Deprivation - to lose something.

In the context of child development, deprivation refers to the loss of emotional care that is normally provided by a primary care giver.

Bowlby’s Theory of Maternal Deprivation

Analyses the consequences of deprivation of maternal care/lack of attachment.

Value of Maternal Care

• Assumed prior that children who had been separated from their caregivers required a good standard of care consisting of only physical care and food.
• Bowlby shed light on the important of a ‘warm, intimate and continuous relationship’.

Bowlby believed that the absence of this may lead to a child becoming emotionally disturbed.

Critical Period

Bowlby believed that the child will become emotionally disturbed only if separation occurs before the age of approx. 2.5 years (with risk up to 5) if there is no substitute mother-person.

Effects on Development

• Criminality
• Psychopathy
• No guilt

Bowlby’s 44 Juvenile Thieves

Procedure

1. Analysed case histories of his patients in Child Guidance Clinic, London
   1. All children were emotionally maladjusted
2. 88 children studied - 44 had been caught stealing, the other half were the control group
3. Bowlby interviewed the thieves for signs of ‘affectionless psychopathy’ and interviewed families to find out about prolonged separation from their mother
4. These characteristics allowed them to be thieves
   1. Stealing from others did not matter to them

Findings

1. 14 of the 44 thieves were affectionless psychopaths
2. 14 out of 12 had experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of their lives
3. 5 out of the remaining 30 had experienced separations
4. 2 out of 44 had experienced long separations