The first steps of the attachment theory

James Robertson and his wife, Joyce Robertson

In 1948, Bowlby hired Robertson, a trained naturalistic observer, to help him observe children whom were separated from their parents by hospitalization and institutionalization. In 1950, Robertson felt compelled to act… so on a very low budget, minimum training, a hand-held camera and his heart he made a deeply moving film: A two-year-old-goes-to-hospital (1953) The target child was randomly selected and the hospital’s clock on the wall was proof for video recording being made at regular periods of the day. This film, together with Spitz's Grief: a peril in infancy helped improve conditions for hospitalized children.
At this time, Bowlby’s work caught the eye of Ronald Hargreaves of World Health Organization (WHO), so he was asked to write a report on the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe. This report was first published in 1951 as Maternal Care and Mental Health by the WHO, sold nearly 400 000 copies and was translated into 14 languages. A second edition was published in 1965, entitled Child care and the growth of love and with review chapters by Mary Ainsworth.

John Bowlby

John Bowlby

John Bowlby graduated in 1929 from the University of Cambridge and undertook training ate the British Psychoanalytic Institute. At the time, Melanie Klein was the major influence and even though Bowlby acknowledged it's emphasis on early relationships and the pathogenic potencial of loss, he didn't agree that cildren's emotional problemas are pretty much due to fantasies generated from interanl conflict between agressive and libidinal drives.

In fact, Bowlby had already become interested in intergenerational transmission of attachment and in the possiblity of helping the children by helping their parents.

Bowlby's first empirical study dates from 1940 and was reviewed in 1944: Forty-four juvenile thieves:their characters and home lives, in which through detailed examination of these cases he was able to establish a link between their symptoms and histories of separation and maternal deprivation.

After WW II, Bowlby became the head of the Children's Department at the Tavistock Clinic, which he then renamed the Department for Children and Parents. Even so, he decided to found his own research unit focused on mother-child separation (this was an undeniable event and it was easier to study than more subtle influences of interaction.).

We should have start prevention a long time ago...

pic: Ivaldo Cavalcante