Attachment theory emphasizes the importance of the effect that real life experiences have on personality development. Bowlby’s early study of the influence of the parent-child relationship on the development of neurosis and neurotic character and his report on juvenile delinquency emphasized the importance of parental dysfunction, neglect and/or maltreatment in the lives of children and adolescents who are going to present as psychiatric casualties. Attachment theory is not just a theory of outcome, but also a theory of process - process across generations and across dynamic interactions between the individual and his world of others. This position is congenial with contemporary philosophical and developmental thinking as well as with recent advances in the neurosciences.