Page 84 - Meeting with Children Book

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separation was the work of Harlow (1958), and has
been imbedded in introductory psychology courses
historically. This research exposed the disturbed,
disorganized behavior of the infant monkeys who
were removed from their mother’s care. This
emphasized the importance of caregiving and
companionship and the impact of the loss of maternal
care on cognitive and emotional development. The
monkey, presented with two inanimate mother
choices after removal from his actual mother, chose a
cloth monkey mother over a wire monkey mother to
seek contact and comfort in order to calm and sooth
himself, even though he was primarily fed by the wire
mother monkey. This was a disturbing piece of animal
research that emphasized the importance of, and
association with, comfort over a food source.

We cannot refer to attachment theory without
acknowledging Dr. John Bowlby, the originator of the
theory. Bowlby was a Child Psychiatrist who
eventually worked at the London Child Guidance Clinic
from 1936 until the beginning of World War II and for
some time after the war ended. After working with
the Child Guidance Clinic, Bowlby set up a department
for child psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic. He was
responsible for research on the condition of the many
homeless and orphaned children post war by
invitation from the World Health Organization
(Bowlby, 1946), and he later presented his theory on
the biologically-based system of the emotional
relationship between a mother and child (Bowlby,
1958).