Mother love in infancy is as important for mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical health Bowlby 1951 Discuss
During the 1930s and 1940s John Bowlby, considered one of the most influential child psychiatrics, worked at a clinic for mentally disturbed adolescents. It was in this context that, between 1936 and 1939, he conducted a research on the case history of 44 patients, among whom a few had been convicted for various minor crimes, particularly for theft.The outcome of his research revealed that that 17 of them had been separated from their mother for more than six months, before the age of five. From a later similar research on other 44 adolescents mentally disturbed but with no criminal tendency, emerged that only two had been deprived of the mother's care.Basing on these observations Bowlby concluded that maternal deprivation contributes to delinquency.His scientific publication entitled 44 Juvenile Thieves, gives an accurate explanation on how he reached his conclusion. He seems to have overlooked several other variables which could have well explained this criminal tendency, including the reasons of the separation in the first place.Despite the relevance of his research it appears that, only 40 per cent of a small sample of just 44 subjects deprived of their mother's care sometime in the childhood, had manifested de
Some other children, according to James and Joyce Robertson for instance, had shown no ill effect after suffering from temporary deprivation of their mother. At the age of seven the twins were finally examined and found physically and mentally retarded. In the late 1940s and 1950s it would have suited the government if women had not gone out to work, leaving more space to men. As well as Bowlby, many others have demonstrated that a large majority of the European and west countries' babies with sensitive mothers are securely attached (type A). At the age of eleven they totally recovered. He studied two groups of 15 orphans in New York matched for sex, age and social background of their deceased parents. In conclusion, it is clear that some of Bowlby's original ideas may not be completely correct. Separate these children from mothers causes anxiety and distress. Going back to Bowlby's quotes, part of the reason for which children temporarily or permanently separated from their mothers suffered, could well be addressed in an inadequate alternative care. ) in terms of attachment, sometime tent to be exaggerate, even though he has always insisted on the importance of the mother-child bonding in early life for later development. This case history sees six one-year-old children confined into a concentration camp, soon after their fathers died in World War Two. An alternative kind of mothering is found, for instance, in a small percentage of agricultural population in Israel, commonly called Kibbutzim. After being hospitalised, the twins went to live with a loving and caring woman who took particular care of them.
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