The other message an infant may receive is that the caretaker is dangerous and ought to be avoided or values more highly a child who is minimal trouble and very independent.

In addition, many children raised in such settings experience psychological trauma, which undermines their capacity to learn and contributes to substance abuse, acts of self-destruction, chronic anger, unstable relationships, and juvenile delinquency.

A child’s understanding that he is accepted and desired is a vital link in the creation of strong ego strength and confidence.

Clinical studies of such children reveal that a preponderance of them have parents who have related to them in either a helpless and fearful way or a hostile and self-referential one. The children of helpless and fearful parents, in particular, have a very difficult time later in life. Their parents tend to be sweet and fragile, not hostile or aggr

the unconscious passing on to us of our parents’ or caregivers’ unintegrated emotional condition. By the time we reach seven years of age, we are emotionally picking up where they left off.

Bowlby himself told me that just such boarding-school experiences probably inspired George Orwell’s novel 1984, which brilliantly expresses how human beings may be induced to sacrifice everything they hold dear and true—including their sense of self—for the sake of being loved and approved of by someone in a position of authority.