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
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