Preview

Bowlby And Rutter's Research

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
889 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Bowlby And Rutter's Research
Child Psychology

Assignment Three 1. Give an understanding of your feelings regarding maternal depravation (write at least five hundred words).
“Maternal depravation” has been used to describe a whole range of situations in which the infant is deprived of his/her relationship with its mother/ primary carer.
Bowlbys theory of “Maternal depravation” was founded on the hypothesis, that if a child is detached on a physical and emotional level from its primary carer that this will have a long term effects emotionally for that child. According to Bowlby this detachment will see an increase in disruptive and deviant behaviour as well as a detachment between themselves and their children in the future. Bowlby even goes as far as to suggest that the affected child could possibly grow into an affectionless psychopath lacking and social conscience.
Bowlby based his research on a group of children who had been referred to his clinic for stealing (Juvenile thieves). Bowlby found that 32% of them were indeed lacking any conscious understanding or empathy towards the society in which they inhabited and was apart of.
86% apparently had indeed experienced
…show more content…
Bowlby’s research was focused very much on children who were already showing deviant behaviour. Yet his research did not take into account that of children who had undergone maternal depravation but not shown any deviant or anti social attributes. Bowlby’s and Freud’s theory suggested that “what is broken can never be fixe4d”. Research since then one by Rutter had been able to refute Bowlby’s theory to varying degrees. Bowlby focused on the mother within a child’s life and does not seem to take into consideration other family members and care givers. This it would seem also leads to much criticism of his

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Lifespan psychology is concerned with the ways in which we change and develop throughout our life and aims to find out firstly if “developmental change in just one aspect of our psychology (personality, biological and cognitive factors) will have an impact on some or all of the others” (Wood, Littleton & Oates, 2007) and secondly if, these factors are affected more by nature (internal factors) or nurture (external factors). One of the theories called upon to explore this is attachment theory which was first introduced by John Bowlby (1907-1990). A British psychoanalyst who was intrigued by the bonds between parent and child and the high levels of distressed he witnessed by the child during separation from the parent. Bowlby believed the distress behaviours shown by the child such as “crying and searching are adaptive responses to separation…from the primary attachment figure” (Fraley, 2010) providing an “evolutionary function” as the primary caregiver provides the essentials for survival at that point.…

    • 2601 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    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…

    • 2361 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Using the psychoanalytic concept of defense Bowlby (1980) expanded on this with his idea of segregated systems with the same goal of protecting the self from painful emotions and feelings through repression. Segregated systems were seen as strategies of defense when a child had experienced attachment trauma (Bowlby, 1980). George and Solomon (2008) describe disorganized as developing from both past experiences and as influenced by current experiences (as cited in George & Solomon, 2011). Solomon and George (1999) asserted that these segregated systems often collapse. Dysregulated Caregiving develops occurs when these segregated systems are “unleashed” and become broke. When this occurs, the mother becomes consumed by fear (Solomon & George, 2011).…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unit 5 Assignment 2 Ccld

    • 1920 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The advantage of the medical model is that parents who have abused their children can get treatment to help with bonding with their child. This is very important as Bowlby believed that attachment is necessary in the first three years of life. If the child is attached to their caregiver they are less likely to…

    • 1920 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bowlby’s maternal deprivation hypothesis suggests that bond disruption between the infant and caregiver in the early years can have detrimental and irreversible effects on the intellectual, social, and emotional development of the child. He carried out the study on 44 juvenile thieves (that were transferred to his institution), whom he compared to a group of 44 controls. It was a retrospective study using interviews and questionnaires. He diagnosed the participants by whether or not they were affectionless psychopaths – disorder resulting in lack of remorse or guilt. He found that 32% of the thieves and none of the controls were affectionless psychopaths. Of the affectionless psychopaths, 86% had experienced early separation. In contrast, only 17% of the controls had been deprived in their early days. Firstly, his results showed that maternal deprivation can have serious negative effects [i.e. affectionless psychopathy] that can be lasting and observable even several years later. Secondly, his findings led to many other researchers to study the link between deprivation and emotional development, of which they found strong links. Although Bowlby’s findings show that maternal deprivation has serious consequences, other research has shown that this is not always true. Bowlby defined a critical period during which he suggested that attachment bonds were most important. However, research has shown that although there may be just a sensitive period during which attachments are important but not essential.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Disruption of attachment is where an attachment has been formed between an infant and their primary care giver, but some kind of physical or emotional separation has occurred to disrupt its development during the sensitive period. Research investigating the effects of disruption to attachment has showed psychologists that infants forming attachments with a primary caregiver is essential for healthy social, physical and cognitive development. Such disruption could occur as a result of the infant being separated from their primary caregiver, mental illness in the family, stress, hospitalisation, adoption, the arrival of another sibling, divorce work, day-care and death. In many cases, disruption of attachment is unavoidable as infants must spend time in hospital, in day-care or with a babysitter.…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Furthermore, there are few weaknesses that Bowlby`s attachment theory displays. For instance, his theory promotes the idea that attachment behaviour has evolved therefore the child`s development presents good face validity. But he fails to take into consideration that these evolutionary ideas he proposes are seen as outdated and not universal to today’s modern society. Secondly, the theory is viewed as gender bias because it emphasises on the role of the mother being the caregiver. There is a research that has shown within two parent families, the father `s involvement in the quality of attachment can play major role in the child’s behaviour and development (Grossman & Grossman,…

    • 108 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    harlow

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Although partly inspired by the theory of Maternal Deprivation, Bowlby then used Harlow’s work to support his…

    • 381 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bowlby’s theory of “Maternal depravation” was founded on the hypothesis, that if a child is detached on a physical and emotional level from its primary carer that this will have long term effects emotionally for that child. According to Bowlby this detachment will see an increase in disruptive and defiant behaviour as well as a detachment between themselves and their children in the future. Bowlby even goes as far as to suggest that the affected child could possibly grow into an affectionless psychopath lacking and social conscience.…

    • 1240 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In that environment there should be a consistent, loving, and secure bond between a child and the person taking care of that child. The attachment bonds between that caregiver and the child are vitally important. When the child is reacting positively or negatively, the way in which the caregiver responds will be vital to the child's development of coping capacities. When the child experiences extreme trauma that has to do with abuse or neglect, that persons self becomes seriously compromised. Patterns of attachment, formations of character, symptoms, and defensive operations will all be different according to the level of intervention and the amount of impact. The family systems that focus more on conflict and control, are usually low in morality, adaptability, organization, and cohesiveness. During childhood, when there is recurring trauma, the dissociative response is usually the defense response that the person draws towards. While later on throughout life this dissociation is used as a defense against remembering and linking childhood trauma. It reacts as a coping mechanism towards betrayal, panic, shock, and any other negative influence. There are many different traumas that could lead to this such as, physical and sexual abuse, violence, neglect, loss of the caretaker, poverty, war, and many other negative situations. The higher the abuse the higher the symptoms will be increased. Furthermore, Karen Baker states, "the hallmark of dissociation is the human mind's ability to adaptively limit its self-reflecting capacity. As a defense dissociation becomes pathological to the degree that it proactively limits and forecloses one's ability to hold and reflect upon different states of mind within a single experience of me-ness. Over time the response may become automatic" ( Karen Baker,…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Life and Work of John Bowlby

    • 2571 Words
    • 11 Pages

    At the age of seven, he was sent off to boarding school, as was common for boys of his social status. In his work Separation: Anxiety and Anger, he revealed that he regarded it as a terrible time for him. He later said, "I wouldn 't send a dog away to boarding school at age seven".[2] Because of such experiences as a child, he displayed a sensitivity to children’s suffering throughout his life. However, with his characteristic attentiveness to the effects of age differences, Bowlby did consider boarding schools appropriate for children aged eight and older, and wrote, "If the child is maladjusted, it may be useful for him to be away for part of the year from the tensions which produced his difficulties, and if the home is bad in other ways the same is true. The boarding school has the advantage of preserving the child 's all-important home ties, even if in slightly attenuated form, and, since it forms part of the ordinary social pattern of most Western communities today [1951], the child who goes to boarding-school…

    • 2571 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The conversation among social work professionals, until recently, has largely regarded nature’s effect on the human disposition as opposed to the nurturing one receives throughout the life cycle. Ecological systems theory states that a person is largely reliant on their environment. The two are so intricately woven that it is nearly impossible to separate the two in an effort to assign responsibility for human characteristics. In basic terms, the environment affects the person just as significantly as the person affects the environment. Concepts which contributed to the development of this theory have been recognized since the conception of the social work profession in the late 1800’s. (Rothery, 2007). Moreover, Bowlby’s Attachment Theory, lends relevance to the effect of loss or detachment of caregivers on young children as it pertains to their psychological development. (Stalker, 2007). These two theories have provided an outlet for investigating…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bowlby was attempting to understand the extreme distress from infants, who had been separated from their parents, which left the infants in discomfort. A child’s attachment to their main caregiver creates a feel of security, therefore the child has the ability to seek out the world with determination, and without the feeling of being threaten or a exposure. The bond between an infants and their main caregiver results in how they will later get along with their peers, or how well they do in school, and how they will act to stressful situations. The cases where an infant doesn’t receive any attachment bond from a caregiver, which can lead to many problem into that infant’s adulthood. Depression and anxiety is the main factors for not having an attachment and leads to social phobia. This paper was about the differences between a child who has a bond with their main caregiver, and a child who doesn’t have a bond or has no main caregiver. My thought was a child without a caregiver will likelyhood have relationship issues with another human being or…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Hard Childhood

    • 309 Words
    • 2 Pages

    A hard childhood, a mother that treat her children in a very bad way, that’s how the author is trying to reach us. The author also tells us how she got helped from a numerous therapy sessions. It hard for any human being to get pass that kind of anger and hatred. Children always look u t their parents, and when your parent intend to beat you, try to kidnap you and your brother, try to kill the father with a chainsaw, you wont grow up as an full healthy person. You will have some disorders. And this is what the author went through and disorganized attachment is what you probably will get from that. The disorganizing experiences impair the child’s ability to integrate the functions of the mind that enable him to regulate emotions and cope with stress. It has been proven that parental abuse has been actually shown to damage the areas of the child’s growing brain that enable neural integration.…

    • 309 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Juvenile Delinquency

    • 6067 Words
    • 25 Pages

    Such a child loses not only mother’s love but also parental control and becomes an easy victim to the outside anti-societal influence. It cannot, however, be said that broken home invariably leads to delinquent behaviour on the part of the children.…

    • 6067 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Better Essays