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PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE DISCUSSION WITHOUT AUTHORITY -THIS IS BEING REPORTED TO AN ADMINISTRATOR AS VANDALISMKingsleyMiller (talk) 18:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

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The attachment theory page includes a list of tenets of attachment theory without specifying where they have come from.

Who are the involved parties?

User:KingsleyMiller

User:Jean Mercer

I have added Jean Mercer and left Fainites although now that I have been able to verify the authorship of the list my dispute is with Jean Mercer KingsleyMiller (talk) 11:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)KingsleyMiller (talk) 11:45, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

barley

What's going on?

The other side is evasive but I think they are using an early version of this theory by John Bowlby which is now discredited.

What would you like to change about that?

I should like the other side to clarify the source for this list. For example it includes 'monotropy' which has been abandoned.

Are they representing this earlier version of Bowlby's work as the true version?

Mediator notes

Administrative notes

Discussion

Here is what Jean Mercer says about Bowlby on his Wik page. There is no mention of 'monotropy'. So where has it come from?

Bowlby's Legacy

   Main article: Attachment theory

Although not without its critics, attachment theory has been described as the dominant approach to understanding early social development and to have given rise to a great surge of empirical research into the formation of childrens close relationships. As it is presently formulated and used for research purposes, Bowlby's attachment theory stresses the following important tenets: 1) children between 6 and about 30 months are very likely to form emotional attachments to familiar caregivers, especially if the adults are sensitive and responsive to child communications. 2) The emotional attachments of young children are shown behaviorally in their preferences for particular familiar people, their tendency to seek proximity to those people, especially in times of distress, and their ability to use the familiar adults as a secure base from which to explore the environment. 3) The formation of emotional attachments contributes to the foundation of later emotional and personality development, and the type of behavior toward familiar adults shown by toddlers has some continuity with the social behaviors they will show later in life. 4) Events that interfere with attachment, such as abrupt separation of the toddler from familiar people or the significant inability of carers to be sensitive, responsive or consistent in their interactions, have short-term and possible long-term negative impacts on the child's emotional and cognitive life.

(I assume the above is KingsleyMiller)

• an editor has just alerted me to this. i note that although Jean Mercer is quoted as the author of a disputed passage she is not listed as an involved party. It also seems to be a complaint implying bad faith rather than a request for mediation. Fainites 21:02, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Not bad faith. Bad editing.

The passage above is taken from the page on John Bowlby.

When you clarify where your source lies for the disputed list we can try and contact them as well.

(The point that is being made is that one of the previously alleged sources does not claim authorship for the reference to monotropy on another page. So where did you get this table from?)KingsleyMiller (talk) 08:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Jean Mercer1

(This form of mediation was suggested by a third party - In this case my dispute is with you as the author of the list/table - Please can you put your responses here so other people may contribute)

Jean Mercer if the list of 'tenets of the attachment theory' is yours then you need to reference the title on the page to make it clear that you have made this title.

Where did you get it from?

Which book?

I would like to see a copy in the library if possible.

Many thanks

KingsleyMiller (talk) 11:25, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE DISCUSSION WITHOUT AUTHORITY -THIS IS BEING REPORTED TO AN ADMINISTRATOR AS VANDALISMKingsleyMiller (talk) 18:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Jean Mercer's response

I'm not sure what format to use here, so I will do this. No doubt someone will tell me if it's wrong. I referenced my book which discusses all the items in that list. If it would be preferable to have another source for each of them, I can easily use the sources that i used in writing the book. The list is not a direct quotation from the book, nor could I supply a single page number relevant to the whole list.

A particular concern of KM's seems to be about monotropy. I know he was much put about some time ago when I edited a statement about monotropy to indicate that it could mean not just one, but a small number of people. I made this change in part because of a statement in Bowlby's 1958"nature of the child's tie" paper, in which he proposes to use the term monotropy to mean "the tendency for instinctual responses to be directed toward a particular individual or GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS and not promiscuously towards many" (p. 370). The use of the monotropy concept in the strict ethological "imprinting" sense has certainly been minimized, as KM points out, but the idea of attachment to a few individuals is still very much with us. Two examples would be the criteria listed for Reactive Attachment Disorder in DSM, where ready social engagement with strangers is viewed as pathological, or the "day care wars" of the last century (cf. Belsky), where there was concern about young children having more than a few caregivers.

I believe it is impossible to cite one (or even a few) documents setting out the tenets of attachment theory as it exists today. No such revised theory has been formulated in an explicit way, although there may be an implicit theory indicated by stress on particular issues. We can only work with the theory as it was put forward by Bowlby. This can be followed up with suggestions or arguments that have occurred after the formulation of the theory, but those are not part of the theory in the usual sense of the words. Perhaps we could agree on a date at which attachment theory of the Bowlby type was completed. I would propose the date of the last volume of the trilogy.

I don't understand whether Kip is suggesting that i donate a copy of my book to his library. Jean Mercer (talk) 13:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Just looking further at KM's concerns above: the Bowlby page is not "about attachment therapy", so when I commented on the tenets of the theory I referred to those which are STRESSED, not to all of them. The page is biographical and would presumably be read for different purposes than those which would motivate someone to read about attachment therapy itself. To omit monotropy from this short list of stressed ideas does not mean that monotropy does not appear on a more complete list. If KM would like to edit this passage to say that these are the tenets of greatest interest to most people, but not the only ones, there is nothing to stop him from doing that.Jean Mercer (talk) 16:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Jean Mercer2

Thank you for this.

So, the list is basically made up of your own beliefs with no verification needed because they are your own ideas. Is that correct?

Would I be correct in assuming also that although the page is called 'Attachment Theory' a more accurate description, in your opinion, would be 'Bowlby's Attachment Theory'?

KingsleyMiller (talk) 16:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Your first question is not at an appropriate level of discourse.

When I wrote the lead part of the attachment theory article, I noted that although there have been various attachment theories, the term is generally taken to mean Bowlby's attachment theory, and I maintain this view. Ordinarily, when you read this term, you can assume it doesn't mean S. Freud, it doesn't mean Gewirtz, etc. I think it may be true that there have been some implicit post-Bowlby changes. Perhaps you would like to find a term for the post-Bowlby theory and describe its tenets, including recent scholarship on the topic? I'm working on a paper on this topic myself, so I certainly can't bring in my own OR. Jean Mercer (talk) 17:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Jean Mercer3

Let me put it like this. One definition of 'tenet' is doctrine. You have made a list about 'attachment theory' which states 'Tenets of the Attachment Theory'. As a student reading the page for the first time I would expect the list to be a definitive account. Whose 'Tenets' are they? You should give the list an appropriate title. For example, is it Bowlby's tenets? Or is it Jean Mercer's 'Tenet's of the Attachment Theory' Can you think of an accurate title?

KingsleyMiller (talk) 17:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I note you have started to reference the 'tenets' for the list which is extremely helpful. Can you please make sure you also give the list an accurate title - This is also very important so that people know who made the list in the first place.

(Please note From your statement above I guess you would not say that Bowlby is the 'originator of the attachment theory' and I have also added that quote to the relevant discussion. I think it will help both discussions).

KingsleyMiller (talk) 18:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE DISCUSSION WITHOUT AUTHORITY -THIS IS BEING REPORTED TO AN ADMINISTRATOR AS VANDALISM18:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Higher Education: Don's delight Dr Raj Persaud on Maternal Deprivation Reassessed -the book that changed his life

The Guardian (Manchester); Jan 21, 1997; DR RAJ PERSAUD; p. 002

THE book which had the most profound impact on all our lives is often a publication we may not even be aware of - for it must be the literature which our parents consumed as we grew up - anxiously seeking guidance on how to bring up sane children.

The child psychologist your parents religiously followed in print has, decades later, been proved entirely wrong! Even if our parents did not read popular tomes such as John Bowlby's 'Can I leave my baby?', published in 1958, this eminent British psychoanalyst shaped the way a generation of parents related to their offspring.

He was interpreted as insisting that continuity and closeness of maternal care were the only certain ways of preventing adolescent and adult psychological disturbance. The inevitable conclusion was that mothers should not go out to work. All mothers who wanted a career or a life outside of childcare worried about comments like Bowlby's: 'Mother-love in infancy and childhood is as important for mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical health.' Then came the book which argued the primary care-giver need not be the mother, nor were her absences always hazardous - Maternal Deprivation Reassessed, published in 1972 by Sir Michael Rutter, Professor of Child Psychiatry at London University's Institute of Psychiatry. It is difficult for us to recall, before Putter's book, what a struggle it was for women to break free from the notion that spending some time away from their children inevitably resulted in 'deprivation'.

My mother left us for a year to finish her PhD in Britain, when my brother and I were both under 10. It is Putter's book which ensured she never felt guilty for temporarily leaving us, and which ensures that, today, my wife continues to pursue her career as an eye-surgeon, as well as having children. By challenging what we believe constitutes good parenting. Maternal Deprivation Reassessed has changed not just my life, but all our lives.

Dr Raj Persaud is consultant psychiatrist at The Maudsley Postgraduate Psychiatric Teaching Hospital, University of London.

To order any book mentioned in Guardian Education, call 0500 600102

KingsleyMiller (talk) 09:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)