the name's Bond James Bond you might know him as the Charming persuasive often ruthless spy for the British secret service but what about his darker side could he really have the traits of a psychopath has somehow suggested is there more to bonds passed than we may know and what's all this got to do with his mother how old were you when they died hey everyone welcome back to parity mind in this video we're going to explore balby's theory of maternal deprivation previously we have explored a different theory of baldies called monotropic Theory including a little bit on John balby's own childhood born in 1907 he was raised by a nanny because it was thought that too much parental attention would lead to him becoming spoiled as a result he only saw his mother for about one hour a day so in effect his Nanny was his mother and when his Nanny left when he was four years old this was a tragic loss for John perhaps many of these early life experiences shaped his future work John Balby went on to become a psychologist who spent much of his life studying early childhood and the critical role the relationship a child forms with their mother plays in later development if you haven't seen that video I'll link it in the description box below for you but in fact John balby's theories into attachment first started not with his monotropic theory but with his maternal deprivation Theory which we're going to explore in this video baldy put such a strong emphasis on the importance of your attachment with your mother that he wrote Mother Love in infancy and childhood is as important for mental health as our vitamins and proteins for physical health it was his now famous 44 thieves study which led to his maternal deprivation Theory so let's first look at his 44 Thief study and then we'll explore the theory but just before we do I want to say that some of balby's ideas might be a little hard-hitting and too close to home for you depending on what your early years were like with your parents you'll see in another video that there are lots of issues and problems with his research and his theory which help you to put his ideas into perspective but more on that in another video [Music] [Laughter] it's the 1930s and life for many at the time in England wasn't the best it will be another 10 years before the welfare state will be set up there was no NHS yet and no Universal benefits such as child benefit payments to help families this meant that the poor were very poor and poverty was high in 1938 90 of criminal cases were theft half of those found guilty were under the age of 21 and 13 year olds appeared the most often in court Volby reported at the time that of the men and women sent to prison in 1930 not only had half been there before but nearly a quarter were going for at least their sixth time he continues for What official statistics do not tell us is the age at which the offenders first developed Delinquent Habits the evidence strongly suggests that in many perhaps the majority of serious cases it is well before puberty it it is in this period therefore that the origins of the trouble are to be sought and so what will be set out to do his own investigation Balby was a psychiatrist who worked at the London Child Guidance Clinic and so between 1936 and 1939 he studied 88 children who were referred to his clinic for those of you with your research methods hat on that's an opportunity sample of these 88 children 44 of them had been referred to him because of stealing they were the 44 juvenile thieves juvenile meaning a young person the other 44 children were referred to the clinic for emotional problems but hadn't committed any crimes both groups were matched in terms of age and IQ to stop those being extraneous variables now I really hope you appreciate Balby thinking about all of their many students in the future who would have to learn about his work when he designed this study I mean how nice of him to have the study published in 1944 with 44 participants in each group easy to remember cheers John on arrival at the clinic each child was given mental tests by a psychologist to assess their intelligence which also included their emotional attitude towards those tests whilst the child is being tested a social worker interviewed their mother to establish a psychiatric history of the child's life such as any period of separation from the mother relationship with family members and details of the child's behaviors the psychologist and the social worker then gave their report to the psychiatrist who was John Balby who then interviewed first the child and then the mother having gathered all the information from the assessments and interviews they reviewed any other reports they had for example from schools before drawing a conclusion so what did they find well let me tell you about two of the juvenile thieves they interviewed in the study so you can get a flavor of their investigation firstly meet Derek he was six years old when seen by bolby at the clinic what was his history well at 18 months old he had a disease called diphtheria which led to him spending nine months in hospital and during that time he was never visited by his parents when he returned home he refused all food and was left to starve for a while his mother described how it seemed like looking after someone else's baby he did not know us he called me nurse his personality was described as not caring for anyone except his elder brother he was quite unmoved by affection or punishment and his mother had come to regard him as quote hard-boiled he was always fighting and at times destructive of his own and his brother's toys then there was Betty you can tell this is the 1930s right at the age of 5 five years and seven months she was sent to the clinic because her mother was worried about her constantly stealing Pennies from school pennies were worth quite a bit in those days what was her history when Betty was nine months old she was placed in a foster home and then changed from one foster home to another until nearly five years old in all of them she was harshly treated her mother and stepfather visited her but she always refused to have anything to do with her mother the mother that insisted on having Betty back home with them when she was five years old however her mother described Betty as looking quote like a child who has just come into play and does not seem to belong bolby and his colleagues found lots of interesting information about these children but of particular interest was a group of 14 children from the juvenile thieves group who were identified as affectionless Psychopaths this means that they lacked empathy for others they showed little affection or concern for other people Derek and Betty were part of the 14. of these 14 12 of them had something in common they had all experienced prolonged separation from their mothers in the first two years of life in contrast only two of the 44 children in the control group had experienced prolonged separation and none of them were affectionless Psychopaths this brings us back to James Bond some have argued that James Bond exemplifies the characteristics of a psychopath in fact if you've seen the James Bond film Skyfall you may remember a particular scene where bonds talking to M listen carefully how old were you when they died you know the answer to that you know the whole story orphans always make the best recruits did you hear it m the head of MI6 knows she knows the best recruits are orphans now I know it's a work of fiction but do you get the point if you want someone to be a ruthless killer and not second-guess the decision to take someone out to lack empathy for others then what you need is someone who has experienced prolonged separation from their mother it's almost as if the writers of bond had read John bolby's work Balby concludes the study with this very careful inquiries showed a remarkable proportion of children who for one reason or another had not lived securely in one home all their lives but have long periods away from home with very few exceptions these children have suffered the complete emotional loss of their mother or Foster mother during infancy and early childhood [Music] having considered bulby's research we can now explore his maternal deprivation Theory firstly the word maternal means mother with connotations of a caring mother and with deprivation you can see the word deprived so it means the damaging lack of so of all these maternal deprivation theory states that early separation of a child from their primary caregiver usually the mother during a critical period can have irreversible damaging consequences for the development of the child as part of this Theory there is the critical period there is a certain time frame in which an attachment needs to be formed if it's not formed during this time then that's when the consequences occur this is thought to be before two and a half years but also is a risk up to five years according to bolby then there is the law of accumulated separation which basically means that every separation the child has from their caregiver can add up and in the words of bolby the safest dose is therefore zero dose no separation at all and also there is the idea of irreversibility for Balby these consequences are irreversible the quote I showed you before ended like this complete recovery is impossible what are those consequences then if maternal deprivation occurs well you can see some of them from the 44 thieves study firstly affectionless psychopathy showing little affection or concern for others secondly delinquency that's minor crimes committed by young people like theft or antisocial Behavior thirdly there's lower intelligence lower cognitive abilities and fourthly problems with forming relationships in the future this links to balby's internal working model as part of his monotropic theory this simply means that the type of relationship you have during the first years of your life forms the template for all your future relationships a child May struggle to form relationships with others in summary then for Balby if an infant is unable to develop a warm intimate and continuous relationship with their mother before the age of two and a half years then there will be consequences for the child's development so now I wonder what you think about baldi's ideas at this point you won't be surprised to hear that balby's maternal deprivation theory has been considered highly controversial particularly with its implications for mothers and additionally his research has been criticized in numerous ways if you are ready to master that content so that you can effectively evaluate balby's maternal deprivation Theory you can click the video on the screen now or linked below I hope you found this video helpful and we'll see you in the next one