Disruption of Attachment

Disruption of Attachment

1. There are a number of situations in which an attachment can be broken either temporarily, for example by hospitalisation or permanently through death. A broken attachment like this is referred to as deprivation.

2. there are also cases of children being so badly treated, perhaps being kept in total isolation for many years, that they never have the opportunity to form an attachment and this is called privation.

3. Bowlby did not differentiate between the two in his maternal deprivation hypothesis. Recent studies however suggest: 1. Deprivation and privation are distinct, believing that the long term consequences of privation are far more severe than the long term consequences of deprivation. 2. Children are generally far more resilient to early separation than Bowlby originally proposed. Bowlby himself later changed his views adopting this line.

4. Bowlby interviewed the children, and their families, who attended a clinic where he worked. He compared the backgrounds of 44 juvenile thieves with the background of 44 other non-delinquent children. Findings: 32% of the thieves were diagnosed by Bowlby as having affectionless psychopathy, the main symptom of which is lack of moral conscience. Most of these had experienced separation for at least one week before the age of 5. Conclusion: Separation in early life led to long term ill effects, particularly adversely affecting emotional development.

5. Bowlby did not distinguish between the effects of separation and privation. We now know that the long term effects of privation are far more severe than the effects of deprivation. Rutter believes the effects Bowlby attributed to separation may well have been due to privation.

6. Genie and Czech twin study for privation

7. Hodges and Tizard believed that their findings demonstrate that children who are deprived of close and lasting attachments to adults in their first years of life can make such attachments later, although this does depend on the adults concerned and how much they nurture such attachments. Hodges and Tizard offer an explanation for why the adopted children were more likely to overcome some of the problems of early institutional upbringing better than the restored children.