Bowlby's Battle for Round Earth: Summaries of Bertalanffy and Midgley Revealing the Systems - Attachment Theory (Dis)Connection

Historians will be the first to admit that the vanquished rarely if ever enjoy the privilege of telling their story let alone recording it for posterity. In Bowlby's Battle for Round Earth, geologist, psychotherapist and philanthropist Frederick Leonhardt invites us to view John Bowlby-arguably the father of attachment theory-as a warrior who ultimately was vanquished during his long battle to bring about a naturalistic systems theory revolution within such disciplines as psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, mental health, sociology and public policy. The image of Bowlby as a defeated warrior may help us to understand why the story of attachment as an application of naturalistic systems theory in such areas as psychology and mental health has never been fully told. In his 1969 book General System Theory, Ludwig von Bertalanffy-arguably the father of systems theory-tells us that others, like Bowlby, have tried and failed as well-Abraham Maslow (one of the chief animators behind humanistic psychology), Kurt Goldstein (a pioneer in Gestalt therapy), and Karl Menninger (of Menninger Clinic and Menninger Foundation fame).

In Bowlby's Battle for Round Earth, Leonhardt takes a first pass at trying to understand why luminaries in the field of psychology such as Bowlby, Maslow, Goldstein, and Menninger failed in their attempts to bring about a naturalistic systems theory revolution. Leonhardt suggests that the naturalistic systems theory revolution was conquered from within as much as from without: From within, the move from naturalistic purpose to sociological purpose and then on to emancipatory purpose was the main culprit (an evolutionary process detailed in Gerald Midgley's 2000 book Systemic Intervention); from without, the meteoric rise of mechanistic systems theory (or cybernetics) made for an impenetrable foe. Today, emancipatory purpose motivates the human rights movement, while at the same time mechanistic or cybernetic systems form the foundation upon which rests such cultural phenomena as Internet search engines, digital video recording services, smartphones and frequent flyer cards. In what can only be called a dark prognostication, Leonhardt sees short circuits forming between emancipatory and cybernetic purpose resulting in an arcing of energy that may ultimately provide the fuel that allows us to rocket into the emerging age of posthumanism.

The format for Bowlby's Battle for Round Earth is a bit unorthodox: It consists of two executive summaries written by Leonhardt for the board and staff of the Frederick H. Leonhardt Foundation (named for his grandfather). "Think of Bowlby's Battle as a very detailed annotated bibliography consisting of only two entries," explains Leonhardt, who is executive director of the FHL Foundation. Leonhardt decided to summarize Bertalanffy's 1969 book General System Theory and Gerald Midgley's 2000 book Systemic Intervention as a first pass toward telling the story behind the systems-attachment theory (dis)connection. Even though Leonhardt is quick to point out that his executive summaries are hacks at best, he is convinced that the best way to truly receive and understand John Bowlby's attachment theory message is to have a sense for the systems theory revolution (both mechanistic and naturalistic) that surrounded Bowlby during the 1950s and 60s, and to recognize that systems theory greatly influenced John Bowlby's thinking in the areas of attachment formation, maintenance and expression.