In "Searching for Bowlby: The Life of John Bowlby," C.V. Wooster has written a comprehensive biography about the life and work of Dr. John Bowlby, the noted British psychiatrist who devoted most of his career to studying the links of the emotional bond (or lack thereof) between parent/guardian and their child and how the child’s development was inhibited as a result. Wooster’s work is both scholarly and intriguing.

John Bowlby’s life’s work may have stemmed from a childhood in London where affection was in short supply as his mother was reserved, while his father’s career as a surgeon left him absent throughout John’s formative years. The closest bond John had as a young child was with one of his nannies, but once she was let go, she was replaced by the harsh Nanna, who was feared and loathed by John and his siblings. John was the second-oldest boy amongst six children in his house, but his older brother Tony seemed to be the apple of his mother’s eye.

John’s mother, Mary, was spare of emotions and believed that children were best to be seen and not heard. The need for a caring presence was occasionally met by Mary’s father, affectionately dubbed “Grampie,” who would take John and his brother Tony on nature hikes. The absence of John’s father was prolonged by his service during the First World War. The pain of missing his father was compounded as his mother refused to share the letters his father sent from the frontlines.

The disconnection from his mother continued as John was sent away to a preparatory school where strict adherence to authority was mandated and there was little time for imagination. John was an intelligent and conscientious student, but he was on a path toward an unfulfilling future until he expressed his desire to his father to become a doctor. Despite initially discouraging his ambitions, John’s father eventually relented and supported his son’s decision. John would study Psychology at Trinity College in Cambridge, but his real education came from his work with alienated children and juvenile delinquents at Dunhurst. Bowlby pondered whether children can be taught without completely understanding them.

Bowlby’s first academic work, entitled “Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves,” examined juvenile delinquency and how some of the youth’s aberrant behavior had been influenced by a lengthy separation from their guardian before the age of five. This work would be the precursor to his 1969 seminal work on “Attachment Theory”. Attachment Theory became the first of a trilogy of books that mapped emotional development. John Bowlby remained a tireless researcher up until his death in 1990 at age 83.

Author C.V. Wooster has reintroduced a pivotal figure in the world of psychology and child development with "Searching for Bowlby: The Life of John Bowlby," relaying how John Bowlby’s theories were both refreshing and iconoclastic. The story of Bowlby’s youth is portrayed with sympathy and empathy, as Bowlby devoted most of his life attempting to understand youth who experienced much of what he did, even if under differing circumstances. While writing that some of Bowlby’s ideas of child rearing might be considered archaic (i.e., “Mother as primary caregiver”), the significance of his findings can’t be denied and have influenced the work of others such as Mary Ainsworth (“Child Care and the Growth of Love”). This is a fascinating chronicle of an intriguing figure in psychology.