by
James Robertson
During the previous quarter of a century, much had been published about the general
effects of separation from the mother in early childhood, mostly in the form of retrospective
or follow-up studies. The few direct observational studies had been done exclusively
in hospitals and other residential institutions (Dorothy Burlingham & Anna Freud,
1942, 1944; Freud, 1974; Christopher Heinicke & Ilse Westheimer, 1965; Z Micic, 1962;
D G Prugh, E M Staub, H H Sands, R M Kirschbaum & E A Lenihan, 1953; James Robertson,
1953, Rudolph Schaffer & W M Callender, 1959; Rene Spitz, 1945; Spitz & K M Wolff,
1946). Institution-based studies had the limitation that the data they provided did
not permit responses to separation from the mother to be reliably differentiated
from the influence of associated adverse factors such as illness, pain, cot confinement,
multiple caretakers and the confusion which follows transfer from home into a strange
environment. Some writers cautioned the influence of associated factors, but without
being able to indicate their relative importance. For lack of means of differentiating,
the literature on early separation therefore remained substantially a literature
on an assortment of factors of unknown weight among which loss of the mother was
only one.
This was the point at which we and John Bowlby began to see things differently. Bowlby
(1960), theorising principally on the hospital data collected by James Robertson,
made what we saw as a sweeping generalisation:
that acute distress is the usual response of young children (between about six months
and three to four years of age) to separation from the mother, regardless of circumstances
and quality of substitute care; and, by implication, that there is no distinction
between the responses of these infants at different levels of development.
Anna Freud (1960), criticising Bowlby’s generalisations, involved herself in the
discussion, conducted within the Psychoanalytic Study of the Child.
Neither the Hampstead Nurseries nor hospitals and other residential homes have offered
ideal conditions for the study of separation per se. We, as well as Dr Bowlby, used
data collected under circumstances where the children had to adapt not only to the
loss of the mother but also to the change from family to group life, a transition
very difficult to achieve for any young child. Whereas the mother herself had been
the undisputed possession of the child, the nurse as substitute mother had to be
shared inevitably with a number of contemporaries. Also, inevitably, it is never
one single nurse who substitutes for the all day and all night care of the mother.
Anna Freud stresses the lack of relevant data without which it is not possible to
make statements about separation per se: "we need to supplement our observations,
excluding group or ward conditions".
The paediatrician and psychologist, Leon J Yarrow (1961), in a definitive review
of research in this area, showed that "maternal separation has never been studied
under pure conditions"; that is, other, complicating factors were always present.
Bowlby’s colleagues Heinicke & Westheimer (1965), discussing their observations on
young children in a residential nursery, acknowledged that their data could not determine
the influence of institutional factors, including that of multiple caretakers. They
speculate that ‘if it were possible to contrast a minimal care situation with one
involving highly individualized care, then one might get quite different results’.
But in Bowlby’s book, 'Attachment & Loss' (1969, Chapter 2), although there is a
passing reference to the complexities of the institutional situation, there was a
disappointing emphasis on the assertion that regardless of age and conditions of
care the young child’s response to separation is usually the mourning sequence initiated
by acute distress:
The subjects of various studies differ in many respects. For example, they differ
in age, in the type of home from which they come, in the type of institution to which
they go and the care they receive there, and in the length of time they are away.
They differ, too, in whether they are healthy or sick. In spite of all these variations,
however, and despite the different backgrounds and expectations of the observers,
there is a remarkable uniformity in the findings. Once a child is over the age of
six months he tends to respond to the event of separation from mother in certain
typical ways.
Without citing the evidence regarding the influence of each class of variable, Bowlby
asserts that "by far the most important variable" is absence of the mother, and dismisses
other variables as relatively unimportant. He deals thus with strange environment,
previous mother-child relationship and the state of the mother as in pregnancy; and
he omits to consider other variables such as quality of substitute care, multiple
caretakers, age and level of maturity of the child at separation.
Moving on from our previous work, Joyce [Robertson] and I decided to try to clarify
the subject by looking more closely at the influence of variables on the behaviour
of healthy young children during a ten-day separation from the mother. In order to
achieve maximum coverage we would become foster-parents to a series of young children,
giving care for twenty-four hours a day and making written and filmed observations
while doing so.
We made a proposal to Dr Bowlby, then director of the Tavistock Child Development
Research Unit, for a project to refine the earlier studies by getting closer to separation
per se. Unfortunately he was not as responsive as we would have liked.
But ultimately £1,000 of unit funds were earmarked for our use. Joyce left the Hampstead
Well Baby Clinic where she had worked for the previous ten years and joined me at
the Tavistock Clinic.
In a pilot study we took into our foster care Kate, aged two years five months, referred
by a social worker in the maternity hospital where the mother awaited the birth of
a second child. Our research experience hitherto had been of young children who had
reacted with acute distress to admission to hospitals and other institutions. We
were therefore apprehensive that Kate would do something similar right in our home.
But she did not. For the first three or four days of the separation she was cheerful
and controlled, only gradually showing signs of anxiety. There were subtleties of
behaviour that were observable only because of the intimacy of her care by Joyce
and never previously described in the literature.
During the month’s separation she formed a strong attachment to her substitute mother,
and it was clear that in this instance the acute distress asserted by Dr Bowlby to
be inevitable did not occur. We judged that this had been prevented by the quality
of care during the separation. We were excited by our findings, and eager to continue
with the project; but unfortunately, as so often happens in research departments,
other projects were considered more important and the balance of the £1,000 that
had been allocated to the project was now put to other purposes. The balance having
been withdrawn, we were left without funds. That was an unexpected blow which threatened
to put an end to the project. It was serious, bearing in mind the difficulty of finding
subjects; a second child, Jane, was already lined up for our foster care in two months’
time.
We were angered and bewildered that our project which promised to throw new light
on separation behaviour was to be jettisoned, but so sure in our own minds of its
value that we set about finding our own funds. Time was short. We decided to approach
the Grant Foundation in New York. Adele Morrison, the general secretary, had a very
positive attitude to us, partly through my work on children in hospital but more
importantly because of her appreciation of the reports on the Hampstead Well Baby
Clinic that Joyce had written over some years.
It happened that we were to be in the United States to lecture at Yale and Harvard,
so we arranged to go first to New York for a preliminary discussion. Adele Morrison
listened with keen interest to our ideas, said she would consult some colleagues
and, a few days later, telephoned across the United States to say the Grant Foundation
would give an advance to enable us to proceed with Jane on our return to London.
In New York a few days later we picked up a cheque for £1,000 in advance and had
assurance that funding for three years awaited formal application. Our satisfaction
that our previous work should have merited such a positive response from the Grant
Foundation, and relief that the study of Jane could go ahead, knew no bounds.
This made us independent, free of the danger of obstruction of our research. (The
Grant Foundation financed this project for the next eleven years, supplementing the
salary of James Robertson as a psychiatric social worker in the National Health
Service. Adele Morrison, the most knowledgeable and considerate general secretary,
not only read our running accounts of observations but visited us frequently to discuss
them in insightful detail — visits usually scheduled for a morning but always lasting
all day. This was the most rewarding relationship with a foundation that any researchers
could wish for — funding and deep interest.)
During these years we studied and filmed four young children taken into our foster
care and one child filmed in a residential nursery generously funded by a personal
award from Kodak. This became the series, 'Young Children in Brief Separation'.
Copyright © Robertson Films
