bonds
The concept of bond traverses the depth-psychology corpus along two distinct but interlocking axes. The first is cosmological and archaic: Onians’s monumental excavation of Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, and Vedic thought reveals bond as a primary metaphysical category — fate, death, obligation, and even divine decree are conceived as literal cords binding mortals, gods, and the earth itself. From the Homeric peírata to the Roman nexus, from Vedic sin as a cord to Celtic spells of binding, the bond is not metaphor but ontological fact. The second axis is psychobiological and relational: Bowlby, Panksepp, Schore, Siegel, and Flores map how attachment bonds form, sustain, and rupture across the life-span, with touch activating opioid systems that reinforce the social bond and early caregiving relationships shaping neural architecture. Between these poles — archaic-mythological and clinical-developmental — the corpus registers significant tensions. Bion reads the libidinous bond within group psychology as the signature of the pairing basic assumption, while trauma theorists such as Dayton and the ACA literature document how ‘trauma bonding’ perversely binds child to abusive parent. Hari and Flores converge on dislocation — severed bonds — as the hidden engine of addiction. The term thus anchors both the oldest cosmological imaginings and the most contemporary neuroscience of relationship.
touch appears to activate endogenous opioid systems, thereby reinforcing the social bond. If no bonds exist, the sound of distress calls may simply be perceived as an irritation
Panksepp argues that tactile contact neurobiologically consolidates the social bond through endogenous opioid activation, and that bond-absence transforms infant distress into mere irritation rather than a pro-social signal.
, Affective Neuroscience The Foundations of Human and Animal, 1998thesis
Whereas an attachment bond endures, the various forms of attachment behaviour that contribute to it are active when required. Thus the systems mediating attachment behaviour are activated only by certain conditions
Flores, drawing on Bowlby, distinguishes the enduring attachment bond from the episodic behavioural systems that express it, showing the bond to be a persistent relational structure rather than a continuous behavioural state.
, Addiction as an Attachment Disorder, 2004thesis
The belief in the ‘bond’ of death long survived. Thus in the thirteenth century ‘Moyses… hente þe cherl wiþ hise wond, And he fel dun in dedes bond’.
Onians traces the archaic belief that death is a literal bond or cord across Norse, Anglo-Saxon, and Celtic sources, demonstrating the persistence of a concrete, non-metaphorical cosmology of binding.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
The gods bind a warrior thus lest he should slay all his foes. We could scarcely have stronger evidence of the reality and concreteness attached to the mystical bonds thus removed.
Onians demonstrates that in Vedic and Celtic traditions divine bonds are not figurative but possess ontological concreteness, functioning as actual restraints placed upon mortals by supernatural agents.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
it is therefore natural that Freud should see the nature of the bond between individuals in a group as libidinous. In the group, the libidinous component in the bond is characteristic of the pairing group
Bion identifies Freud’s reading of the intra-group bond as libidinal, then refines it by assigning this libidinous character specifically to the pairing basic assumption rather than to all group formations.
, Experiences in Groups and Other Papers, 1959thesis
The purpose of grief has been defined for most of the 20th century as detachment from attachment. In fact, however, the members of Bereaved Parents do not detach from their child… They transform the bond in ways that enable them to keep the child an important element in their lives.
Neimeyer challenges the dominant model of grief-as-detachment, arguing that mourners transform rather than sever the bond with the deceased, maintaining a continuing relationship.
Trauma bond means that children and adults often form a bond with perpetrating parents, pedophile priests or within a codependent relationship based on a violation of trust by the abuser.
The ACA framework introduces trauma bonding as a paradoxical mechanism by which dependency and survival need compel victims to attach to their abusers, inverting the normative protective function of the bond.
, The twelve steps of adult children steps workbook, 2007thesis
Humans seem to have evolved with a deep need to bond, because it was absolutely essential to staying alive. Bruce began to look over the history of when addiction has suddenly soared among human beings—and he found it has, time and again, been when these bonds were taken away from people.
Hari presents Bruce Alexander’s dislocation thesis: addiction surges precisely when social bonds are severed, revealing the bond as an evolutionary necessity whose absence generates chemical substitution.
, Chasing the Scream: The Search for the Truth About Addiction, 2015thesis
The man under obligation for debt was described as ‘bound’ (nexus)… damnum (e.g. Plaut. Capt. 327) may be related to… Sanscr. daman ‘bond’, and, perhaps, Latin redimio ‘bind’; and in origin meant ‘binding’ and… restriction, ill-fortune.
Onians uncovers the etymological convergence of legal, economic, and cosmological categories under the root concept of binding, showing Roman law’s debtor nexus and Sanskrit daman as cognate expressions of bond-as-fate.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
Here religio seems to refer to the objective bond. The latter was felt subjectively and with advancing rationalism this aspect prevailed… In our own land for Britons and Angles and Saxons in Christian times sin and debt were bonds.
Onians argues that religio originally denoted an objective external bond before being interiorized as subjective feeling, establishing a genealogy that links Roman law, Celtic custom, and early Christian concepts of sin as forms of binding.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
the ireipcrra yoclris, ‘the bonds (or binders) of the pasture-abounding earth’, a more natural description of what are clearly conceived of not as parts of the earth but as distinct beings encircling it.
Onians reinterprets the Homeric phrase for the limits of the earth as bonds encircling it, identifying Okeanos and Tethys as cosmic binding agents rather than mere geographical boundaries.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
As in a magic circle, of which indeed the outline is sometimes defined by just such a cord, the properties of the bond or band are valid not merely at its circumference but also for all contents of the area enclosed.
Onians establishes that the archaic bond operates as a field-effect: its magical or fated force applies not only at the boundary but throughout the entire enclosed domain.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
death: as a bond round men, 327, 354–63, 372–3, 380, 405, 417 n. 4; its bonds equated with the nail of Fate, 374–5
The index entry from Onians synthesizes his argument that death functions throughout archaic thought as a bond encircling men, with its bonds made equivalent to the nail of Fate.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
The natural interchange of the bond of fate and the dynamic agency by which or with which a man is bound, the Kîr or daímôn, is thus clear.
Onians demonstrates the functional interchangeability in Greek thought between the bond of fate as an abstract constraint and the daímôn as its personified dynamic agent.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
findings from attachment studies support the notion of child attachment as the result of a relationship, not of a feature of the child alone. If a child has different attachment patterns with different caregivers, how does this affect the child’s future adult attachment status?
Siegel affirms that the attachment bond is a dyadic relational product rather than an intrinsic trait, with implications for how multiple early bonds compound across developmental trajectories.
, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, 2020supporting
Centuries after Homer Greeks used such real bonds for the same purpose. A piece of string was one of the most useful and precious possessions of uncivilised man… binding was almost coextensive with fixation or fastening
Onians grounds the metaphysical bond in the practical ubiquity of physical binding in ancient material culture, arguing that magical and cosmic uses of the bond derive from this foundational material reality.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
the attachment between baby and parents/guardians is regarded as an integral factor in how our brains and mind
Burnett situates the attachment bond within neuroendocrinology, showing that oxytocin and vasopressin sensitivity — shaped by upbringing and environment — mediate the strength and character of early bonds.
, The emotional brain lost and found in the science of, 2023supporting
This physical sense and the virtual equation of the mystical to a physical bond are strikingly revealed by one passage… xaAE-nr| δε δεσμ κατά μοιρ πεδησε / δεσμοι τ’ ἀργαλέοι
Onians identifies a Homeric passage that explicitly equates mystical compulsion (moíra) with physical bonds, demonstrating how fate’s grip was experienced as literal physical restraint.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
bond: round the earth as
The general index entry confirms Onians’s sustained treatment of the cosmic bond encircling the earth as a distinct category within his broader analysis.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988aside
chain-based bond inhibition… bonding is inhibited to any free L particle which is in the immediate vicinity of another L particle which is doubly bonded
Thompson’s description of autopoietic membrane chemistry employs bond as a technical biochemical term, tangentially illustrating how bonding and bond-inhibition govern structural integrity at the cellular level.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007aside