Bowlby’s Eclecticism: From Ethological Psychoanalysis to a Neo-Piagetian Perspective / <i>El eclecticismo de Bowlby: del psicoanálisis etológico a la perspectiva neopiagetiana</i>

John Bowlby is a psychologist known for his research into the development of attachment behaviour. However, not enough attention has been paid to the fact that there are aspects of his work which go beyond the field of affective ontogeny, seeking to provide insights into a general framework for psychology. In this article, we aim to analyse the concepts that Bowlby used to outline the different regions of his system. The findings of this analysis conclude that his approach is closer to a certain form of neo-Piagetianism or the Anglo-American cognitive-evolutionary approach than to psychoanalysis, contrary to what is generally believed. We will also show that, because he drew on opposing schools of thought (e.g., psychoanalysis, ethology, computational psychology, Piagetian constructivism), certain fundamental inconsistencies arise within attachment theory.