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My intention of reading this book was to answer the following:

“I’d want people to have healthy internal life (heart), healthy view of self (how people view themselves), healthy view of others with proper boundaries, provide healthy source of stable relationship for others.��

Key Idea: Attachments are formed early from childhood. There’s various types of attachments. People are affected later in life due to issues in attachment. While some get to reflect, understand, and are aware of their styles.

Why do you need to care? This vividly affects people's relationships. People might even pass to next generation, if they are not aware. David goes into internal working models, and details. When people are not aware of it, what can they do about it?

What kind of Issues? People have issues in attachment, friends might suddenly go cold, spouses might withdraw, children rebel, co-workers, parents distant. Now, the book goes into details of attachment styles.

How do we solve it? John says, We provide stable, secure, relationship to others. This includes no-judgement, complete acceptance of the other person, care for them. In addition to this, We can frame our narratives in a positive, supportive way contingent upon, one's worldview. John specifically talks about therapist relationships.

What the Book does not offer? The Book did not talk about narratives that people tell themselves or to their own heart. My own thought was, that made big impact on each person's lives.

Imagine people living in honor-shame, fear-power, guilt-law cultural lens of the World. I am not sure how this would apply for people in Middle-East, Asia, Japan et cetera. Culturally, they are on a different spectrum? And so, how does John Bowly approach them? No research from that parts of the world.

I was wondering -- there's many approaches one could take for subjective internal state. John Bowly goes into one aspect of Buddhism, Mindfulness.

If you adhere a theistic flavor of life, you can blend insights from your tradition into this. I am unsure of non-theistic side, because, subjective experience seems to be made up of values, beliefs, how people view the world. However, I would caution not to have a simplistic way of it. Eg: My theistic flavors says to read this, believe in this, and voila magic! Probably not sure.

One example, I can think would be -- William James's work, The Varieties of Religious Experience, maybe subjective experience. Apparently, William James helped himself, through finding meaning in a belief system. Perhaps, that is relevant there?

How much time would this take? 2-3 days

I’d advise many people to stay away from shallow self-help books-- Why? Because, it's best to read core-founders of knowledge-base, so people can assimilate, synthesize concepts.


A Good quote from the book,

". . the therapist’s role is analogous to that of a mother who provides her child with a secure base from which to explore the world. " —JOHN BOWLBY

As I wrote earlier, I think based on your school of thought, or tradition, you can integrate key ideas and practice this.

The Book provides technical base, research for attachment theory is excellent, well-written with rigorous research, and credibility. I'd say, this is abstract, would give a framework for you to view attachment in relationships.

I’d recommend this for everyone. It’s good to read this, to define, understand, how people relate to each other, their attachment styles.


Deus Vult,
Gottfried