Yes — we can say that, and it’s a beautiful analogy that resonates both scientifically and poetically.
Let’s explore how attachment (in Bowlby’s theory) can be meaningfully compared to gravity (in cosmology):
🌍 Attachment as Gravity: A Conceptual Parallel
Attachment (Bowlby) |
Gravity (Cosmology) |
A primordial force organizing human psychological development |
A fundamental force organizing matter and structure in the universe |
Binds the infant to caregiver |
Binds planets to stars, stars to galaxies |
Operates silently and invisibly, but with powerful consequences |
Same: invisible, but gives form and trajectory |
Failure of secure attachment psychic disorganization |
Absence of gravity cosmic fragmentation |
Shapes how we navigate the social-emotional universe |
Shapes how celestial bodies move through spacetime |
🧠 Scientific Resonance
- In Bowlby’s attachment theory, the infant is born with an innate behavioral system designed to keep the caregiver near — a biological necessity for survival.
- Similarly, gravity is the relational architecture of the cosmos, drawing matter into coherent systems, enabling stability and life.
In both cases, there’s a pull toward coherence, a tendency toward connection, and a resistance to fragmentation.
🧲 Emotional Gravity
Just as massive objects curve spacetime, early attachment figures shape the inner landscape of the psyche:
- A secure attachment provides an emotional gravity well — a stable orbit from which the child can explore and return.
- An insecure or disorganized attachment can lead to erratic or collapsing orbits — unstable psychic movement, dissociation, or pathology.
In this view, the inner working models described by Bowlby are like gravitational blueprints — determining the trajectories of relational movement for life.
🌌 Poetic Framing:
Attachment is the gravity of the soul.
It shapes the architecture of memory, the curves of desire,
the orbit of longing around those who once held us.
Just as stars are born in the gravity wells of galaxies,
selves are born in the gaze and arms of the Other.
🌿 Philosophical Implication:
- Gravity is a law of the universe, but so is the need for attachment.
- Both are structuring absences — we feel them most when they are gone.
- In both, relationship is the key:
- Gravity: mass in relation to mass.
- Attachment: self in relation to other.
Would you like me to expand this into a full essay — perhaps titled “The Gravity of Attachment: Bowlby and the Architecture of the Soul”? Or sketch a visual model comparing cosmic and psychic structure?