Maternal Care and Mental Health
Also known as Maternal care and mental health, Child Care and the Growth of Love, Bowlby's WHO report
John Bowlby's 1951 WHO report on what children lose when separated from a mother figure
At a glance
What it argues
A child needs one continuous relationship, Deprivation comes in degrees, Society must support parents
See all 3Key ideas
Mother as the child's ego, Critical periods, Bad homes over good institutions
See all 3Examples from the book
The core sentence, Who it covered
See all 2Criticism and limits
Thin evidence, no theory, Privation and deprivation mixed up, Used against working mothers …
See all 5Read next
Attachment and Loss, A Secure Base
See all 2Connections
John Bowlby and Attachment theory
See all 2
Also on this page: Key facts · Links · Sources · Related pages
- The World Health Organization asked Bowlby to report on the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe.
- He gathered the scattered studies on children separated from their mothers.
- His conclusion: a young child needs a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with a mother or permanent substitute.
- Lacking it, he argued, can do lasting harm.
- It changed hospital and orphanage practice, and its weak theory pushed him toward attachment theory.
Why it matters
- Read it, or a summary of it, to see where attachment theory started and how a policy report shaped childcare for decades, for better and worse.
Key facts
- Author
- John Bowlby3
- Published
- 19511
- Second edition
- 19523
- Publisher
- World Health Organization, Monograph Series no. 23
- Also printed in
- Bulletin of the World Health Organization, vol. 3, pp. 355–533 (1951)4
- ISBN
- 9241400021 (2nd edition)3
- Popular version
- Child Care and the Growth of Love (Penguin); a 1965 edition added review chapters by Mary Ainsworth2
- Reach
- Written in 6 months, translated into 14 languages, 400,000 copies sold in English paperback2
- Influence
- Changed institutional care of children and let parents visit young children in hospital more often1
What it argues
-
A child needs one continuous relationship2
To grow up mentally healthy, an infant needs a warm, intimate, continuous relationship with the mother or a permanent substitute, which both enjoy.
-
Deprivation comes in degrees5
Bowlby called the lack of that relationship maternal deprivation: almost complete in many institutions, partial at home, mild with a familiar substitute.
-
Society must support parents5
Parents depend on the wider community, so a society that values its children must support their parents, including single mothers.
Key ideas
-
Mother as the child's ego2
Bowlby wrote that in early childhood the mother does the child's self-regulation for it, handing those jobs over gradually.
-
Critical periods2
He compared the mother to an organizer in embryology, acting on the psyche during certain critical periods.
-
Bad homes over good institutions5
His remark that children thrive better in bad homes than in good institutions argued for supporting families rather than removing children.
Examples from the book
-
The core sentence2
"...a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment" (p. 13).
-
Who it covered5
It dealt with children in institutions, hospitals and foster care, and with policies removing children from unwed mothers and neglected homes.
Criticism and limits
-
Thin evidence, no theory5
Critics asked whether the evidence supported the hypothesis; Bowlby later agreed the data fitted no theory of the time.
-
Privation and deprivation mixed up1
It did not separate having no attachment figure from losing one, or from the general understimulation of institutions.
-
Used against working mothers1
Governments used it to claim any separation harms a child and to discourage mothers from work and day care.
-
Partly right, often for the wrong reasons5
Michael Rutter's 1981 reassessment found Bowlby only partially right; separation is one of many risk factors.
-
Fathers left out5
Fathers appear only as support for the mother; the 1962 WHO follow-up added a chapter on paternal deprivation.
Read next
-
The trilogy in which Bowlby built the theory this report lacked.
-
Bowlby's own later lectures, including how the report led to attachment theory.
Connections
Links
Sources
- John Bowlby (Wikipedia) (opens en.wikipedia.org)
- Bretherton I. The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, Developmental Psychology 1992 (opens psychology.sunysb.edu)
- Maternal care and mental health, 2nd ed. (WHO IRIS) (opens iris.who.int)
- Bowlby J. Maternal care and mental health, Bull World Health Organ 1951 (Europe PMC) (opens europepmc.org)
- Maternal deprivation (Wikipedia) (opens en.wikipedia.org)
Last checked against its sources today
Is something on this page wrong or out of date? Tell us
The line under a date fills as time passes: empty when new, then one equal share each for a day, a week, a month and a year. For episodes and other items it is full at 2 years; for "last checked", at a year. A striped line means the date is known only to the month or year.