Deprivation of Maternal Care: A Reassessment of Its Effects.

Abstract

Several distinguished workers in child psychiatry and related fields have contributed to this publication, a result of a reassessment of Bowlby's theory about maternal deprivation. As indicated in the preface, Bowlby's original study was limited in regard to specific cultures and factors of paternal deprivation and its interaction with maternal deprivation. Some aspects of these factors comprise the body of this publication. In the chapter Masked Deprivation in Infants and Young Children, Prugh and Harlow present an excellent historical review of studies of the emotional effects of parental separation. The focus of this chapter relates to the significance of the subtle or masked emotional deprivation (in contrast to Bowlby's emphasis on gross maternal deprivation) children may experience even in an intact family living situation. Clinical examples are given in which parent-child relationships involve no physical separation, but in which there is evidence of distorted, or insufficient, relatedness. The authors