ABSTRACT
In the broadest sense, attachment theory is predicated on an investment in the psychological well-being of children and their parents. Such an investment cannot thrive in an atmosphere of indifference or despair. For adults to be motivated to interact sensitively with their infants, they must have a degree of respect for life–their own and that of significant others–based on a minimum of material and psychological security. Parents must possess a degree of self-confidence and optimism toward the future; they must be able to see life as worth pursuing beyond their own generation and beyond their own individual interests. Poverty, social isolation, a grim life perspective, unemployment, threats of war, epidemics and illnesses with little hope for cures, famine and pestilence–all these dramatically undercut the capacity for generating unconditional love toward oneself, one’s partner, or one’s children.
