Separation and divergence: The untold story of James Robertson's and John Bowlby's theoretical dispute on mother–child separation

Abstract

The work of Robertson and Bowlby is generally seen as complementary, Robertson being the practically oriented observer and Bowlby focusing on theoretical explanations for Robertson's observations. The authors add to this picture an "untold story" of the collaboration between Robertson and Bowlby: the dispute between the two men that arose in the 1960s about the corollaries of separation and the ensuing personal animosity. On the basis of unique archival materials, this until now little known aspect of the history of attachment theory is extensively documented. The deteriorating relationship between Robertson and Bowlby is described against the background of different currents in psychoanalysis in Britain in the interbellum.

Of monkeys and men: Spitz and Harlow on the consequences of maternal deprivation

“…In that respect, they fulfilled the same function as Bowlby's and Robertson's papers and films in the United Kingdom (Van der Horst & Van der Veer, 2009a, 2009b. In an interview, Bowlby expressed his conviction that Spitz's role in the US was very prominent: I may have said this before-I think one can't place too much emphasis on the importance of geography.…”

Before Attachment Theory: Separation Research at the Tavistock Clinic, 1948–1956

“…Robertson had joined the Nurseries in 1941. Initially recruited for custodial work and maintenance, he had gone into informal training with Anna Freud, establishing himself as a social worker (Van der Horst & Van der Veer, ). During his work at the Hampstead Nurseries, Robertson had produced fastidious observations of evacuated children, recording the day‐to‐day changes in their responses to separation from their parents.…”

The concept of psychological regression: Metaphors, mapping, Queen Square, and Tavistock Square.

“…Several key members of the Tavistock Clinic staff belonged to the Middle or Independent Group of the British Psychoanalytical Society (Rayner, 1991;van der Horst & van der Veer, 2009). The latter organization, founded in 1919 by Ernest Jones, remained relatively homogeneous until the 1940s, when a series of "Controversial Discussions" (Steiner, 1985) resulted in a split into a group favoring Anna Freud's leadership, a group following Melanie Klein, and an Independent group that tended toward the empiricist and pragmatic approach and avoided closed theoretical systems (Stewart, 2003).…”

“…This approach emerged following a period in which British psychoanalysis developed and was used in both military and civilian populations, a narrative far too extensive to be included in the present paper (but see, e.g., Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983). The new perspective was associated with an eclectic psychiatric group centering around the Tavistock Clinic (van der Horst & van der Veer, 2009), a group that included W. H. R. Rivers. Rivers had already foreshadowed the new approach when he followed his observation of soldiers' reactions to trauma with the suggestion that regression has adaptive value, in that all stress reactions have the possibility of removing the individual from the traumatic scene (Rivers, 1922; Young, 1999); the idea of regression as a step in recovery was thus not wholly new even outside Freudian circles.…”