THEORY (IN RELATION TO CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE)

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THEORIES

Erikson Psychosocial developmentKlein Object Relations TheoryWinnicott Transitional objectBowlby Attachment Theory

ERIK ERIKSON 1902 - 1994 Born of a Jewish mum (prominent Jewish family in Copenhagen) & a Danish

dad – born out of wedlock, mother had an affair then fled to Frankfurt, Germany.

Erikson was a tall, blue eyed blonde. Raised as a Jew – he went to Temple, Brought up in Germany – attended a school with other ‘Nordic’ children. He didn’t fit in either place.

Erikson is believed to have coined the term ‘Identity Crisis’ As a young (non academic) adult, he struggled with who he was, where he

belonged – to which cultural group? Competing ideas of ethnic, religious and national identity.

When he was 25, he met Freud in Vienna and encouraged by daughter Anna (who noticed his sensitivity towards children), he began to study Psychoanalysis, particularly child analysis. He worked alongside Montessori.

AND MORE… Erikson left Germany in 1933 because of the War Married with 2 children, he ended up in the US Became 1st Child Psychoanalyst in Boston, working at Massachussets

General hospital, Harvard Medical Centre and Yale University In 1950, he published his seminal book ‘Childhood and Society’ Worked extensively with Native American Indians where he observed,

among other things, their sense of ‘uprootedness’, their lack of continuity between their present life style and their tribal history

This was reinforced when working with WW2 veterans, where he observed that the returning soldiers had lost the sense of ‘who or what they were’

These experiences led to…

ERIKSON ON ‘IDENTITY CRISIS’ Erikson lived such a crisis in his own life. At a young age found out his father was really

his stepfather. Went to art school against his stepfather's wish before entering psychiatry. In an identity crisis, we feel we must turn one way or another. Our identities can change. An adolescent may adopt a set of values as part of his or her

identity, but they are not necessarily mature values, and may be changed. Early in life, a negative identity may emerge from having been shamed, punished, made to feel guilty.

Adolescent may become suddenly aware of the need tor a separate identity from others, different from parents' expectations.

Even if one has solved an identity crisis, later changes can precipitate a renewal of the crisis.

On teenagers, Erikson said, "Young people in serious trouble are not fit for the couch. They want to face you and want you to face them." It's a mistake, he said, to treat young people in groups (like gangs) as people with only negative values. Rather we can see them as people who have gotten side tracked in looking for the truth.

MELANIE KLEIN Born in Vienna, of Jewish parentage – invited to London in 1926 by British

psychoanalyst Ernest Jones 1st person to use psychoanalysis with children, she observed troubled

children play with objects – dolls, animals etc and attempted to interpret specific meaning of play. Like FREUD, she emphasised the significant role parents play in children’s fantasy life, but unlike Freud, she felt the SUPEREGO was present from birth.

Klein felt that babies has no sense of ‘self’, that they are utterly dependant on their mother for sense of ‘self’ – that the mother is the baby’s ego.

Klein had a difference of opinion with Anna Freud in London in 1938 which led to many controversies – referred to as CONTROVERSIAL DISCUSSIONS which split the British Psycho – Analytic society into 3.

FREUD’S STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

WINNICOTObject Relations Theory

Winnicott’s concept of the ‘transitional object’ is important and the transitional object, or security blanket, “acts as a bridge which connects the inner world of phantasy to the outer world of reality” The transitional object thus represents the mother ‘out there’ and the ‘inner world’ of self (Gordon, 1975, p.20).

Winnicott’s theory (1965) of the ‘good enough’ mother concluded that ‘the mother is the place that all other relationships develop from’. Winnicott observed that therapists recreate a ‘holding’ environment which resembles the mother and infant/child.

Pre or delinquent behaviour may be related to a sense of loss/ or a cry for help. A search for holding not previously found within the family itself.

TRANSITIONAL OBJECT: THE SPECTRUM

Remind / recall

contain (receptacle)

transfer

represent/symbolise

Transform

Arthern & Madill, 1999:13

WHAT DOES TRANSITIONAL OBJECT MEAN TO A CHILD?

Mother substituteWhen a mother (or primary carer) leaves an infant, they can easily become upset by the disappearance of their primary care-giver. To compensate and comfort for this sense of loss, they imbue some object with the attributes of the mother.Not-meThe transition object also supports the development of the self, as it is used to represent 'not me'. By looking at the object, the child knows that it is not the object and hence something individual and separate. In this way, it helps the child develop its sense of 'other' things (and self).

TRANSITIONAL OBJECT: KEY ATTRIBUTESKey attributes of the transition object include:

• The infant has total rights over it.• The object may be cuddled, loved and mutilated (by the infant).• It must never be changed, except by the infant.• It has warmth or some vitality that indicates it has a reality of its own.• It exists independently of 'inside' or 'outside' and is not a hallucination.• Over time, it loses meaning and becomes relegated to a kind of limbo where it is neither forgotten nor mourned.

YOUR MEMORIES… What can you remember of security blankets? Did you have a favourite

‘thing’ that you ‘had’ to have in order to be able to sleep or to feel ‘safe’

Do you still have it?

If you have children, do they have a ‘security blanket?’

What item can you not be parted from as an adult?

JOHN BOWLBY Born in 1907, to an upper class British family, Bowlby rarely saw his mother and

was cared for by a nanny who left him when he was 4, at 7 he went way to ‘board’ at school, which Bowlby observed was ‘emotionally impoverished’

During WW2, after qualifying as psychoanalysist, he worked extensively with children who had been separated from their parents. This gained him significant evidence on which to base his theory.

While working for the WHO in 1951, he wrote widely on maternal deprivation, in 1956, he began his defining work on ‘Attachment’. This 3 volume body of work was published between 1969 and 1974.

Bowlby felt that the theory of Attachment is essentially an evolutionary mechanism designed to protect the vulnerable infant from predators.

Along with Mary Ainsworth, he created the theory of the ‘secure base’ – a position of safety from which the infant can explore their world and return to their secure base ( generally their mother) for reassurance.

Much of Bowlby’s work looked at the effects of poor Attachment, which is particularly noticeable when in crisis.

BOWLBY’S CYCLE OF AROUSAL

In order to promote good attachment, the significant carer needs to be:

• Accessible• Responsive• Consistent

CYCLE OF DESPAIRProtest – crying, distress, pursuit

of mother, searching for

mother, temper tantruming

Despair, Depression,

quiet withdrawal, refused to be

comforted by a stranger,

disinterest in play or

exploration

Detachment – Lack of

interaction with primary

caregiver after reunion, active avoidance of pcg, failure to recognise pcg

TYPES OF ATTACHMENT Type A – Insecure Avoidant (casually avoids, nonchalantly ignores caregiver

on return) Type B – Secure (displays secure behaviour on return of parent) Type C – Insecure Ambivalent (distressed & inconsolable upon return of

parent) Type D – Disorganised – Disorientated (conflicting, approach/flee, dazed,

freezing on parent’s return – ‘frozen watchfulness’) (Fahlberg 1980)