John Bowlby
Love is a need, not a weakness
The founder of attachment theory, who showed that the bond between child and caregiver is a basic human necessity.
techniques
A secure base is what lets us venture out into the world.
Who they were
John Bowlby challenged a generation of thinking by arguing that a child's need for closeness to a caregiver is not indulgence but a survival instinct as real as hunger. Drawing on psychoanalysis, evolutionary biology, and studies of separated children, he described how early bonds form an "internal working model" that quietly shapes our relationships for life. His ideas of the secure base and separation anxiety gave clinicians and parents a new language for emotional security. The trilogy he devoted to attachment, separation, and loss remains a foundation of how we understand human connection.
Famous books
What they left on the shelf
Terms they cared about
Ideas worth knowing
Their techniques
How the work was done
Their big idea
Attachment Theory
John Bowlby held that the bond between child and caregiver is a deep survival need, not mere dependence, and that a reliable figure becomes a secure base from which to explore. The patterns formed early become inner working models that color our relationships for years to come.
Questions in their spirit
What they’d ask you
Sit with one. Answer online, or in the app.
Carry the idea forward
Bowlby — What they’d ask you
Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.