Privation

Privation

1. Privation is the failure to form an attachment

   • Can be caused by extreme neglect or being raised in an institution (orphanage)

2. Genie case study - Curtiss (1977)

   • Found age 13 and had been kept tied to a potty chair for most of her life. She had been punished for making noise. She was very small for her age and displayed unusual physical behaviours. Described by Curtiss as 'socialised, primitive and hardly human'.
     • Initially showed good progress but inconsistent care and punishment in a foster home led to further traumatisation
       • She lost the language and emotional skills she had developed. Her condition today is unknown.
   • Bowlby would suggest that Genie was the victim of Maternal Deprivation, which has caused the traumatic side effects (ADDIDDAS). However her father maintained she was brain damaged at birth, which could explain her failure to develop normally.

3. Czech twins case study - Koluchova (1976)

   • Identical twins whose mother died at birth. They were raised in a children's home and then later by their father and stepmother. They were kept in a small cellar and discovered at age 7. They could hardly speak and had developed rickets.
     • They were adopted by two sisters and received two years of intensive therapies
       • They showed no long term ill effects, and are both married with successful careers
   • It can be argued that the twins did not truly experience privation as they were able to make an attachment to each and therefore instead experienced severe deprivation.
     • They were also discovered earlier than Genie which make explain why they recovered more successfully.

4. Bowlby claimed that "a bad home is better than a good institution because of the poor psychological care children receive in such places"

5. Hodges and Tizard (1989)