to critically analyse what effects enrichment and deprivation has on a person using bowlby maternal deprivatio

Question

using for a assignment

Answer 1

I'm not sure exactly what your question is but this theory was rubbished years ago.

Answer 2

Despite Nigel's vague and unfounded criticism, Bowlby actually changed the face of child development psychology in the Westernized world.

(As just ONE example, before Bowlby's time, it was common for children to not be permitted to see their parents while the child was hospitalized, even if treatment took months or years. People simply did not notice the distress of the child, or discounted it as irrelevant to development, and the hospital staff wanted to run things efficiently without parents getting in the way.

Bowlby and those with similar ideas showed how the mother's presence was crucial for proper development, although it took a decade or two for things to shake out and professional therapists to acknowledge the validity of these new ideas.)

Bowlby challenged the idea that children could be raised like machines and that early-life attachment was not important to healthy human development. He also thought that the bonding between the maternal figure and the child had more impact on future psychological health.

In his view, children bonded very closely to the maternal figure. The mother was the first person the baby knew; and the baby's identity and trust and security would come from how the mother interacted with the child.

(Note: If the mother was not available, a substitute such as a nanny or nurse could take the mother's role... and losing her later would be traumatic to the child.)

He did believe that the child had to be trained to find security in others -- the mother was not expected to be the sole caretaker, that would be unhealthy, so occassionally others should take over for a bit, to give the mom a break -- but in general the mother needed to worry about providing love and reassurance to the growing child.

The growing child supposedly "creates an image" of the mother inside of himself, as he grows up. If this image is a good and healthy one, then the child feels secure and can venture away from the real mother without suffering lots of anxiety.

(This is how we become independent as we get older, and why full-grown adults no longer need to be around their moms all the time. :) )

If the image is a bad, painful, or untrustworthy one, the child will be unhealthy and become anxious and insecure and dependent on others for reassurance.

The fight between Freud supporters and Bowlby supporters got very nasty, and Bowlby was often misread and misinterpreted.

Bowlby's ideas can be abused. For example, a person who is irresponsible or who has committed a crime could feasibly try to blame it on the "lack of his mother's love" when he was a child.

But Bowlby never intended for his theory to excuse the bad behavior of adults. He simply was exploring how children developed, especially in the crucial 18-24 month window, and how important the caregiver role was to establishing a sense of security.

This might be enough to get you started. I would look for some books in the library, or search on the web for

- Bowlby
- attachment
- avoidant
- mother


Extra credit research: There was also a guy named Harlow who did some very telling but very cruel experiments 40-50 years ago (?), by depriving baby monkeys of their mothers and substituting feeding machines and terrycloth "monkey mothers." He was trying to show that a real mother was not needed for healthy development -- that it was the feeding and not the "nurturing" that made the difference.

He was wrong. The monkeys would pick the terrycloth mothers over the sterile feeders.

Worse, all of the monkeys who grew up deprived of their mother's love were maladjusted and would attack other monkeys and even their own offspring. (They were completely detached, socially.)