ABSTRACT
From birth, children are ready to begin the relationship which, more than any other, will form their personalities. Within their first year, unless they are very unlucky, they become uniquely attached to their primary care-givers—mother, especially, father or grandmother, or their adoptive parents. Part of the problem lies with the way the theory of attachment has been misunderstood. Its profound implications for human development were partly obscured by the circumstances in which John Bowlby, the psychologist whose life work was to develop the theory of Attachment, first put his ideas forward. Bowlby's "corner" was a request from the World Health Organization to advise on the mental health of homeless children, and how best to safeguard the health of children separated from their mothers. From the outset, Attachment Theory evolved around social policy, as a search to understand the qualities and conditions of healthy attachments, and how these qualities, or the lack of them, affected a child's development.
