Maternal Deprivation

• Overview

  • Bowlby stated that the world 'maternal' was used to describe mothering from a mother or any mother substitute
  • If a child was to be separated from their mother, a substitute who could provide emotional care for the child needed to be in place
• Mother love

  • "Mother-love in infancy is as important as mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical heath"
  • In the 1940s, children were thought to only need to be cared for physically and would manage their emotions themselves.
• Separation Vs Deprivation

  • Separation means simply not be in the presence of the mother primary attachment figure
  • This only becomes a problem if the child is them deprived emotional care
  • It is important to note that this ca happen even if the mother is physically present but emotionally absent due to mental health issues
• Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis

  Disruption to the attachment bond - either short or long term - results in serious and permanent damage to a child's emotional, social and intellectual development
• Impact on IWM

  • Internal Working Model - this can lead to an inability to be a good parent due to inconsistencies in emotional care
  • Continuity hypothesis - if there are prolonged separations then there may be issues into adulthood in regards to relationship formation
• Negative impacts

  • Intellectual - delayed intellectual development leading to lower IQ
  • Emotional - affectionless psychopathology. Unable to experience guilt or strong emotion towards others - inability to have normal relationships
• The critical period

  • Development of relationship must happen before 2.5 years old - if repeated separation occurs before this, child is likely to be emotionally disturbed
  • After 5 years, children are better able to cope with separation
• Privation

  • Rutter - believed that Bowlby failed to distinguish between those children who had their attachment bond disrupted and those children who never formed attachments
  • Believed research evidence supported that the most severe consequences to physical and emotional well-being were because if privation and not deprivation as Bowlby stated
• Robertson and Robertson

  • 1969 John 17 months- close and stable relationship with mother.
  • Extreme distress while spending 9 days in residential nursey while mother had baby
  • Mothers return - confusion, struggled to get away from her
  • Negative effects evident years later
  • Serious and irreversible damage
• Lewis 1954

  Looked at 500 young people and found no association between early separation and later criminality, psychopathology or relationship difficulties
• Evaluation

  • Practical applications - Robertsons - implications for the care of children when mothers were in hospital