Robertson & Robertson (1971) Separation Study

• James Robertson - psychiatric social worker and psychoanalyst, Tavistock Clinic & Institute 1948 - 1976.
• Joyce Robertson - student at Anna Freud wartime nurseries, worked at Anna Freud centre from 1956 - 1963 when went to join her husband on joint project, Young Children in Brief Separation.
• To study responses to separation from mother, when this is not complicated by other disturbing experiences such as sudden transfer from home, illness and pain, cot confinement and multiple carers, and when emotional needs are met.
• The Robertson's took into their home, 4 young children of previous goode experience who were in need of foster care whilst Mum had 2nd baby.
• How the kids coped woth separation from Mum when they had been made familiar with carers and environment was filmed.
• Age range of infants was 17 months - 2 yrs 5 months.
• Length of stays from 10 - 27 days.
• Although not typical of usual foster care dealt with by agencies, the films raised considerations of understanding and practice relevant to all foster care; to the care of the young in nurseries and wards and to teaching of normal child development.

1. John, 17 months - 9 days in Residential Nursery:

• Never left his mother's care.  Admitted to a group of toddlers at a residental nursery.  Nurses are young and friendly but the system of group care doesn't allow any of them to substitue his absent Mum.
• He tries hard to make a relationship to get the comfort he needs but he is deafeted and increasingly distressed.
• Cheerful nurses are habituated to sporadic crying and as they're not assigned to the care of individual chidren the severity of John's distress is not recognised until a late stage.
• Work system prevents the child's needs of susbtitute mothering from being met.
• On day 9 Mum comes to take him home but he will not accept her and struggles out of her arms.

2.  Jane, 17 months - 10 days in Foster Care:

• Bright, active, non-verbal.
• Not easy for foster mum to make a relationship before the separation because whislt the mother is there the child is not much interested in people outside the family.
• First few days at Robertson's home Jane is active and cheerful, unusual amount of laughter.

• When Dad visits she's indfifferent and even keeps a distance but cries and clings when he leaves.
• During last few days she is impatient and plays with less concentration.
• Readily accepts Joyce as substitute Mum, food and routines are kept familiar as at home, foster mother is fully available to meet Jane's needs.
• She's not as overwhelmed as John, but in a state of "manageable anxiety".
• At reunion, Jane returns to her Mum with warmth and good expectations but reluctant to give up her foster mum, to whom she's become attached.

3. Lucy, 21 months - 19 days in Foster Care:

• Example of difficulties which result from a young child's attachement to a substitute Mum.
• Lucy is too young to hold a clear memory of absent mother and readily accepts foster mother's care.
• Episodes of anxiety and resistive behaviour but manages well within supportive relationship.
• At reunion she eagerly returns to her mother but during 19 days Lucy has become attached to her foster mother and film shows how mum and foster mum co-operate to help Lucy through this.

4. Thomas, 2 yrs 4 months - 10 days in Foster Care:

• Being older he can keep his absent mother in his mind and talk about her.  This, with daily visits from his Dad, help him understand the situation in way younger ones do not.
• In need of mothering care, Thomas cannot always accept this intimacy because the affecttionate feelings it arouses conflict with loyalty to his mother.  He sometimes attacks the foster mother when she gives him the attention he seeks.
• At reunion, unlike younger children, Thomas has no problem leaving foster mum.

5.  Kate, 2 yrs 5 months - 27 days in Foster Care:

• Like Thomas, Kate can hold onto the memory of her Mum.
• She uses a family of dolls to recall life at home and to anticipate reunion with her parents.
• But as separation extends, disillusion sets in.
• Increasingly cool towards visiting Dad, expresses anger towards her mother and begins to make a niche for herself in foster family.