SEPARATION ANXIETY: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

No CONCEPT is more central to psychoanalytical theory than the concept of anxiety. Yet it is one about which there is little consensus of opinion, which accounts in no small measure for the divisions between different schools of thought' Put briefly, all analysts are agreed that anxiety cannot be explained simply by reference to external threat: in some way processes usually thought of as internal and instinctive seem to play a crucial role. But how these inner forces are to be conceptualized and how they give rise to anxiety has always been a puzzle. As a result of this state of affairs we find, when we come to consider how psychoanalysts conceive separation anxiety, some widely differing formulations: for each formula.tion is strongly influenced by the particular outlook regarding the nature and origin of anxiety which the analyst happens to have. Moreover, the place given to separation anxiety within the wider theory of anxiety varies greatly. For some, like Hermann and Fairbairn, separation anxiety is the most important primary anxiety; for others, like Freud in both his earlier and later work, it is only the shortest of steps removed from being so; for others again, like Melanie Klein and her associates, separation anxiety is deemed to be secondary to and of less consequence than other and more primitive anxieties. This being the present state of thought, inevitably a review of literature has to touch on all aspects of the theory of anxiety. It will, however, be my aim to restrict the wider discussion as far as possible. The reason for undertaking a systematic study of the literature ariose from the need to relate observations of the behaviour of young children on separation from their mothers to traditional and current theory. Such observations show that the sequence of behaviour, which commonly occurs when children between the ages of about twelve months and four years are removed from the mother-figures to whom they are attached to the care of strangers, falls into three main phases: Robertson and I have termed these 'Protest', 'Despair' and 'Detachment'.* An examination of the theoretical problems posed shows that each phase raises a different one: Protest raises the problem especially of separation anxiety; Despair that of grief and mourning; Detachment that of defence. Although in this paper and its companion I; am concerned only with the first, separation anxiety, the overall context in which I view it is of consequence. The thesis I am advancing in this series of papers (Bowlby,