdrawal of love as sanctions.
3 Another is the child’s experience of rejection by the mother, especially where her positive feelings are mixed with unconscious hostility.
4 Another is any actual event, such as a parent’s or sibling’s illness or death, for which the child has come to feel responsible and, therefore, guilty and unloved.
There are many papers by analysts which report cases falling under one or a combination of these last three heads (including an early one of my own: Bowlby, 1940) and others by clinical psychologists.22 In a study predominantly concerned with the consequences of actual separation, however, it would be inappropriate to discuss this large and controversial area more fully. Nevertheless it should be noted that these four sources are not necessarily exhaustive: for example, any set of conditions which results in the child feeling guilty and therefore in danger of not being loved will be effective. At the same time, it is my view that only if each of the four sources listed above has been thoroughly explored and excluded is it wise to postulate other factors. Unfortunately such exploration is, I believe, only possible in the case of younger children and when their mothers are also willing to undertake treatment.
Merely to describe these sources of increased separation anxiety, however, is insufficient: we need also to understand the nature of their effects on the emotional development of the child. It is when we come to consider these effects that the interaction of expectant anxiety and hostility, to which attention has already been drawn, is seen to be so crucial. For each of these experiences – separation, threats of separation, actual rejection or expectation of rejection – enormously increases the child’s hostility, whilst his hostility greatly increases his expectation of rejection and loss. Such vicious circles are a commonplace of psycho‐analytic practice. Since it is in emphasizing their frequency and immense clinical importance that Melanie Klein has made her special contribution, this is a convenient point at which to reconsider her ideas.
The clinical observations made by Melanie Klein in the twenties, it will be recalled, were that some children who are attached to their mother in unusual degree are, paradoxically, also possessed of strong unconscious hostility directed towards that very mother. In their play they demonstrate much violence towards mother‐figures and become concerned and anxious lest they may have destroyed or alienated them. Often after an outburst they run from the analytic room, not only for fear of consequences from the analyst, but also, it seems, to assure themselves that their mother is still alive and loving. These observations are now amply confirmed and demonstrate without doubt that the presence of unconscious hostile impulses directed towards a loved object greatly increases anxiety. This is readily intelligible. As Freud pointed out, we would not expect loss of love or castration ‘if we did not entertain certain feelings and intentions within us. Thus such instinctual impulses are determinants of external dangers and so become dangerous in themselves’ (1926, p. 145). The presence of hostile impulses directed to a parent, especially when unconscious, inevitably increases expectant anxiety. In so far as there is concern for the object’s safety, it is depressive in character; in so far as there is fear of losing his or her love, it is persecutory. The role of such depressive and persecutory anxieties, springing from unconscious hostility, in persons suffering from an increased level of expectant anxiety in regard to being separated or unloved cannot be overemphasized; and this remains so whether or not we accept Melanie Klein’s particular hypothesis in regard to their origin.
But just as unconscious hostility directed towards the loved object increases expectant anxiety, so does expectant anxiety, especially in regard to whether or not one is loved, increase hostility. It is of both great theoretical and great practical importance to determine, if we can, how these vicious circles begin. Does increased anxiety precede increased hostility, is it the other way round, or do they spring from a common source? Jones ([1929] 1948) recognizes the great difficulty of unravelling the sequence when looking backwards from data provided by the patient in analysis; and I believe this holds for young children as well as for older patients. Indeed it is at this point that I believe Melanie Klein’s method has led her to one‐sided conclusions.
Logically it is clearly possible for excess anxiety to precede excess hostility in some cases, for the sequence to be reversed in others, and for them to spring from a single source and so be coincidental in yet a third group. Such possibilities, however, are not allowed for by Melanie Klein’s formulation. It is to be noted that she attaches no importance to instinctual tensions as such and does not subscribe to the view, advanced by Freud and again here, as well as by many other writers, that primary anxiety is the result of such tension. Instead, her basic tenet is that increased anxiety is always both preceded and caused by increased sadism: that it may sometimes be independent of, sometimes itself provoke, and often spring from the same source as the increased sadism is not conceded.
In my view both an excess of separation anxiety and an excess of hostility are very commonly provoked by the same experience. Further and more important is that, because the hostility is directed towards the loved object, it is often repressed and, being repressed, tends to generate further anxiety. Thus, on this hypothesis, the increased libidinal need for the object and the increased unconscious hostility directed toward it are both active in promoting neurotic anxiety. This is a view which, it will be seen, derives from the theories both of Freud and of Melanie Klein. It also links with Freud’s early expressed belief (Little Hans, 1909) that in some way repression plays a crucial role in the genesis of pathological anxiety. Here, however, a distinction needs to be drawn between anxiety which is intense and anxiety which is pathological. Whilst it seems clear that repression is not a necessary condition for the genesis of intense anxiety – as is shown by the behaviour of young children in the weeks following return home after a time away from their mothers with strangers – it may well be a necessary condition for its development into pathological anxiety. Perhaps when there is no repression of love or hate intense anxiety provoked by separation or rejection subsides, and it is only when repression sets in that the anxiety becomes pathological. This hypothesis will need further examination.
Before ending this section a word must be said about the other pathological form of separation anxiety, namely its absence or presence at unusually low levels. It has already been emphasized that some measure of separation anxiety is the inevitable counterpart of a love relationship. The absence or attenuation of separation anxiety is thus a frequent accompaniment of absent or exiguous love relationships. The psychopathic character, the origin of which is so often a major disturbance in the early mother‐child relationship (Bowlby, 1944; Greenacre, [1945] 1952), is commonly the one who shows little or no separation anxiety. Either he has never experienced a continuous loving relationship or, more frequently, the relationship he has had has been disrupted so severely that he has not only reached but remained in a phase of detachment. As a result he remains detached and so incapable of experiencing either separation anxiety or grief. Lesser degrees of this condition are, of course, more common than the extreme degrees, and sometimes give the impression of unusually vigorous independence. Analysis, however, shows