The stark nakedness and simplicity of the conflict with which humanity is oppressed - that of getting angry with and wishing to hurt the very person who is most loved.

John Bowlby
About This Quote

A baby is helpless and cannot even crawl, yet from the moment it is born it begins to learn about the world. The most basic of lessons have been established from birth, and they are all about love and hate. In fact, it is impossible for a human being to be born into the world without having a direct experience with these two concepts. When a person is born, he or she enters a world where they can see what love looks like and they want to have it for themselves.

They want to have love in their life, but people don’t show them love. Instead, everyone pulls away from them and shows them how much they hate them. At a very young age they begin to feel ashamed of themselves for being born into this world.

They begin to see that inside of them there is this deep desire for love but no one will give it to them—not even their own parents. In this way, they grow up as one who wants to hurt those whom they love as a means of protest against the lack of love in their life.

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More Quotes By John Bowlby
  1. For to have a deep attachment for a person (or a place or thing) is to have taken them as the terminating object of our instinctual responses." Separation anxiety. International Journal of Psycho-Analysts, XLI, 1-25 (1959(
  2. It will happen but it will take time.
  3. The stark nakedness and simplicity of the conflict with which humanity is oppressed - that of getting angry with and wishing to hurt the very person who is most loved.
  4. Young children, who for whatever reason are deprived of the continuous care and attention of a mother or a substitute-mother, are not only temporarily disturbed by such deprivation, but may in some cases suffer long-term effects which persist Bowlby, J., Ainsworth, M., Boston, M., and...
  5. It was regarded as almost outside the proper interest of an analyst to give systematic attention to a person's real experiences.
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