The psychological shifts in perceiving infants and children.

Child Psychology challenges the fierce belief in genetic heritage.

It was not until after WW II that psychological studies could challenge this old perspective of genes and heredity. Until then psychological research had had little to line up with, in respect to the traditional and mainly medically based notion of heredity.

– The chimpanzee studies

Here Harlows studies of chimpanzee pups separated from their mothers, was one of the first significant contributions. Chimp kids who lost the relationship with their mothers, did not only show various forms of grief and sadness. They were also highly dysfunctional in their behavior. http://Harlow 1962). http://psykologisk.no/2014/04/en-studie-av-tilknytning/(From animal protectors view and many others this study was not considered right to the poor chimpanzee kids)

– Hospitalized children

Before this, Rene’ Spitz (1950) detected that hospitalized children separated from their parents, developed depressive traits. These disorders were then named hospitalism and anaclitic depression. Ever since Spitz discovered the roots of this kind of depression, Hospital Child Wards world over have tried gradually to include parents in the treatment of small https://youtu.be/VvdOe10vrs4

– Maternal care and disorders

  Crucial bonds of love and care between mother and child

Two years later, in 1952, John Bowlby presented his attachment theory. The theory was based on empirical studies of the mother & child relationship, and was published in “Maternal Care and Mental Health” (Bowlby 1952). Here he focuses on the quality of the child’sattachment to the caregiver.

What he discovered was that if the mother is not capable of giving the child a stable, safe and good enough relationship, this also most probably will stop the child’s healthy development. If the actual condition is unchanged and no remedy is presented, the child most likely will have to develop some special psychological survival or protection techniques. Such techniques however, very often form the basis of later psychopathology.

   The relationship between mother and child,  and mother, father and the child, has enormous impact on the child’s health and development.

– The old view of babies and children crumbles

Prior to this first psychological shift in the 1950’s and 60’s, in perceiving the infant and children, it was both among the general population, and in some academic circles, an often unspoken perception that the individual almost independent of environmental impact, just unfolded the inherited characteristics as the petals of a flower.
Certainly newborns were conceived as temporary helpless, so the environment had to be there to provide food, care, clothing and home. Besides having knowledge inculcated in terms of language learning, and learning the basic rules of the society’s and the prevailing norms, the child was supposed to reveal it’s genetic  properties automatically .

The general notion therefore, was mainly that knowledge could be filled on to the  differently inherited containers for learning, that the kids had inherited, the same way you refuel gas on a tank. Then, widely differing later knowledge and behavioral consequences of this teaching, was likewise assigned to the different genetically shaped containers of the same babies as grown ups.

A similar attitude prevailed on matters regarding the child’s psychological and emotional development. Personality, with its presumed inherently positive or negative qualities were all in all and regardless of education, understood as contingent on the hereditary matrix.

This was as mentioned a common belief among the general population, despite the fact that Freud and his descendant’s developmental theories had begun to spread in Europe and the US.

To be continued in the article: http://www.selvuniverset.com/2016/07/31/i-am-like-an-unfinished-novel/

Litterature for Genes and Psychology 1,2,3 :

Bates,Timothy: (2012)  Journal of Personality og Personality Science.

Benjamin, J. (1988): The Bonds of Love: psychoanalysis, feminism, and the problems of domination. New York: Pantheon Books.
Benjamin, J :(1995) Like Subjects, Love Objects:  Essays on Recognition and Sexual Difference. Yale University Press. 1995.

Crick, Francis & Watson, James D: (1954) Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid, in Nature, 25 April 1953.

Fosse, Roar: (2009) Ingen Gener for Psykiske lidelser. Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening, Vol 46, nummer 6, 2009, side 596-600

Fonagy, Peter: (2001) Attachment Theory and Psychoanalysis , ( 2001)

Frank, Lone. (2012): Mitt vidunderlige gen. AdLibris, Oslo (2012)

Harlow, H.F. Development of affection in primates. Pp. 157-166 in: Roots of Behavior (E.L. Bliss, ed.). New York: Harper. 1962.

Jacobsen, Hanne Østli; (2012) Genene styrer deg, men hva styrer genene? I ”Forskning. no ”(Onsdag 19. september 2012)

Platon. “Menon” (380 BC) translated by B, Jowett, C.Scribner’s Sons, NY, 1871

Schibbye, A.-L.L. (2002). En dialektisk relasjonsforstålse i psykoterapi med individ, par og
familie. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Schibbye, Anne Lise Løvlie (1988): Familien: tvang og mulighet – om samspill og behandling.

Schibbye, A. L. L. (2009). Relasjoner. Et dialektisk perspektiv på eksistensiell og dynamisk psykoterapi. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Stern, Daniel N: The First Relationship: Infant and Mother (1977)

Stern, Daniel N:  The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Development (1985) and    (1998). ISBN 978-0-465-03403-1

Stern, Daniel N.: Diary of a Baby (1990)

Stern, Daniel N.: Motherhood Constellation: A Unified View of Parent-Infant Psychotherapy (1995)

Stern, Daniel N.: The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life (WW Norton & Company, 2004)

Trevarthen, C.: Conversations with a two-month old. New Scientist 2, 230-5 (1974a)

Trevarthen, C. & Tronick, EZ.: Intersubjective Communication and Emotion in Early Ontogeny
Cambridge University Press (1998). Redigert av Stein Bråten, digitalisert 2006.

Tronick EZ, Cohn JF.:  Infant-mother face-to-face interaction: age and gender differences in coordination and the occurrence of miscoordination. Child Development 1989 Feb; 60(1):85-92.