Describe And Evaluate Bowlby's Theory Of Attachment And Maternal Deprivation
This essay will describe and evaluate Bowlby’s theory of attachment and maternal deprivation hypothesis. The essay will describe the two theories, weighing up the strengths and the weaknesses. It will include supporting research by Shaffer and Emerson, Ainsworth and Harlow, along with criticisms by Rutter.
John Bowlby (1907-1990) was a child psychiatrist. He was psychoanalytically and medically trained. In 1945, after returning from serving in the armed forces medical service, he secured a position as head of the Children’s Department at the Tavistock Clinic, London. Believing strongly that the quality of a parent-child relationship has a profound effect on developmental and mental health, he promptly renamed it the department for Children …show more content…
They carried out an experiment on infant monkeys. They placed them in a cage with two wire mesh cylinders. One was bare with just a bottle of milk with a teat, to signify a lactating mother, and the other was wrapped in towelling to supply comfort. If the supply of food was all that was needed to form an attachment then you would think that the monkeys would have spent the majority of the time with the milk. In actual fact the opposite proved to be true. The monkeys used the towelling cylinder as their secure base for which to explore, a characteristic of attachment behaviour. This experiment proved that food alone was not sufficient in the formation of attachments. (Cardwell et al pg 117)
Bowlby’s second theory was that of maternal deprivation. When an attachment is broken either temporarily, through hospitalisation, or permanently, through death, it is referred to as deprivation. Sadly, there have also been cases where children have been so badly treated, maybe kept totally isolated, that they have never formed an attachment at all. This is called privation. However, Bowlby failed to differentiate between the two in his maternal deprivation
John Bowlby (1907-1990) was a child psychiatrist. He was psychoanalytically and medically trained. In 1945, after returning from serving in the armed forces medical service, he secured a position as head of the Children’s Department at the Tavistock Clinic, London. Believing strongly that the quality of a parent-child relationship has a profound effect on developmental and mental health, he promptly renamed it the department for Children …show more content…
They carried out an experiment on infant monkeys. They placed them in a cage with two wire mesh cylinders. One was bare with just a bottle of milk with a teat, to signify a lactating mother, and the other was wrapped in towelling to supply comfort. If the supply of food was all that was needed to form an attachment then you would think that the monkeys would have spent the majority of the time with the milk. In actual fact the opposite proved to be true. The monkeys used the towelling cylinder as their secure base for which to explore, a characteristic of attachment behaviour. This experiment proved that food alone was not sufficient in the formation of attachments. (Cardwell et al pg 117)
Bowlby’s second theory was that of maternal deprivation. When an attachment is broken either temporarily, through hospitalisation, or permanently, through death, it is referred to as deprivation. Sadly, there have also been cases where children have been so badly treated, maybe kept totally isolated, that they have never formed an attachment at all. This is called privation. However, Bowlby failed to differentiate between the two in his maternal deprivation