Suggests 5 traits that J. Bowlby shares with S. Ferenczi including the emphasis on the child's primary relatedness to the mother; independence of mind leading to ostracism on the part of the psychoanalytic establishment; and recognition of the importance of real-life traumatic events in psychopathology. Additional traits are the stress of a loving relationship in normal development, the denial of trauma on the part of the environment, and the dissociation of the traumatic experience on the part of the child. The differences between the 2 authors in terms of their evolutionary thinking are discussed. Bowlby may be viewed as one of the strongest exponents of Ferenczi's alternative psychoanalytic ap-proach. (German and Spanish abstracts)
Attachment theory, as developed by Bowlby, and empirical research derived from it, beginning with Ainsworth's >Strange Situation< and the correlated home observations, are described. The studies of the transgenerational transmission of patterns and of the internal working models of the relationship, as well as longitudinal studies, are reported. The main focus of the paper is on cross-cultural studies, carried out in Germany, Israel and Japan. In North Germany, as compared to the U. S., there was a higher frequency of avoidant behavior in babies. This finding has been linked with the cultural demand for premature self-reliance. It is suggested that in the avoidant North German children we see the early ontogeny of the authoritarian character.
Reviews empirical research generated by J. Bowlby's (1980) attachment theory (AT), focusing on transgenerational transmission of attachment patterns, internal working models, cross-cultural studies, and longitudinal studies. It is claimed that AT and research support the alternative psychoanalytic approach initiated by S. Ferenczi (1932), particularly regarding the reevaluation of real-life traumatic events, the occurrence of personality splits after childhood trauma, and the aggravation of trauma due to its denial by adults. The concepts of transgenerational transmission and of alternative developmental pathways are further contributions to an alternative psychoanalytic framework. Attention is also called to the relevance of the cross-cultural studies to clinical psychoanalysis and to E. FROMM's analytic social psychology.