In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind

by Eric R. Kandel

The work of Anna Freud, Spitz, and Harlow was expanded by John Bowlby, who formulated the idea that the defenseless infant maintains a closeness to its caretaker by means of a system of emotive and behavioral response patterns that he called the “attachment system.” Bowlby conceived of the attachment system as an inborn instinctual or motivational system, much like hunger or thirst, that organizes the memory processes of the infant and directs it to seek proximity to and communication with its mother. From an evolutionary point of view, the attachment system clearly enhances the infant’s chances of survival by allowing its immature brain to use the parent’s mature functions to organize its own life processes. The infant’s attachment mechanism is mirrored in the parent’s emotionally sensitive responses to the infant’s signals. Parental responses serve both to amplify and reinforce an infant’s positive emotional states and to attenuate the infant’s negative emotional states. These repeated experiences become encoded in