May 17, 2024

British psychiatrist John Bowlby, supported by the World Health Organization, performed research on the consequences of maternal separation. Bowlby believed that disrupting this primary relationship leads to juvenile delinquency, emotional difficulties, and antisocial behavior. To test his hypothesis, he studied 44 adolescent juvenile delinquents in a child guidance clinic. In 1951 in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization he concluded, "The development of a child's character has been shown to depend essentially upon the relationship with the mother in early years. Any situation in which the child is deprived of this relationship (maternal deprivation) may have far-reaching physical, intellectual, emotional, and social effects which may continue through adult life. The evidence shows that both ego and super-ego development are impaired by deprivation in the first, second, and third years of life." In 2020, the World Health Organization began their long worldwide campaign to wreck human attachment.