Hollister, Joy Marie2025-01-292025-01-291985-04http://hdl.handle.net/11603/37525The present research undertakes the application of the attachment theory concepts to provide a more adequate understanding of a very important aspect of human relationships and development. It is the writer's belief that our earliest of years are the ones that mark us indelibly for life, for better or for worse. What more logical point could there be to begin an investigation into those early influences than that very basic mother-child relationship? The progressively-increasing awareness of the critical emphasis on the individual's first two years of life and even the effect that a mother's emotions and state of mind has on her yet unborn child and the development of the mother-child attachment is central to the survival of the species. For the writer, one of the most valuable implications of this paper is that, if we as impressionable creatures, who require love, affection and guidance in our early years, just as we require food and water, would have those needs met from the very beginning, then how much valuable time and effort we would save in our maturing process. The vigor of our youth that should be directed toward creative activity and goal attainment is so often dissipated in our search for self. By the time we have come to even a shallow understanding of who we are and why we are as we are, so many years have gone by and much energy has been expended. Is it any wonder most human beings realize only a small proportion of their potential. Some, of course, manage their personality adjustment better and sooner than others while some never make it at all. It is so fortunate for civilization as a whole that some rare birds of the species realized it all, in spite of it all. But how few Mozarts, Shakespears and da Vincis there have been!115 pagesText