John Bowlby was very influenced by the experimental work of Konrad Lorenz on ‘imprinting’ in geese. He believed that, like Lorenz’s geese, humans also imprint a carer soon after birth. It had previously been thought that a baby will form a bond or attachment with any carer who provided food and warmth for the infant. But Bowlby thought there was mor to it than this. He believed that human infants attach to their mother’s primarily for emotional reasons rather than practical ones. This, according to Bowlby, was something biologically pre-programmed into us. Bowlby’s work has had a big influence on treating Mother’s and children after birth. The practice of putting the baby in the arms of the mother after birth is a recognition of the importance of this need for early bonding.
Bowlby worked as a psychiatrist in an orphanage during and after WW2. These children had lost their parents and were cared for by lots of different hospital staff, none of whom had personal responsibility for any one child. The orphaned children were often highly distressed and displayed aggressive behaviour. This, Bowlby concluded, was due to the fact that they did not develop a strong emotional bond with any one carer.
Bowlby believed that this strong emotional bond was at the core of healthy development. Children who don’t get this suffer from maternal deprivation. This can happen through death of a caregiver, hospitalisation, or time spent in nursery care. Bowlby saw development as occurring in stages. If the child did not develop attachments early in life they would be damaged for life.
The first stage in Bowlby’s theory is the pre-attachment phase which occurs between birth and 2 months. At 2 months a milestone called the social smile is achieved. This is like an automatic reflex. This occurs in response to any human face, because the baby has not developed an attachment to any one in particular yet. In this stage the child responds to anyone in the environment who provides them with what they need. They don’t show preference for one person over another. In the early attachment phase the baby starts to discriminate between the mother and other people in the environment. At 7 months they will turn towards the mother’s voice. At 8 months the baby has entered the attachment phase and will cry when the mother leaves the room. This is called separation anxiety. The child does not understand that the parent will return and so displays distress in an attempt to get the caregiver to come back. In the attachment phase the infant is wary of people they do not know. This is called stranger anxiety. The partnership phase is the last stage in attachment development. Here the child learns that relationships are a two way street. Other people are no longer seen only as a resource to fulfil the infants needs. In play, children learn to share and operate in a ‘give-and-take’ way.