Disruption of Attachment

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DISRUPTION OF ATTACHMENT

Spitz & Wolf found a 100 ‘normal’ children who were placed in institution, became severely depressed after a few months. Skeels and Dye found similar children performed poorly on intelligence tests.

JANE, KATE, LUCY & THOMAS

They were placed in a foster care home with the Robertsons for a few weeks. The Robertson’s tried to:

  • Provide high emotional care
  • Devise similar routines to that of their normal home life
  • Organise regular visits from fathers (to maintain emotional links to home).

Although, they sometimes showed signs of distress (Thomas refused cuddles) they slept well and when reunited with mother, they didn’t reject her. Though they did show reluctance to leave foster mother, which shows they had formed emotional bonds.

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THOMAS suffered when they experienced physical disruption with no emotional care

He was put into a residual nursery for 9 days. For the first 2 days he behaved normally.

However, once he failed to gain the attention of the nurses, he turned to his teddy bear for comfort. His behaviour deteriorated:

  • Refused to eat/drink
  • Stopped playing
  • Cried a lot
  • Cuddling his teddy bear.

In the first week, he greeted his father enthusiastically, but by the second week he just sat quietly. When reunited with his mother, he screamed and struggled to get away from her. Months afterwards, ...

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