Friday, July 17, 2009

In this blog entry today I have decided today to look quite a bit into the extensive and influential life of John Bowlby; an interesting man who was influential even to Freud. Bowlby was a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who became famous with research that was related to child development and because of his creation of an attachment theory. Bowlby studied psychology and pre-clinical sciences at Trinity College in Cambridge where he performed outstanding as a student. After Trinity Bowlby worked with maladjusted and delinquent children and enrolled at University College Hospital in London and at the age of 26 even had professional qualifications in medicine. While Bowlby was in med school he enrolled himself at the Institute for Psychoanalysis. After medical school Bowlby trained for adult psychiatry at Maudsley Hospital and in 1937 he was actually a qualified psychoanalyst. During World War 2 Bowlby was also a Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps and after the war he became a Deputy Director of the Tavistock Clinic and then later a Mental Health Consultant to the World Health Organization. Bowlby was interested in the development of children and so he began working at the Child Guidance Clinic in London. Bowlby was interested from the start of his career in troubles related to the situation of separation and he also was interested in the wartime work of Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham, which means he was interested in their work on evacuees. Bowlby was also interested in the research by Rene Spitz on orphans. By the late 1950's Bowlby had gathered enough observational and theoretical work to indicate the essential importance for human development of attachment from birth. Bowlby was curious of finding out the actual patterns of family interaction that occurs in both healthy and pathological development. Bowlby examined how attachment difficulties were sent down from one generation to another. In Bowlby's development of attachment theory Bowlby talks of the idea that attachment behavior was essentially an evolutionary life strategy for protecting the infant from predators. Bowlby had some views that children were interestingly responding to real life events and not unconscious fantasies, but this perspective was not liked by the psychoanalyst community. Later on in Bowlby's career he expressed the perspective that his interest in real life experiences and situations was foreign to the Kleininan outlook founded by Melanie Klein. In 1949, Bowlby wrote the World Health Organizations report on the mental health of homeless children in post war, because of his related research experience in this area. Bowlby's overall analysis was that "the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with their mother (or permanent mother substitute in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment". Bowlby's World Health Report was helpful in causing widespread changes in the practices and prevalence of institutional aid for infants and children and also in the changing of ways related to parents visiting small children and infants in hospitals. However Bowlby's theoretical basis in his health report was controversial in a variety of ways. As Bowlby had came away from psychoanalytic theories that viewed an infant's internal life as being determined by fantasy instead of real life events. At a certain point the health report was actually used by some for political reasons to influence women in not working and leaving their children in daycare by governments that were interested in increasing employment for returning servicemen. In 1962, the World Health Organization published "Deprivation of Maternal care: A Reassessment of its Effects", to which Mary Ainsworth who was Bowlby's close colleague contributed on. This publication by Ainsworth and Bowlby was also written to look at the situation of the previous lack of evidence on the effects of paternal deprivation. In Bowlby's research it was apparent that he was dissatisfied with traditional theories and was looking for new understanding from such fields as evolutionary biology, ethology, developmental psychology, cognitive science and control systems theory and he drew from them to try and develop the innovative notion that the mechanisms that influence an infant emerge as an influence of evolutionary pressure. Bowlby felt a need to develop a new theory of motivation and behavior control based on up-to-date science rather then Freud's espoused older psychic energy model. From the 1950's Bowlby was in personal and scientific contact with European Scientists at the forefront of ethology, like Robert Hinde and Konrad Lorenz. From studying ethology Bowlby was really able to develop a new explanatory hypotheses for what is now known as human attachment behavior. Bowlby was able through the basis of ethological evidence to reject the dominate Cupboard Love Theory of Attachment that was existing in psychoanalysis and learning theory in the 1940's and 50's. "Bowlby also helped bring about the notions of environmentally stable or labile human behaviour allowing for the revolutionary combination of the idea of a species-specific genetic bias to become attached and the concept of individual differences in attachment security as environmentally labile strategies for adaptation to a specific childrearing niche". Interestingly to me also Bowlby's thinking about the nature and function of the caregiver-child relationship influenced ethological research and inspired students of animal behavior, like Harry Harlow. "Bowlby helped influence animal behavior researcher Hinde to start his important work on separation in primates and in general the emphasis of the importance of evolutionary thinking about human development that foreshadowed the new interdisciplinary approach known as evolutionary psychology". Before the publication of the trilogy in 1969, 1972 and 1980 the central principles of attachment theory building on concepts from ethology and development psychology were shown to the British Psychoanalytical in three different papers: "The Nature of the Child’s Tie to His Mother" (1958), "Separation Anxiety" (1959), and "Grief and Mourning in Infancy and Early Childhood" (1960). Bowlby denied psychoanalysts explanations for attachment and from this psychanalysts were not acceptant of Bowlby's theory. Bowlby's former colleague Mary Ainsworth completed thorough observational studies on the nature of infants attachments in Uganda as she kept Bowlby's Ethological perspectives in her own outlooks. This research of Ainsworth and others studies helped significantly to the subsequent evidence base of attachment theory as shown in 1969 through the first Volume of the "Attachment and Loss Trilogy". Attachment theory follows the belief that attachment in infants is essentially a process of proximity searching to a recognized attachment figure in circumstances of a perceived worry for the reason of survival. "Infants become attached to adults who are sensitive and responsive in social interactions with the infant, and who remain as regular caregivers for some months from around 6 months to two years of age". "Parental response influences the development of patterns of attachment, which then influence 'internal working models' which will shape and influence the individual's feelings, thoughts and expectations in later relationships". In Bowlby's notions of attachment, the human infant is thought to have a need for a secure relationship with adult caregivers, without that regular social and emotional progress will not take place. "As the toddler develops, it uses its attachment figure or figures as a secure beginning or base from which to explore". Interestingly to me Mary Ainsworth partly applies a feature called "stranger wariness" to help develop a research tool called the "Stranger Situation Procedure", so to develop and classify different attachment styles. "The attachment process is not specified to gender, as infants will develop attachments to any consistent caregiver who is sensitive and responsive in social interactions with the infant". "The quality of the social connection seems to be more significant than amount of time spent." Attachment theory has been talked of as the top approach to understanding early social development and to have helped rise a great influence of empirical research into the creation of children's close relationships. "As it is currently established and applied for research purposes, Bowlby's attachment theory emphasizes the following important principles": "1) children between 6 and about 30 months are very likely to form emotional attachments to familiar caregivers, especially if the adults are sensitive and responsive to child communications. 2) The emotional attachments of young children are shown behaviorally in their preferences for particular familiar people, their tendency to seek proximity to those people, especially in times of distress, and their ability to use the familiar adults as a secure base from which to explore the environment. 3) The formation of emotional attachments contributes to the foundation of later emotional and personality development, and the type of behavior toward familiar adults shown by toddlers has some continuity with the social behaviors they will show later in life. 4) Events that interfere with attachment, such as abrupt separation of the toddler from familiar people or the significant inability of carers to be sensitive, responsive or consistent in their interactions, have short-term and possible long-term negative impacts on the child's emotional and cognitive life". Well this had definitely been a long and interesting blog post for me as I don't recall ever yet researching a individual in the field of psychology who went so in depth into the important psychological factors of how attachment operates.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Fritz Perls is an interesting figure in psychology to me. I came across his name when looking more into influences of Freud. Perls was a influential German born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent. Perls coined the term 'Gestalt Therapy', which is an approach to therapy that was created with the help of him and his wife Laura Perls. The approach Perls created is related to but not exactly the same as Gestalt Psychology and the Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy of Hans-Ju-rgen Walter. " The center of Gestalt Therapy is about the promotion of awareness and the awareness of the unity of all present feelings and behaviors and the contact among the self and the environment". Perls was widely brought out of the world of psychotherapy interestingly for a quotation of his often described as the "Gestalt Prayer", which goes as follows: "I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped". It is surely apparent to me that Perls definitely had an interesting life from his various research, like the research related text in the book "Ego, Hunger and Aggression" published in 1941 with the help of his wife Laura and from things like being an army psychiatrist in the South African Army during World War 2, where he served as the rank of captain. Perls also worked briefly with Karen Horney in New York and then later on with Wilhelm Reich after being in the South African Army. Around 1947, Perls asked author Paul Goodman to write up some handwritten notes, which also came with the help from Ralph Hefferline and these notes where published as Gestalt Therapy. And to add a couple more interesting facts about Perls life in 1960 Perls moved to California where he continued to provide workshops as a member of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur and then he later moved to Vancouver Island Canada and started a Gestalt Community at Lake Cowichan. So in summary here I have to say it is hard to imagine where the schools of thought of the Gestalt perspective would be without the fascinating works of Fritz Perls.

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Rollo May is an American existential psychologist who authored the influential book "Love and Will". May is often associated with humanistic psychology, but unlike other humanists like Maslow May differs because he constructed his principles around the notion of existentialist philosophy. May was also close friends with the theologian Paul Tillich. May was influenced by American humanism and had ambition to reconcile existential psychology with other approaches in psychology and in regards to this May was especially interested in Freud's approach. May had felt that Otto Rank helped influence the most important beginning of existential therapy. "May applied some traditional existential terms in a slightly different way then others and he liked to create new words for traditional existentialist concepts". May developed a type of system to help further understand development, which consists of some of the following:
"Innocence – the pre-egoic, pre-self-conscious stage of the infant. The innocent is only doing what he or she must do. However, an innocent does have a degree of will in the sense of a drive to fulfill needs.
"Rebellion – the rebellious person wants freedom, but has yet no full understanding of the responsibility that goes with it".
"Decision – The person is in a transition stage in their life where they need to break away from their parents and settle into the ordinary stage". In this stage they must decide what path their life will take, along with fulfilling rebellious needs from the rebellious stage".
"Ordinary – the normal adult ego learned responsibility, but finds it too demanding, and so seeks refuge in conformity and traditional values.
Creative – the authentic adult, the existential stage, beyond ego and self-actualizing. This is the person who, accepting destiny, faces anxiety with courage".
In his career May also looked at the sexual revolution of the 1960 and 70's and thought that the increase of sex and pornography in society was influencing people in believing that love and sex are no longer directly associated with each other. May also believed emotion had become disconnected from reason, making it socially acceptable to look for sexual relationships and to ignore the natural drive to relate to another individual and begin new life. So May thought the awakening of sexual freedoms can influence modern society to avoid awakenings at greater levels. May thought the only means of turning around cynical ideas that are part of our generation would be to rediscover the significance of caring for each other or also as May would refer to it, apathy. Mays first book, "The Meaning of Anxiety" was based on his doctoral dissertation which was also based on his understanding of philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. May's defining of anxiety would consist of the following: "the apprehension cued off by a threat to some value which the individual holds essential to his existence as a self" (1967, p. 72). In 1956, May edited the book "Existence" with the help of Ernest Angel and Henri Ellenberger and this book had helped to introduce existential psychology to the US. May was definitely an interesting man in my view and I am curious to learn more about existential psychology since studying psychology in school I have focused more on humanistic psychology and psychoanalysis.
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