ABSTRACT
At the historical moment if a rapprochement between the attachment theory of John Bowlby and separation-individuation theory of Margaret Mahler is possible. In many quarters Bowlby's theories are thought to have replaced Mahler's. Bowlby was a somewhat reserved and mysterious figure-often experienced as remote, as having as inner calm-although at times he could be irreverent and iconoclastic. Bowlby continued in later life to think that the suppression of negative affect is a central cause of neurotic difficulty. In contrast to Bowlby, whose reserve is well attested, Mahler was intense and outspoken. In her memoirs she described herself as 'very impulsive', as having 'an unusually strict superego', and as prone to 'depression'. Although Bowlby and Mahler came from very different cultural backgrounds-Bowlby was an English Protestant, Mahler a Hungarian Jew-they both came from comparable upper-middle-class backgrounds and grew up in socially prominent and philanthropically minded physician families. Bowlby had similar, though more complex, reservations about Mahler's concept of libidinal object constancy.
