Maternal deprivation theory formulated by Bowlby refers to various situations in which a child is separated by his mother or by a permanent substitute caregiver. The situations may range from : returning to work after the maternity leave period, hospitalisation of the child (but could be of the mother as well by implicit consequences), death of the mother, abandonment of the child in orphanages and residential nurseries.
Given the pivotal influence a secure attachment has for the child in the long term, Bowlby rightfully started to investigate the effects of the interruptions in the relationship.
In 1951 he presented his conclusions to the WHO ( World Health Organisation). He believed that daycare children younger than three or even five years old were at
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So he concluded that maternal deprivation was the cause, the root for this wrong behaviour. Yarrow 's research confirmed that there is a correlation between unstable and broken homes and delinquency. In another correlational study, Rutter investigated the relationship between early separation and later social maladjustment. His findings indicated that there is a higher correlation for children living in conflictual family environments rather than for hospitalised children (separed from their family due to sickeness and the necessity for treatment in the hospital).
Bowlby also found that 32% of the young thieves showed affectionless psychopathy, a condition characterised by a lack of guilt, lack of true concern for other 's emotional wellbeing, hence an inability to form subsequent healthy attachments.
However, Freud and Dann and later Moskowitz showed evidence that not only the relationship with the mother matters, in studies on six little orphans, four of which were followed up at 37 yeas of age.
Another major effect of the loss of the attachment to the mother figure was depression. This was investigated in Spitz 's study on long hospitalised children who were separated from their mother