"These essays, spanning 20 years of Bowlby's speaking about the forming and breaking of relationships of affection, are clear and systematic. They make an excellent introduction to his thought."

-- British Journal of Psychiatry

John Bowlby's interest in the effects on a developing child of different forms of family experience began in 1929 when he worked for six months in a school for behaviorally-challenged children. Soon after, the spark of his illustrious career would help parents and psychologists arrive at a better understanding of the inner emotional world of the infant. Informed by wide clinical experience, and written with the author's well known humanity and lucidity, these key lectures provide an invaluable introduction to John Bowlby's thought and work, as well as much practical guidance of use both to parents and to members of the mental health professions.