About
Searching for Bowlby is the website for the biography of John Bowlby written by C. V. Wooster. The book follows the British psychiatrist who argued that a child's need for a familiar caregiver is as basic as hunger, and who spent decades making the clinical and scientific case for that claim. This site is where a reader finds the book, a plain account of the life, and a way to write to the author.
John Bowlby was born in 1907 and died in 1990. He trained in medicine and psychoanalysis, worked with children who had been separated from their families, and later set out a theory of attachment that drew on ethology as well as on clinic notes. The public record of that career includes his years at the Tavistock Clinic and a 1951 report for the World Health Organization on maternal care and mental health. The biography on this site follows that public life. It is narrative nonfiction by C. V. Wooster. It is not a clinical manual, and it is not a substitute for care.
The subtitle of the book calls him the quiet revolutionary who shaped modern attachment theory. That is the story the pages here are built around: not a textbook recap of the theory, and not a list of parenting tips, but the person who changed how clinicians, teachers, and parents talk about love and loss. Where a page on this site discusses a study, it points at the published paper so a reader can check the claim.
People arrive with different questions. Some want the book itself, in print or as an ebook. Some want a short account of who Bowlby was before they commit to the full life. Some already teach the theory and want the person behind the papers. The book page sets out the scope of the biography and where to buy a copy. Nothing on this site diagnoses a reader, a child, or a relationship.
C. V. Wooster is the author of Searching for Bowlby and of other narrative books. The name on the cover, in the byline, and in the site's book data is the author of record. Questions about rights, corrections, interviews, or the text go through the contact form. The form asks for a name, an email address, and a message, and a reply goes to that address. The site does not offer therapy. A message sent through the form is correspondence, not a session.
Purchases of the book on Amazon are handled by Amazon. This site participates in the Amazon Associates program, which the affiliate disclosure page explains: a qualifying purchase through an associate link can earn a commission at no added price. Advertising, when it is shown, is labeled. The privacy policy describes the cookies used for measurement and ads, and it includes a control to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information.
The pages kept in the public index are the ones with a finished account: the home page, the book, this about page, the contact page, and the privacy, terms, and cookie notices. Essays on attachment research are published when they are long enough to stand on their own and are tied to the papers they discuss. Shorter holding pages remain on the server for anyone who already has the address. Indexed pages do not link to them.
If you are deciding whether the book is for you, start with the book page. If you want to write to C. V. Wooster about the work, use the contact page. Corrections to a date, a name, or a citation are welcome there. Please include the page address and the source you are comparing it with, so the note can be checked against the public record rather than rewritten from memory.