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C:\Documents and Settings\lproctor.ULL\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\OLK36\Copyright - thesis.doc Between Love and Aggression: John Bowlbv’s Psychology in Interwar Britain Benjamin Campbell Mayhew Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London Submitted for the degree of MPhil History of Medicine 2005 1 UMI Number: U594146 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U594146 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract This thesis examines the ideas of the psychoanalyst and social psychiatrist, John Bowlby. Drawing on the incipient science of ethology, Bowlby argued that psychological development was the product how social instincts, in particular the need for maternal affection, were reciprocated. While Bowlby’s ideas have proved influential and enduring - his notion of the ‘Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness’ has underpinned the recent emergence of Evolutionary Psychology - there remains some confusion as to when he adopted his ethological approach. Popular accounts have argued that Bowlby’s theorising was shaped by a conversation with the evolutionary biologist and essayist, Julian Huxley, and after reading Konrad Lorenz’s King Solomon’s Ring in 1952. However, as early as the 1930s Bowlby had taken up the observations of the zoologist, Solly Zuckerman, on the behaviour of monkeys and used these to anchor a model of human psychological development in which people had the potential to become loving or aggressive. This is evident in his 1939 publication, Personal Aggressiveness and War, co-authored with the economist and socialist political philosopher, Evan Durbin. My thesis, therefore, examines the construction and meaning of Bowlby’s model of development in the context of inter­ war Britain. I focus on how altruism, viewed idealistically and as the product of individual volition prior to World War I, increasingly came to be seen as part of people’s innate psychological make-up. It is argued that Bowlby’s model of development was part of the formalisation of the search for the evolved basis of altruism. This formalisation can be seen as embedded in debates over the constitution of democratic socialism with Bowlby and Durbin prominent members of G.D.H. Cole’s New Fabian Research Bureau. I go on to examine the role of Bowlby’s 2 psychology in response to the rise of fascism and the prospect of the Second World War. This is understood as part a change in the framework for generating social policy, from idealistic to technological, that was cemented in the post-war government of Clement Attlee. 3 Contents: Acknowledgements 7 Introduction: 8 1: John Bowlby and the Evolution of Love 8 2: Historiography 13 3: Between Love and Aggression in Interwar Britain 17 Chapter 1: Changing Conceptions of Altruistic Love 22 1: The Evolution of Love in Late Nineteenth- Early Twentieth Century Britain 22 2: The Reception of Psychoanalysis in Britain 34 3: The Great War and the Rationalisation of Love 39 4: The Primitive Basis of Love 44 5: Ian Suttie and Susan Isaacs’ Genetic Psychologies 56 Chapter 2: Bowlby in Search of Love 66 1: Oxford, Progressive Schools and Medical Specialisation 68 2: Psychoanalysis and Juvenile Delinquency 74 3: Personal Aggressiveness and War 77 Chapter 3: Love’s Labour’s Found 87 1: G.D.H. Cole’s Group 88 2. Interwar Economics and Man’s Place in Nature 92 3: Wealth Creation and Emotional Education 101 4 Chapter 4: Security 109 1: The Fragmentation of Pacifism and the Psychologisation of War 110 2: Personal Aggressiveness, War and Collective Security 117 Chapter 5: Security and the State 124 1: Evacuation 124 2: Psychology and the State in Post-World War II Britain 132 3: Conclusion: The Limits of Bowlby’s Ideology 137 Bibliography 142 5 Ghosts whom Honour never paid, In foolish battle made, Wandering through the stricken grove Pluck the bitter herb of Love. - W.H. Auden, ’Dedication to John Auden’, in Auden and Isherwood, The Ascent o f F6 (London: Faber and Faber, 1937) 6 Acknowledgements First and foremost I must thank Roger Cooter and Rhodri Hayward for the considerable faith they have shown from the inception of this project, and the patience and expertise they have offered during its completion. My parents have been supportive throughout, and friends have acted as good friends should - providing distraction and encouragement in equal measure. David Edgerton and Fuhito Endo took time to discuss my work with me, and I received many helpful comments from attendees at a B.P.S. History of Psychology seminar. Thanks are due to staff at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, UCL, for creating such a friendly and scholarly environment in which to work, and to the helpful staff of the British Library, University College Library, the Wellcome Trust Library, and the British Library of Political and Economic Science. This study could not have been written without the financial support of the Arts and Humanities Research Board. 7 Introduction 1: John Bowlby and the Evolution of Love This is a story of love - psychologised, rationalised, and woven into national and international social policy. It focuses on one man, John Bowlby (1907-1990), whose formulation of the theory of mother-child attachment has never been satisfactorily contextualised. Some of its elements are known, but not the whole. This thesis seeks to put the man and the theory back together again. Attachment theory has achieved considerable popular acceptance, being described even as a new paradigm for psychotherapy.1 Bowlby used the science of ethology to demonstrate that within every infant there was a need for secure attachment to their mother, and the way that this need was reciprocated formed a significant factor in determining personality development: A young child’s experience of an encouraging, supportive and co­ operative mother, and a little later father, gives him a sense of worth, a belief in the helpfulness of others, and a favourable model on which to build future relationships. Furthermore, by enabling him to explore his environment with confidence and to deal with it effectively, such experience also promotes his sense of competence. Thenceforward, provided family relationships continue favourable, not only do these patterns of thought, feeling and behaviour persist, but personality 1 1 Jeremy Holmes, ‘Attachment theory: A biological basis for psychotherapy’,British Journal of Psychiatry, 163, (1993), 430-438 8 becomes increasingly structured to operate in moderately controlled and resilient ways, and increasingly capable of continuing so despite adverse circumstances.2 This idea is now so basic to our common sense that it is hard to believe that it had to be invented. It is accepted that Bowlby’s orientation owed much to Darwin and, more 'i specifically, that he adopted a biological interpretation of Freudian thought. However, where Freud had placed sexual desire as central to psychological life, Bowlby focused upon attachment and the loving relationship between a mother and her child. He claimed that this need for secure attachment was innate and ubiquitous and could also be observed in the behaviour of other primates. Significantly, the famous experiments of Harry Harlow, in which young chimpanzees sought out cloth over wire ‘mothers’, was formulated after a conversation with Bowlby.4 Bowlby went on to propose the idea of the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness (henceforth EEA).5 According to this, the mechanisms governing human behaviour patterns - such as the need for secure attachment between mother and child, ensuring that a vulnerable infant was protected - had been settled early in the evolutionary process, before the invention of agriculture and the rapid change that ensued.