While much has been written on the work of the psychoanalyst John Bowlby, little comment has been made on his political activities and how they related to his theorizing. In his work it can be seen how psychoanalytic ideas of love underlay not only his theory of attachment, but also the creation of new political ideas. Bowlby’s collaboration with Evan Durbin, a little-known but important economist and political philosopher, was underpinned by a belief that social responsibility was an evolved psychological (...) potentiality that could be actualized in the mother-child bonding processes. This reflected and reinforced their democratic socialist vision. Furthermore, their work helped usher in a new technological framework for conceiving of social policy, a framework that would dominate British politics after the Second World War. This is illuminated in considering Bowlby’s role in the evacuation scheme and Durbin’s contributions to Clement Attlee’s government. (shrink)

The encounter between the Christian Churches and Psychology has, for all its evident cultural importance, received little attention from disciplinary historians. During the period between the two world wars in Britain this encounter was particularly visible and, as it turned out, for the most part relatively amicable. Given their ostensive rivalry this is, on the face of it, somewhat surprising. Closer examination, however, reveals a substantial convergence and congruence of interests between them within the prevailing cultural climate, and considerable overlapping (...) of membership. The character of their meeting was, it is argued, determined more by these factors than by fundamental divergences in intellectual and theoretical orientation. Such divergences were diplomatically sidelined, on the religious side, by viewing Psychology as having certain ‘blind spots’ and, on the Psychology side, by invoking the argument that ‘science’ is concerned only with ‘facts’, not ‘values’. Only some hard-line psychoanalysts adopted an explicitly anti-religious stance. Religion’s concessions ultimately proved too high a price, and following this period the Churches began distancing themselves from Psychology. Their current relationship is very different from that which prevailed from 1918 to 1939. A fuller historical picture of the relationship between Psychology and religion awaits consideration of other sites and periods. (shrink)