Protest : The immediate reaction to separation involves crying , screaming , kicking and struggling to escape , or clinging to the mother to prevent her leaving . This is an outward , direct expression of the childs anger , fear , bitterness and confusion

Despair : Protest is replaced by calmer , more apathetic behaviour . Anger and fear are still felt inwardly . There is little response to offers of comfort , instead the child comforts itself eg thumb sucking

Detachment : The child responds to people again , but treats everyone warily . Rejection of the caregiver on their return is common , as are signs of anger

Robertson and Robertson ( 1971 ) made five films that showed how brief separation from their mothers affected childrens mental state and psychological development . One film featured john aged 17 months who had a close and stable relationship with his mother . He experienced extreme distress when spending 9 days in a residential nursery whilst his mother had a baby . On his mothers return , john was thrown into confusion and struggled to get away from her . The negative effects of this separation were evident even years later . John had appeared to go through the 3 stages of the PDD model , suffering serious , irreversible damage , lending support the Bowlby's MDH

Douglas ( 1975 ) found that separations of less than a week for children below 4 years of age were correlated with behavioral difficulties , giving further support to MDH

Quinton and Rutter ( 1976 ) found greater behavioural problems in samples of adolescents seperated briefly from attachment figures before 5 years of age through hospitalisation , than among adolescents who weren't hospitalised , supporting bowlby's theory of long term developmental damage

Robertson and Robertson took children facing short term separations into their own home , providing them with an alternative attachment and normal home routine and found this prevented the severe psychological damage , such as that seen with John . This suggests that negative outcomes are not inevitable

Much evidence linking short term separations to negative outcomes is correlational and doesn't show causality . Kagan et al ( 1978 ) found no direct causal link between separation and later emotional and behavioural difficulties

Barrett ( 1997 ) argues that individual differences in reactions to short term separation are important .

Research has enables psychologists to create strategies to help children cope with divorce . Some american states have a legal requirement for divorcing parents to attend an education programme that teaches them to understand and avoid the difficulties associated with disrupted attachements , like providing emotional warmth and support and keeping consistant rules .

Concerns children who have never formed an attachment bond

Is more likely than deprivation to lead to lasting damage but research results are contradictory , with some individuals fully recovering while others make little if any improvement

As cases of privation are particularly rare they are often researched through case studies

Freud and Dann ( 1951 ) reported on 6 children placed in a nazi concentration camp , who were orphaned at a few months of age and had formed no maternal attachments . They were taken at age 3-4 to the bulldog bank centre in west sussex . They had little language , did not know what to do with toys and were hostile to adults . However , they were devoted to each other and refused to be seperated . Gradually they became attached to their carers and made rapid developments in physical and intellectual capabilities . It was not possible to trace all the children as adults but those who were traceable made good recoveries and had successful adult relationships

Koluchova ( 1972 , 1991 ) reported on identical twins , Andrei and Vanya , whose mother died soon after their birth . When their father remarried the stepmother locked them in a cellar for five and a half years , giving them regular beatings . The father was absent from home due to his job . Discovered at 7 , the twins were underdeveloped physically , lacked speech and did not understand the meaning of pictures . Doctors predicted permanent physical and mental damage . They were given physical therapy and put into a school for children with severe learning disabilities and were then adopted by 2 child centred sisters .At age 14 their intellectual , social , emotional and behavioural functioning was near normal . As adults they are both married and have children and normal jobs , and they both close to each other

Curtiss ( 1977 ) and Rymer ( 1993 ) reported on genie , a girl denied human interaction , beaten and strapped into a potty seat until discovered at age 13 . She could not speak or stand up . She received years of therapy and was tested constantly , developing some language abilities and improving her IQ from 38 to 74 in 6 years . At 18 she returned to the care of her mother , staying for only a few months before moving to a succession of 6 different foster homes , where she was further abused . genie then deteriorated physically and mentally before going to live in a home for people with learning difficulties