The Child's
Discovery
of Death.
Bowlby - Separation
leads to avoidance of the feared situation'.
-407-
Rycroft ( 1968b) defines phobia as: 'The symptom of experiencing unnecessary or excessive anxiety in some specific situation or in the presence of some specific object. ' The term always smacks of pathology ( OED). The disadvantages of the term are as follows:
-- it tends to reify fear, as in the title of Marks book Fears and Phobias;
-- a principle criterion in the definition is the unreasonableness of fearing so intensely the situation in question; on this definition fear of the dark or of loud noises or of any other natural clue would qualify as phobic, and thence would become tarred with pathology;
-- when a clinician introduces the concept of phobia in trying to understand what a patient is afraid of, he is focusing attention (i) on a particular aspect of the situation to the neglect of others which may be more important, and (ii) on the escape component of fear behaviour to the neglect of the attachment component (see Chapters 18 and 19) because the meaning of the Greek word phobos centres on flight and escape;
-- when used today by psychoanalysts phobia always implies the result of a particular pathological process, namely that the object or situation is feared 'not on its own account but because it has become a symbol of something else, i. e. because it represents some impulse, wish, internal object, or part of the self which the patient has been unable to face' ( Rycroft 1968b); in Chapters 11, 18, and 19 reasons are given for believing that the processes in question are implicated far too readily.
Once the term phobia is abandoned it becomes easier to consider how the person concerned may have developed so that he has become more frightened and anxious in certain situations than are his fellows.
-408-
304
Additional Notes Chapter 3
page 56, paragraph 2, line 8
The ways in which young children and their mothers behave in sessions before and after the children start part-time nursery school (at ages ranging from two years eleven months to four years three months) are well described in a recent paper by van Leeuwen & Tuma ( 1972). The authors, using measures derived from attachment theory, report that children who started school at or before the age of three years two months became noticeably more clinging fifteen days after starting than they had been before, and that when mother was absent some showed a marked decrease in their concentration on and enjoyment in play. Three boys who had spent from five to seven months in a previous nursery school, two of them starting at two years eight months and one at two years ten months, were especially disturbed during early weeks at their new school. Reviewing their findings the authors conclude that 'we should approach nursery school entry with much greater caution [than is commonly given to it] and possibly delay it until the child is older'.
Chapter 9
page 140, paragraph 2, line 7
When two or more natural clues are present together, their potential value as indicators of an increased risk of danger would be vastly enhanced were the brain to use the most efficient method of processing the information. Broadbent ( 1973) discusses the various ways in which unreliable or in other respects insufficient items of evidence can be utilized for purposes of decision-making and action. When a number of such items are received together there are two main ways in which they can be processed. One is to process them independently and serially, in which case maximum advantage for decision-making is unlikely to be obtained. Another is for the items to be processed simultaneously. In that case not only is maximum advantage obtained but the effects on decisiontaking, and therefore action, are likely to be dramatically different from those of the first method. In view of the data regarding the striking effects on behaviour of a combination of natural clues to
-409-
an increased risk of danger, it seems probable that combinations are usually processed simultaneously.
Chapter 15
page 220, paragraph 2, line 10
Scepticism is sometimes expressed about whether a period in hospital or residential nursery has effects in the long term as well as the short. In this connection the findings of a recent analysis by Douglas ( 1975) of data collected some years ago in the course of a
305
assessed during adolescence, those who had been in hospital before the age of five years, either for longer than a week or on two or more occasions, were found to differ from other children in the following four ways. They were:
-- more likely to have been rated by teachers as troublesome at ages thirteen and fifteen years.
-- more likely, in the case of boys, to have been cautioned by police or sentenced between the ages of eight and seventeen years
-- more likely to have scored low on a reading test
-- more likely, in the case of school-leavers, to have changed jobs four or more times between the ages of fifteen and eighteen years.
The tendencies to delinquency and unstable employment record are significantly increased for children who experienced a further period in hospital between the ages of five and fifteen. All these differences remain significant when the rather atypical backgrounds of children who are admitted to hospital before the age of five years--e. g. as regards health, large families--are taken into account.
Further findings are, first, that if for any reason a child was insecure at the time of admission to hospital he was particularly likely to have suffered long-term disturbance, and, second, that it was children who on return from hospital were reported by the mothers to have been clinging or to have shown other forms of difficult behaviour who were especially likely later to have been described by the teachers as troublesome.
The findings of this study tend to support the belief expressed earlier, in Chapter 4, that the effects of separations from mother during the early years are cumulative and that the safest dose is therefore a zero dose.
-410-
page 226, paragraph 2, line 5
Moore data do not permit of any conclusions regarding the effects on a child of starting full- time day care during his third year of life, a matter about which there is still controversy. Clinical experience suggests that, whereas there are children who enjoy attending a very small playgroup towards the end of their third year, there are strong reasons for caution about full- time attendance, the more so when it begins soon after the second birthday. The case of Lottie, who started nursery school when she was two years and three months old and attended only two half-days a week (see Chapter 3), illustrates the danger. So also do the findings of van Leeuwen & Tuma ( 1972) referred to in the note to Chapter 3 above (p. 409).
In a recent study of children who spend many hours daily in day care, Blehar ( 1974) has thrown further light on the question. Blehar studied four sub-samples of middle-class children and their mothers by means of Ainsworth's strange situation procedure (see Chapter 3). Children in two of the sub-samples had been attending privately organized day nurseries 1 for between eight and ten hours a day for five days a week during the preceding four months: children in one of these sub-samples had begun attendance at age twenty-six months and were tested at thirty months; children in the other sub-sample had started at age thirty-five months and were tested at thirty-nine months. The other two sub-samples, which acted as controls,
306
comprised children of equivalent age and sex who were being cared for in their own homes.
A month prior to testing, the research worker paid a visit to the home of each child during which Caldwell's inventory of home stimulation was completed; this draws mainly on data from firsthand observation of mother-child interaction. Analysis of these data showed no differences in the mean amounts or forms of stimulation received in their homes by the day- care and the homecare children respectively.
Nevertheless, there were clear differences between the children in the two categories of care in respect of their behaviour in Ainsworth's strange situation procedure, the differences being especially noticeable during the episodes when mother was out of the ____________________
1 Blehar describes these as 'four private day nurseries in Baltimore. They followed a traditional nursery school regime and had been recommended as being of high quality, having staffs receptive to research, and serving primarily middle-class families. The child to adult ratio ranged between six and eight to one. ' The nurseries were open from 7:30 a. m. to 5:30 p. m.
-411-
room and those when she returned. During mother's absence children in all four groups explored less than when she was present. The decrease was most marked in the older day-care children and least marked in the comparable group of home-care children. Furthermore, during mother's absence the older day-care children cried far more than did their home-care counterparts (who hardly cried at all) and more even than either group of younger children. When mother returned both younger and older day-care children avoided her to a greater degree than did the home-care children, a form of behaviour that, Blehar points out, has been found in Ainsworth's studies to be characteristic of one-year-olds whose mothers were rated as relatively insensitive, unresponsive, and/or inaccessible during the infant's first year of life (see Chapter 21 of the present volume for details and references).
Behaviour towards the stranger also differed significantly between the day-care and the home- care children. At both ages daycare children avoided the stranger more than did their home- care counterparts. Furthermore, during the course of the test procedure, day-care children tended increasingly to avoid the stranger in contrast to the home-care children who became progressively more accepting of her. Such a finding is utterly at variance with the commonly expressed hope that day care will make a child more adaptable and independent.
Blehar's findings are wholly compatible with the finding from Moore ( 1975) follow-up study, reported above on p. 225, which suggested that those children in his urban sample who had never attended nursery school or playgroup before their fifth birthday might have benefited from doing so. What Blehar's evidence underlines is that, for determining the effects of day care on preschool children, critical variables (in addition to stability and quality of care) are age at starting and hours of attendance.
Chapter 16
p. 239, paragraph 2, line 4
From their definitive review of the evidence Maccoby & Masters ( 1970) also reach the conclusion that anxious attachment is a result not of an excess of parental affection but of the reverse. The same holds for other primates ( Jolly 1972). Yet credence continues to
307
be given to the theory of spoiling. For example, in a recent work Anna Freud ( 1972), in considering the origins of intensified separation anxiety in later years, gives weight to an infant's ex-
-412-
perience of a mother who proves unreliable as a stable figure, including actual separations from her. However, she also states her continuing belief that 'excessive gratification in the anaclitic phase' can have similar consequences.
Chapter 18
p. 260, paragraph 3, line 15
Reflection on clinical practice leads to the conclusion that a patient's emotional responses remain puzzling, and are labelled symptoms, only so long as they are seen divorced from the situation that elicited them.
Chapter 21
p. 358, paragraph 4, line 12
A further finding ( Stayton & Ainsworth 1973) is that the more responsive a mother was in dealing with her baby when he cried during the early months of his life the more likely he was to greet her cheerfully when she returned after a short absence.
Very recently Main ( 1973) has carried these studies a step further by following up children who had been observed in the strange situation at the age of twelve months and observing them again in a different but comparable situation nine months later. Of forty children so followed up, twenty-five had been classified as secure at twelve months and fifteen as insecure. 1 When observed again at the age of twenty-one months in a free-play session, the children earlier classified as secure were found to concentrate on an activity both more intensely and for longer periods, and to smile and laugh more frequently, than those earlier classified as insecure. When joined by an adult playmate they were far more likely to approach and play with her. When given Bayley developmental tests they proved more cooperative and achieved a mean score of 111. 2 in comparison with a mean of 96. 1 for the insecure. None of these differences could be attributed to variables such as mother's education, the number of siblings a child had, or his previous experience or inexperience of toys. While the gross behaviour of mothers of the two groups of toddlers did not differ appreciably during the observation session, mothers of the secure toddlers showed more interest in the proceedings, watched the child's activities more closely, and expressed more feeling. Thus
____________________
1 Main's secure infants are those classified in this volume in groups P and Q; her insecure
infants are those classified in groups R, S, and T (see footnote to p. 355 above). -413-
the pattern of child-mother interaction established at twelve months was found to have had considerable stability during the succeeding nine-month period; and the findings strongly support the earlier conclusion that infants whose mothers are sensitive and responsive to them are those who later turn cheerfully to exploration and play. Their willingness to cooperate, their capacity to concentrate, and their good scores on developmental tests at twenty-one
308
months bode well for their futures.
Appendix I
page 390, paragraph 1, line 2
In a later work by Anna Freud ( 1972) this theme recurs. Fear of starvation, fear of loneliness, and fear of helplessness are cited, in addition to separation anxiety and fear of annihilation, as 'forms' of anxiety characteristic of the first, or symbiotic, stage in the development of object relations. Unusually intense separation anxiety in later years is attributed to fixation at the symbiotic stage; excessive fear of loss of love may result from parental errors in discipline or from a child's over-sensitive ego during the stage of object constancy. The possible effects of events of later childhood are not discussed.
-414-
References
Abraham K. ( 1913). "'On the Psychogenesis of Agoraphobia in Children. '" In Abraham, Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-analysis. London: Hogarth; New York: Basic Books, 1955.
----- ( 1924). "'A Short Study of the Development of the Libido. '" In Abraham, Selected Papers on Psycho-analysis. London: Hogarth, 1927. New edition, London: Hogarth, 1949; New York: Basic Books, 1953.
Ainsworth M. D. S. ( 1972). "'Attachment and Dependency: A Comparison. '" In J. L. Gewirtz (ed. ), Attachment and Dependence. Washington, D. C. : Winston (distributed by Wiley, New
Y ork).
Ainsworth M. D. S. & Bell S. M. ( 1970). "'Attachment, Exploration, and Separation: Illustrated by the Behaviour of One-yearolds in a Strange Situation. '" Child Dev. 41: 49-67.
Ainsworth M. D. S. , Bell S. M. & Stayton D. J. ( 1971). "'Individual Differences in Strange- situation Behaviour of One-year-olds. '" In H. R. Schaffer (ed. ), The Origins of Human Social Relations. London & New York: Academic Press.
----- (in press). "'Infant-Mother Attachment and Social Development: Socialization as a Product of Reciprocal Responsiveness to Signals. '" In M. Richards (ed. ), The Integration of a Child into a Social World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ainsworth M. D. & Boston M. ( 1952). "'Psychodiagnostic Assessments of a Child after Prolonged Separation in Early Childhood. '" Brit. J. med. Psychol. 25: 169-201.
Ainsworth M. D. S. & Wittig B. A. ( 1969). "'Attachment and Exploratory Behaviour of One- year-olds in a Strange Situation. '" In B. M. Foss (ed. ), Determinants of Infant Behaviour, Vol. 4. London: Methuen.
Alexander F. & French T. M. ( 1946). Psychoanalytic Therapy. New York: Ronald Press.
Alland A. ( 1967). Evolution of Human Behavior. New York: Doubleday; London: Tavistock, 1969.
Anderson J. W. ( 1972a). "'An Empirical Study of the Psychosocial Attachment of Infants to their Mothers. '" Thesis presented for the degree of Ph. D. , University of London.
----- ( 1972b). "'Attachment Behaviour Out of Doors. '" In N. Blurton Jones (ed. ), Ethological Studies of Child Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-415-
Anderson J. W. ( 1972c). "'On the Psychological Attachment of Infants to their Mothers. '" J. biosoc. Sci. 4: 197-225.
309
Andrews J. W. D. ( 1966). "'Psychotherapy of Phobias. '" Psychol. Bull. 66: 455-80. Anthony S. ( 1940).
The Child's Discovery of Death. London: Kegan Paul.
Argles P. & Mackenzie M. ( 1970). "'Crisis Intervention with a Multi-problem Family: A
Case Study. '" J. Child Psychol. Psychiat. 11: 187-95.
Arnold M. B. ( 1960). Emotion and Personality. Vol. 1, Psychological Aspects; Vol. 2,
Neurological and Physiological Aspects. New York: Columbia University Press; London: Cassell, 1961.
Arsenian J. M. ( 1943). "'Young Children in an Insecure Situation. '" J. abnorm, soc. Psychol. 38: 225-49.
Backett E. M. & Johnston A. M. ( 1959). "'Social Patterns of Road Accidents to Children: Some Characteristics of Vulnerable Children. '" Brit. med. J. ( 1): 409.
Baker G. W. & Chapman D. W. (eds. ) ( 1962). Man and Society in Disaster. New York: Basic Books.
Bandura A. ( 1968). "'Modelling Approaches to the Modification of Phobic Disorders. '" In R. Porter (ed. ), The Role of Learning in Psychotherapy. London: J. & A. Churchill.
Bandura A. & Menlove F. L. ( 1968). "'Factors Determining Vicarious Extinction of Avoidance Behavior through Symbolic Modeling. '" J. Pers. soc. Psychol. 8: 99-108.
Bandura A. & Rosenthal T. L. ( 1966). "'Vicarious Classical Conditioning as a Function of Arousal Level. '" J. Pers. soc. Psychol. 3: 54-62.
Barker R. G. , Kounin J. S. & Wright H. F. (eds. ) ( 1943). Child Behavior and Development. New York & London: McGraw-Hill.
Bateson G. , Jackson D. D. , Haley J. & Weakland J. ( 1956). "'Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia. '" Behav. Sci. 1: 251-64.
Baumeyer F. ( 1956). "'The Schreber Case. '" Int. J. Psycho-Anal. 37: 61-74.
Baumrind D. ( 1967). "'Child Care Practices Anteceding Three Patterns of Preschool Behavior. '" Genet. Psychol. Monogr. 75: 43-88.
Bell S. M. ( 1970). "'The Development of the Concept of Object as related to Infant--Mother Attachment. '" Child. Dev. 41: 291-311.
Bell S. M. & Ainsworth M. D. S. ( 1972). "'Infant Crying and Maternal Responsiveness. '" Child. Dev. 43: 1171-90.
Bender L. & Yarnell H. ( 1941). "'An Observation Nursery: A Study of 250 Children on the Psychiatric Division of Bellevue Hospital. '" Amer. J. Psychiat. 97: 1158-72.
-416-
Benedek T. ( 1938). "'Adaptation to Reality in Early Infancy. '" Psychoanal. Quart. 7: 200-15. -----( 1946). Insight and Personality Adjustment: A Study of the Psychological Effects of War.
New York: Ronald Press.
-----( 1956). "'Toward the Biology of the Depressive Constellation. '" J. Amer. psychoanal.
Ass. 4:389-427
Berecz J. M. ( 1968). "'Phobias of Childhood: Aetiology and Treatment. '" Psychol. Bull. 70:
694-720.
Berg I. , Lipsedge M. S. & Marks I. M. (in preparation).
Berger S. M. ( 1962). "'Conditioning through Vicarious Instigation. '" Psychol. Rev. 69: 450-
66.
Bernfeld S. ( 1925, Eng. trans. 1929). The Psychology of the Infant. London: Kegan Paul. Bloch D. A. , Silber E. & Perry S. E. ( 1956). "'Some Factors in the Emotional Reaction of
Children to Disaster. '" Amer. J. Psychiat. 113: 416-22.
Bolwig N. ( 1963). "'Bringing up a Young Monkey. '" Behaviour 21: 300-30.
310
Bower T. G. R. , Broughton J. M. & Moore M. K. ( 1970). "'Infant Responses to Approaching Objects: An Indicator of Responses to Distal Variables. '" Percept. Psychophysics 9(2B): 193- 6.
Bowlby J. ( 1940).
-407-
Rycroft ( 1968b) defines phobia as: 'The symptom of experiencing unnecessary or excessive anxiety in some specific situation or in the presence of some specific object. ' The term always smacks of pathology ( OED). The disadvantages of the term are as follows:
-- it tends to reify fear, as in the title of Marks book Fears and Phobias;
-- a principle criterion in the definition is the unreasonableness of fearing so intensely the situation in question; on this definition fear of the dark or of loud noises or of any other natural clue would qualify as phobic, and thence would become tarred with pathology;
-- when a clinician introduces the concept of phobia in trying to understand what a patient is afraid of, he is focusing attention (i) on a particular aspect of the situation to the neglect of others which may be more important, and (ii) on the escape component of fear behaviour to the neglect of the attachment component (see Chapters 18 and 19) because the meaning of the Greek word phobos centres on flight and escape;
-- when used today by psychoanalysts phobia always implies the result of a particular pathological process, namely that the object or situation is feared 'not on its own account but because it has become a symbol of something else, i. e. because it represents some impulse, wish, internal object, or part of the self which the patient has been unable to face' ( Rycroft 1968b); in Chapters 11, 18, and 19 reasons are given for believing that the processes in question are implicated far too readily.
Once the term phobia is abandoned it becomes easier to consider how the person concerned may have developed so that he has become more frightened and anxious in certain situations than are his fellows.
-408-
304
Additional Notes Chapter 3
page 56, paragraph 2, line 8
The ways in which young children and their mothers behave in sessions before and after the children start part-time nursery school (at ages ranging from two years eleven months to four years three months) are well described in a recent paper by van Leeuwen & Tuma ( 1972). The authors, using measures derived from attachment theory, report that children who started school at or before the age of three years two months became noticeably more clinging fifteen days after starting than they had been before, and that when mother was absent some showed a marked decrease in their concentration on and enjoyment in play. Three boys who had spent from five to seven months in a previous nursery school, two of them starting at two years eight months and one at two years ten months, were especially disturbed during early weeks at their new school. Reviewing their findings the authors conclude that 'we should approach nursery school entry with much greater caution [than is commonly given to it] and possibly delay it until the child is older'.
Chapter 9
page 140, paragraph 2, line 7
When two or more natural clues are present together, their potential value as indicators of an increased risk of danger would be vastly enhanced were the brain to use the most efficient method of processing the information. Broadbent ( 1973) discusses the various ways in which unreliable or in other respects insufficient items of evidence can be utilized for purposes of decision-making and action. When a number of such items are received together there are two main ways in which they can be processed. One is to process them independently and serially, in which case maximum advantage for decision-making is unlikely to be obtained. Another is for the items to be processed simultaneously. In that case not only is maximum advantage obtained but the effects on decisiontaking, and therefore action, are likely to be dramatically different from those of the first method. In view of the data regarding the striking effects on behaviour of a combination of natural clues to
-409-
an increased risk of danger, it seems probable that combinations are usually processed simultaneously.
Chapter 15
page 220, paragraph 2, line 10
Scepticism is sometimes expressed about whether a period in hospital or residential nursery has effects in the long term as well as the short. In this connection the findings of a recent analysis by Douglas ( 1975) of data collected some years ago in the course of a
305
assessed during adolescence, those who had been in hospital before the age of five years, either for longer than a week or on two or more occasions, were found to differ from other children in the following four ways. They were:
-- more likely to have been rated by teachers as troublesome at ages thirteen and fifteen years.
-- more likely, in the case of boys, to have been cautioned by police or sentenced between the ages of eight and seventeen years
-- more likely to have scored low on a reading test
-- more likely, in the case of school-leavers, to have changed jobs four or more times between the ages of fifteen and eighteen years.
The tendencies to delinquency and unstable employment record are significantly increased for children who experienced a further period in hospital between the ages of five and fifteen. All these differences remain significant when the rather atypical backgrounds of children who are admitted to hospital before the age of five years--e. g. as regards health, large families--are taken into account.
Further findings are, first, that if for any reason a child was insecure at the time of admission to hospital he was particularly likely to have suffered long-term disturbance, and, second, that it was children who on return from hospital were reported by the mothers to have been clinging or to have shown other forms of difficult behaviour who were especially likely later to have been described by the teachers as troublesome.
The findings of this study tend to support the belief expressed earlier, in Chapter 4, that the effects of separations from mother during the early years are cumulative and that the safest dose is therefore a zero dose.
-410-
page 226, paragraph 2, line 5
Moore data do not permit of any conclusions regarding the effects on a child of starting full- time day care during his third year of life, a matter about which there is still controversy. Clinical experience suggests that, whereas there are children who enjoy attending a very small playgroup towards the end of their third year, there are strong reasons for caution about full- time attendance, the more so when it begins soon after the second birthday. The case of Lottie, who started nursery school when she was two years and three months old and attended only two half-days a week (see Chapter 3), illustrates the danger. So also do the findings of van Leeuwen & Tuma ( 1972) referred to in the note to Chapter 3 above (p. 409).
In a recent study of children who spend many hours daily in day care, Blehar ( 1974) has thrown further light on the question. Blehar studied four sub-samples of middle-class children and their mothers by means of Ainsworth's strange situation procedure (see Chapter 3). Children in two of the sub-samples had been attending privately organized day nurseries 1 for between eight and ten hours a day for five days a week during the preceding four months: children in one of these sub-samples had begun attendance at age twenty-six months and were tested at thirty months; children in the other sub-sample had started at age thirty-five months and were tested at thirty-nine months. The other two sub-samples, which acted as controls,
306
comprised children of equivalent age and sex who were being cared for in their own homes.
A month prior to testing, the research worker paid a visit to the home of each child during which Caldwell's inventory of home stimulation was completed; this draws mainly on data from firsthand observation of mother-child interaction. Analysis of these data showed no differences in the mean amounts or forms of stimulation received in their homes by the day- care and the homecare children respectively.
Nevertheless, there were clear differences between the children in the two categories of care in respect of their behaviour in Ainsworth's strange situation procedure, the differences being especially noticeable during the episodes when mother was out of the ____________________
1 Blehar describes these as 'four private day nurseries in Baltimore. They followed a traditional nursery school regime and had been recommended as being of high quality, having staffs receptive to research, and serving primarily middle-class families. The child to adult ratio ranged between six and eight to one. ' The nurseries were open from 7:30 a. m. to 5:30 p. m.
-411-
room and those when she returned. During mother's absence children in all four groups explored less than when she was present. The decrease was most marked in the older day-care children and least marked in the comparable group of home-care children. Furthermore, during mother's absence the older day-care children cried far more than did their home-care counterparts (who hardly cried at all) and more even than either group of younger children. When mother returned both younger and older day-care children avoided her to a greater degree than did the home-care children, a form of behaviour that, Blehar points out, has been found in Ainsworth's studies to be characteristic of one-year-olds whose mothers were rated as relatively insensitive, unresponsive, and/or inaccessible during the infant's first year of life (see Chapter 21 of the present volume for details and references).
Behaviour towards the stranger also differed significantly between the day-care and the home- care children. At both ages daycare children avoided the stranger more than did their home- care counterparts. Furthermore, during the course of the test procedure, day-care children tended increasingly to avoid the stranger in contrast to the home-care children who became progressively more accepting of her. Such a finding is utterly at variance with the commonly expressed hope that day care will make a child more adaptable and independent.
Blehar's findings are wholly compatible with the finding from Moore ( 1975) follow-up study, reported above on p. 225, which suggested that those children in his urban sample who had never attended nursery school or playgroup before their fifth birthday might have benefited from doing so. What Blehar's evidence underlines is that, for determining the effects of day care on preschool children, critical variables (in addition to stability and quality of care) are age at starting and hours of attendance.
Chapter 16
p. 239, paragraph 2, line 4
From their definitive review of the evidence Maccoby & Masters ( 1970) also reach the conclusion that anxious attachment is a result not of an excess of parental affection but of the reverse. The same holds for other primates ( Jolly 1972). Yet credence continues to
307
be given to the theory of spoiling. For example, in a recent work Anna Freud ( 1972), in considering the origins of intensified separation anxiety in later years, gives weight to an infant's ex-
-412-
perience of a mother who proves unreliable as a stable figure, including actual separations from her. However, she also states her continuing belief that 'excessive gratification in the anaclitic phase' can have similar consequences.
Chapter 18
p. 260, paragraph 3, line 15
Reflection on clinical practice leads to the conclusion that a patient's emotional responses remain puzzling, and are labelled symptoms, only so long as they are seen divorced from the situation that elicited them.
Chapter 21
p. 358, paragraph 4, line 12
A further finding ( Stayton & Ainsworth 1973) is that the more responsive a mother was in dealing with her baby when he cried during the early months of his life the more likely he was to greet her cheerfully when she returned after a short absence.
Very recently Main ( 1973) has carried these studies a step further by following up children who had been observed in the strange situation at the age of twelve months and observing them again in a different but comparable situation nine months later. Of forty children so followed up, twenty-five had been classified as secure at twelve months and fifteen as insecure. 1 When observed again at the age of twenty-one months in a free-play session, the children earlier classified as secure were found to concentrate on an activity both more intensely and for longer periods, and to smile and laugh more frequently, than those earlier classified as insecure. When joined by an adult playmate they were far more likely to approach and play with her. When given Bayley developmental tests they proved more cooperative and achieved a mean score of 111. 2 in comparison with a mean of 96. 1 for the insecure. None of these differences could be attributed to variables such as mother's education, the number of siblings a child had, or his previous experience or inexperience of toys. While the gross behaviour of mothers of the two groups of toddlers did not differ appreciably during the observation session, mothers of the secure toddlers showed more interest in the proceedings, watched the child's activities more closely, and expressed more feeling. Thus
____________________
1 Main's secure infants are those classified in this volume in groups P and Q; her insecure
infants are those classified in groups R, S, and T (see footnote to p. 355 above). -413-
the pattern of child-mother interaction established at twelve months was found to have had considerable stability during the succeeding nine-month period; and the findings strongly support the earlier conclusion that infants whose mothers are sensitive and responsive to them are those who later turn cheerfully to exploration and play. Their willingness to cooperate, their capacity to concentrate, and their good scores on developmental tests at twenty-one
308
months bode well for their futures.
Appendix I
page 390, paragraph 1, line 2
In a later work by Anna Freud ( 1972) this theme recurs. Fear of starvation, fear of loneliness, and fear of helplessness are cited, in addition to separation anxiety and fear of annihilation, as 'forms' of anxiety characteristic of the first, or symbiotic, stage in the development of object relations. Unusually intense separation anxiety in later years is attributed to fixation at the symbiotic stage; excessive fear of loss of love may result from parental errors in discipline or from a child's over-sensitive ego during the stage of object constancy. The possible effects of events of later childhood are not discussed.
-414-
References
Abraham K. ( 1913). "'On the Psychogenesis of Agoraphobia in Children. '" In Abraham, Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-analysis. London: Hogarth; New York: Basic Books, 1955.
----- ( 1924). "'A Short Study of the Development of the Libido. '" In Abraham, Selected Papers on Psycho-analysis. London: Hogarth, 1927. New edition, London: Hogarth, 1949; New York: Basic Books, 1953.
Ainsworth M. D. S. ( 1972). "'Attachment and Dependency: A Comparison. '" In J. L. Gewirtz (ed. ), Attachment and Dependence. Washington, D. C. : Winston (distributed by Wiley, New
Y ork).
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