Sue Gerhardt (Durban, 1953) is a British psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice since 1997. She was born in South Africa, but grew up in England. She was educated at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, where she achieved a degree in English literature, and campaigned successfully for women to be given places in the previously single sex men's colleges. [1] She was an active feminist. She was trained as a psychotherapist and achieved an MA in Child Observation at the Tavistock Clinic in London. [2] In 1998 she co-founded the Oxford Parent Infant Project (OXPIP), a pioneering charity that provides psychotherapeutic help to parents and babies in Oxfordshire. [3] She has two adult children and lives in Oxfordshire. [1]
Gerhardt is best known as the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain (2004). [4] The book presents evidence that babies' brains develop differently in the first few months of life depending on the amount and type of care they receive in that time. The evidence suggests that the prefrontal cortex and, within that, the orbitofrontal area are stimulated and interconnect more powerfully when a child is demonstrably loved. The advantage of positive development is increased confidence and an ability to empathise with others. Neglect can lead to increased anxiety, insensitivity and aggression.
The findings may have political implications, since the demand for parents to reduce the time they spend with their child because of work commitments leads to an increased emphasis on institutional child care. [5]
There are also implications for gender politics as women are frequently expected to take on the burden of child care, rather than the father, and this developmental finding could be used to argue for a reduced role for women in the workplace. [6]
Gerhardt commented: "I think that the Women’s Movement was an unfinished revolution. We ended up joining the working world as defined by men and struggling to live on its terms. I think we got stuck in trying to live up to male-defined expectations. That world (including male-dominated governments) didn’t (and still doesn’t) take into account the fact that babies or small children need very personal one-to-one care. Because we were so determined to escape domesticity, I think we feminists had a bit of a blind spot around children’s emotional needs and ignored this uncomfortable fact." [2]
Other books by Sue Gerhardt include 'The Selfish Society'. [7]
Attachment parenting (AP) is a parenting philosophy that proposes methods aiming to promote the attachment of parent and infant not only by maximal parental empathy and responsiveness but also by continuous bodily closeness and touch. The term attachment parenting was coined by the American pediatrician William Sears. There is no conclusive body of research that shows Sears’ approach to be superior to "mainstream parenting".
Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. The theory was formulated by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby.
Edward John Mostyn Bowlby, CBE, FRCP, FRCPsych was a British psychologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachment theory. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Bowlby as the 49th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Human bonding is the process of development of a close, interpersonal relationship between two or more people. It most commonly takes place between family members or friends, but can also develop among groups, such as sporting teams and whenever people spend time together. Bonding is a mutual, interactive process, and is different from simple liking. It is the process of nurturing social connection.
Mary Dinsmore Ainsworth was an American-Canadian developmental psychologist known for her work in the development of the attachment theory. She designed the strange situation procedure to observe early emotional attachment between a child and its primary caregiver.
Sue Osman is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Sandy Ratcliff. She is one of the serial's original characters, appearing in its first episode on 19 February 1985 and departing on-screen in May 1989. Created by Tony Holland and Julia Smith, Sue is portrayed as argumentative, insecure and tragic. A pivotal storyline in the character's narrative is the cot-death of her son, which was one of the show's first controversial plots. During her four years on-screen, the character contends with a phantom pregnancy, marital breakdown and finally insanity. Ratcliff left the role in 1989.
In psychology, an affectional bond is a type of attachment behavior one individual has for another individual, typically a caregiver for her or his child, in which the two partners tend to remain in proximity to one another. The term was coined and subsequently developed over the course of four decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1970s, by psychologist John Bowlby in his work on attachment theory. The core of the term affectional bond, according to Bowlby, is the attraction one individual has for another individual. The central features of the concept of affectional bonding can be traced to Bowlby's 1958 paper, "The Nature of the Child's Tie to his Mother".
Attachment in children is "a biological instinct in which proximity to an attachment figure is sought when the child senses or perceives threat or discomfort. Attachment behaviour anticipates a response by the attachment figure which will remove threat or discomfort". Attachment also describes the function of availability, which is the degree to which the authoritative figure is responsive to the child's needs and shares communication with them. Childhood attachment can define characteristics that will shape the child's sense of self, their forms of emotion-regulation, and how they carry out relationships with others. Attachment is found in all mammals to some degree, especially primates.
In psychology, the theory of attachment can be applied to adult relationships including friendships, emotional affairs, adult romantic relationships or platonic relationships and in some cases relationships with inanimate objects. Attachment theory, initially studied in the 1960s and 1970s primarily in the context of children and parents, was extended to adult relationships in the late 1980s. The working models of children found in Bowlby's attachment theory form a pattern of interaction that are likely to continue influencing adult relationships.
James Robertson (1911–1988) was a psychiatric social worker and psychoanalyst based at the Tavistock Clinic and Institute, London from 1948 until 1976.
Cupboard love is a popular learning theory of the 1950s and 1960s based on the research of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein and Mary Ainsworth. Rooted in psychoanalysis, the theory speculates that attachment develops in the early stages of infancy. This process involves the mother satisfying her infant's instinctual needs, exclusively. Cupboard love theorists conclude that during infancy, our primary drive is food which leads to a secondary drive for attachment.
Maternal deprivation is a scientific term summarising the early work of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby on the effects of separating infants and young children from their mother although the effect of loss of the mother on the developing child had been considered earlier by Freud and other theorists. Bowlby's work on delinquent and affectionless children and the effects of hospital and institutional care led to his being commissioned to write the World Health Organization's report on the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe whilst he was head of the Department for Children and Parents at the Tavistock Clinic in London after World War II. The result was the monograph Maternal Care and Mental Health published in 1951, which sets out the maternal deprivation hypothesis.
Attachment-based psychotherapy is a psychoanalytic psychotherapy that is informed by attachment theory.
Infant mental health is the study of mental health as it applies to infants, toddlers, and their families. The field investigates optimal social and emotional development of infants and their families in the first three years of life. Cognitive development, and the development of motor skills may also be considered part of the infant mental health picture. While the interest in the mental life of infants in the context of their early relationships can be traced back to the work of Anna Freud, John Bowlby, and Donald Winnicott in Great Britain, infant mental health as a movement of public health policy, empirical research, and change in clinical practice paralleled both that of the women's movement and of increased awareness of the prevalence and consequences of child abuse and neglect during the 1960s and 1970s. The vast literature that has emerged since the field's origins has been reviewed in several key texts. Basic principles of infant mental health evaluation and treatment involve consideration of at least three patients: parent(s), child, and their relationship, while keeping in mind the rapid and formative development of the brain and mind in the first years of life.
Attachment theory, originating in the work of John Bowlby, is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory that provides a descriptive and explanatory framework for understanding interpersonal relationships between human beings.
Attachment-based therapy applies to interventions or approaches based on attachment theory, originated by John Bowlby. These range from individual therapeutic approaches to public health programs to interventions specifically designed for foster carers. Although attachment theory has become a major scientific theory of socioemotional development with one of the broadest, deepest research lines in modern psychology, attachment theory has, until recently, been less clinically applied than theories with far less empirical support. This may be partly due to lack of attention paid to clinical application by Bowlby himself and partly due to broader meanings of the word 'attachment' used amongst practitioners. It may also be partly due to the mistaken association of attachment theory with the pseudo-scientific interventions misleadingly known as attachment therapy. The approaches set out below are examples of recent clinical applications of attachment theory by mainstream attachment theorists and clinicians and are aimed at infants or children who have developed or are at risk of developing less desirable, insecure attachment styles or an attachment disorder.
Video feedback interventions are used in health and social care situations. Typically a “guider” helps a client to enhance communication within relationships. The client is guided to analyse and reflect on video clips of their own interactions. Applications include a caregiver and infant, and other education and care home interactions. Video feedback interventions have also been used where concerns have been expressed over possible parental neglect in cases where the focus child is aged 2–12, and where the child is not the subject of a child protection plan.
Charles Maurice Bevan-Brown was a New Zealand psychiatrist and psychotherapist who practised in Christchurch from the 1940s to the 1960s. He established a clinic for medical psychology and founded the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists. He was influential in the formation and ethos of Parents' Centres New Zealand.
Joyce Robertson was a British psychiatric social worker, child behavioural researcher, childcare pioneer and pacifist, who was most notable for changing attitudes to the societally acceptable, institutionalised care and hospitalisation of young children, that was prevalent. In the late 1940s Robertson worked with Anna Freud first at the Well Baby Clinic and later in the Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic. She was later joined by her husband James Robertson. In 1965, both of them moved to the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations to work with John Bowlby on the Young Children in Brief Separation project and the development of attachment theory. This was to research the mental state and psychological development of children who underwent brief separation from their parents. Later in her career, Robertson worked with her husband to produce a series of celebrated documentary films that highlighted the reaction of small children who were separated from their parents. These were shown in hospitals, foster care and state run hospitals. Later she was known for promoting the idea of foster care instead of residential nurseries.
Child Guidance was both an evolving 20th-century social construct, sometimes called the Child Guidance Movement, and an influential network of multidisciplinary clinics set up to address the problems of childhood and adolescence. It began in the United States and after World War I spread rapidly to Europe, especially to England, though not to Scotland. It was the first child-centred institutional response to meet perceived child and youth behavioural and mental disorders. It therefore predated the advent of child psychiatry as a medical specialism and of distinct child psychiatric departments as part of modern hospital settings.