Sigmund Freud as the father of attachment theory

Although Dr John Bowlby undertook pioneering work to champion the role of attachment and loss in the development of mental health and mental illness perhaps more so than any other investigator fewer and fewer contemporary practitioners have come to appreciate the extent to which his numerous contributions had emerged first and foremost from classical Freudian psychoanalysis Indeed in this article the author argues that Professor Sigmund Freud had already emphasised the importance of Bindung —the German term for attachment—in many of his writings and that Bowlby would incor porate these foundations which he then expanded in a most impressive manner Drawing upon his own research as a historian of psychoanalysis and upon his personal interviews with John Bowlby during the s the author underscores that an acknowledgement of the Freudian roots of attachment theory not only represents a more accurate and scholarly approach to the field of modern psychology but moreover will help colleagues to appreci ate that the splits which have emerged among classical psychoanalysts relational psychoanalysts attachment based psychotherapists and so on represent manifestations of collegial rivalry and institutional divisiveness rather than genuine theoretical and technical disagreements In reconfiguring Freud as the father of attachment theory the author hopes that modern-day mental health workers will benefit from the insights of both of these genius forefathers.