Disruption To Attachment

Disruption To Attachment

1. Definitions

   • Deprivation
     • 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
   • Privation
     • Unfortunately 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.

2. 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.

3. Short Term Effects

   • Robertson & Bowlby (1952) PDD Model
     • The research for the PDD model was carried out on children aged between 1 and 4.
     • 1) Protest
       • Child cries and calls for its mother. Panic is usual. This can last from a few hours to a few weeks!
     • 2) Despair
       • Child becomes apathetic (i.e. uninterested in what is happening around them). They continue to cry occasionally and call for mother
     • 3) Detachment
       • The child cries less and is more interested its surroundings. Onlookers may think that the child is getting over the separation, whereas in fact the child is hiding its feelings

4. Robertson And Robertson Case Studies (1950’s)e

   • Evaluation
     • Barrett (1997) looked at Robertson & Bowlby’s original study and found the situation to be more complex than they had suggested.
       • 1) If the child is securely attached it copes better than the model predicts
       • 2) If the child is avoidant then it gets the full blown PDD effects.

5. Long Term Effects

   • Bowlbys 44 Theives and MDH
     • Procedure
       • 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.
     • Evaluation
       • The data collection is retrospective, (have to think back), This can produce inaccuracies
       • Some of the children were only separated for short periods, so it is difficult to believe this could have caused such emotional disturbances
       • The results are correlational

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