In the Light of More Recent Research Evaluate Bowlby’s Claim That “Maternal Deprivation Can Lead to Juvenile Delinquency”.

John Bowlby (1907-1990) was a psychoanalyst who concentrated on the mental health and behavioural problems associated with childhood. His work on the theory of attachment suggests that children are innately programmed to form attachments in order to survive. He believed that the mother-baby relationship developed as a result of imprinting, this is a learning skill that establishes a deep attachment with the parent. Although this skill was something previously connected to studies of animals, Bowlby believed there was a similar process that occurred during the development of attachments between human mother and child, at the age of about seven months.

This led to the theory of monotropy, an idea that human babies solely develop one special bond with their mother, which would be completely different to any relationship formed throughout its lifetime. If this attachment were broken at any time, the child would become deeply distressed and psychologically damaged. Bowlby believed this attachment needed to remain constant throughout the first five years of the child’s life to aid socialisation. He believed that the break up of this attachment at an early age could lead to juvenile delinquency, emotional difficulties and anti-social behaviour.

To prove his hypothesis, Bowlby conducted a study on forty-four juvenile delinquents, in a child guidance clinic in London, who were sent to the clinic because they were thieves. He chose another forty-four children, who had been referred to the clinic with emotional problems, but not yet committed a criminal offence, as controls. He then questioned the juveniles in order to find evidence of suffering from maternal deprivation. More than half of the delinquents had been separated from their mothers for longer than six months in the first five years of their lives. In complete comparison, within the control group only two members had experienced such a separation. Bowlby also noted that several of the young delinquents showed...