To: Mom – Love, Psychology – Alan B. Feinstein

by Alan B. Feinstein

Photo: The Family of Man, Edward Steichen – Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Mexico, 1948

Editor’s Note: Occasionally a submission will come to us when it’s least expected and most needed and wanted. Thank you to Alan for this Mother’s Day article – and Happy Mother’s Day to all.

Throughout the history of psychology and the history of mankind, no relationship has been more studied, theorized, and vilified, than the maternal one. From Eve to the contemporary mother, authors, scientists, popular press, and especially psychologists, have speculated on the impact of a mother upon her child.

As the typical primary care giver and nurturer, the whole nature vs. nurture debate identifies mom as a major combatant. Up until the time of Freud, western society for the most part saw a close relationship with ones mother as a positive thing. Following the influence of Freud, mother love became pathologized. In rapid succession, psychologists have attempted to lay the blame of psychopathology on mom’s doorstep.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, researchers noticed the high prevalence of death among infants living in communal situations such as orphanages, asylums and foundling homes (Chapin, 1916). While lacking biological sophistication, physicians nevertheless theorized these deaths were the result of some invisible contagious infectious agent. The remedy became sanitization of the environment and an increased isolation of these children in the hope of preventing the further spread of disease and death. Parents, especially mothers, who were the primary visitors, were seen as part of the problem due to their frequent and unsanitary interactions. Popular parenting advice soon took the form of admonishing parents not to get too close to their children and to minimize all contact. Kissing ones child almost became a form of child abuse. The most prominent physicians of the time, including Dr. Luther Emmett Holt and Arthur Albutt (1888), “warned each mother that her touch could crawl with infection” and if she really loved her child, “she should maintain a cautious distance.”

Perhaps one of the most bizarre accounts of this devotion to sterility was exhibited by a German physician, Martin Cooney, who developed what he termed a Kinderbrutanstalt (child hatchery), a glass walled incubator developed primarily for premature infants. He toured both the United States and England displaying these glass boxed babies to the public. In 1932, he went to the Chicago Worlds fair and sold tickets to view the human hatchlings. “According to fair records, his exhibit made more money that year than any other… Cooney said his only real problem was that it was so hard to convince mothers to take their infants back… they seemed to feel disconnected from those babies behind the glass” (Blum, p.35). Modern medicine was able to provide ‘proof’ that what babies needed was a germ free environment, maternal affection or any contact was ultimately harmful to the child and served no useful purpose.

Perhaps as a reaction to the expressions of those such as William James who “said that psychology wasn’t a science at all—merely the hope of one?” (Blum, p.38), and in a suspected attempt to remain as dispassionate and scientific as those child care experts in the field of medicine, many who studied human behavior expressed the same beliefs as the leading physicians of the time.

John Watson, a president of the American Psychological Association railed against the evils of affection, writing an entire chapter on “The Dangers of Too Much Mother Love” stating, “When you are tempted to pet your child remember that mother love is a dangerous instrument” and “Once a child’s character has been spoiled by bad handling, which can be done in a few days, who can say that the damage is ever repaired?” (Watson, 1928). Watson’s dispassionate, strictly behavioral, and ‘scientific’ stance garnered him the credibility he apparently sought, “Watson was a hero in his own field, hailed for his efforts to turn the soft-headed field of psychology into a hard science” (Blum, p.40). It is important to note “He later expressed regret over some of his extreme statements, particularly those associated with his views of parenting. One of his two sons also expressed regrets by attributing his unhappy childhood to his behavioristic upbringing” (Kendler, p.166).

Watson was not the only psychologist of the time to endorse the concept of ‘scientific motherhood’, G. Stanley Hall, another pioneering psychologist, helped found the National Association for the Study of Childhood, he like Watson believed that most childhood problems were the result of mistakes by parents, “Hall urged Victorian tough love upon them. Their children needed less cuddling, more punishment, he said; they needed constant discipline” (Blum. P.41).

Through the writings and public speeches by these and other ‘experts’, it was becoming clear that the age of the amateur mother was over. In time the psychological problems associated with the lack of maternal affection and bonding became apparent and mothers were once again given official sanction to hold, coddle and kiss their children. If they thought they were off the hot seat with regard to spawning psychopathology, they were sadly mistaken. As psychoanalysis became increasingly popular so did the tendency to ascribe psychopathology to maternal error.

Jung wrote about the “The Terrible Mother”, describing one mother as a “power devil”, and partially blaming homosexuality on mothers (Jung, 1961). It is almost impossible to read any of Sigmund Freud’s’ works without being confronted with the influence of the mother on the topic at hand. If mom was the most significant figure in the development of personality, so was she the most significant figure in the development of psychopathology. “Every single hysteric and neurotic… remembers painful experiences of the remote past… and still clings to them emotionally; they cannot get free of the past and for its sake they neglect what is real and immediate” (Freud, 1910, p.17). While Freud and others of the psychoanalytic school may not have directly indicted mom, her fingerprints were almost always to be found at the scene of the crime.

Although not typically considered in discussions of clinical and developmental psychology, the work of Harry Harlow, an eccentric, alcoholic, work obsessed, twice married, monkey researcher, has done more to increase our understanding of the importance of the mother-child bond than any psychologist before him and few after him. Frustrated by the University of Wisconsin’s failure to provide him with an appropriate rat laboratory, Harlow began to visit the local zoo and spent much time observing the monkeys. Impressed with their displays of intelligence, affection, and ‘personality’, Harlow never again returned to the field of ‘rodentology’. Had the rat lab been provided, the eventual study of mother love would most probably have never occurred, as Harlow stated, “In my fondest fantasies, I cannot envision a rat surrogate mother” (Klemm, 1977).

Harlow’s first graduate student, Abraham Maslow proved a perfect counterpart to Harlow. As the pair observed and performed basic experiments on the monkeys at the zoo, they were impressed not only by the monkey’s abilities, but, “There was something else—an almost unnerving awareness of a relationship. It was not just the monkey-to-monkey connection that impressed them. They were thinking about the relationship between the animals and themselves, the scientists and their subjects. It was slowly dawning on them that if one wanted an animal model in psychology, the smart, emotional, complicated monkeys might make a whole lot more sense than the maze-running rats” (Blum p.79).

Frustration, anger, curiosity, and determination led to Harlow and his graduate students taking it upon themselves to construct a primate laboratory out of an old box factory. Harlow’s work and contentions regarding the intelligence and relationships of primates ran afoul of the work of contemporary behavioral psychologists. Pavlov, Thorndike, Hull and Skinner were considered the mainstream of psychological thinking at the time. As others such as Donald Hebb joined him, “Harlow and Hebb were, at best, promising outsiders” (Blum, p.96). Harlows’ experiments studying intelligence and curiosity melded with the observations of those such as Goldfarb and Skeels, who studied children in orphanages and found a decrease in these qualities among those children who lacked maternal interaction and affection.

Due to a shortage of monkeys, Harlow began to breed his own. In an attempt to breed a healthy supply of monkeys in a clean and sterile environment, he unwittingly mimicked the situation that was noted earlier by those studying the harmful effects on children who grew up in environments devoid of attention and affection. His researchers soon noticed the baby monkeys obsessive clutching of the cloth blankets placed in their cages and wondered if the blankets might be some sort of mother substitute.

“So, if Harry was right, if they were looking at an odd, pathetic kind of mother substitute in these blankets, they were also looking at raising a revolution in psychology. If the baby monkeys were telling them that there was something critical in being touched, in being held and in holding back, then they could start rewriting the psychology books. And the first new sentence in that book might say that mothers themselves—with their soft arms and inclination to hold a baby close—were desperately important; and if that was right, the Watsonian, Skinnerian, Hullian view of the world could be nothing less than wrong” (Blum, p.149).

Harlow’s work progressed from studying creativity and intelligence in primates to exploring the nature of the mother-child bond, and the nature of love itself. In his speech made upon assuming the presidency of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1958, Harlow severely criticized the psychological establishment who ignored the concept of love and left it to the writers of fiction. While he acknowledged the beauty of the writings of poets and authors, he was convinced that scientists could do a better job of illuminating the concept. “These authors and authorities have stolen love from the child and infant and made it the exclusive property of the adolescent and adult”. “He could promise his audience, the poets were as wrong as the psychologists. Love begins at the beginning: perhaps no one does it better, or needs it more than a child” (Blum, p.270).

His work perfectly coincided with that of John Bowlby the British psychiatrist. Bowlby took note of Harlow’s work and began a correspondence with him. “Bowlby promptly began citing Harry’s work, He would say later that the two research projects that began to make people take him seriously, that eventually eased him back into the British Psychiatric Association, were the stunning work of Mary Ainsworth and the inarguable findings from Harry Harlow’s lab.” (Blum, p.170).

While Freud and the psychoanalysts who followed made little distinction between the true maternal relationship and the one fantasized about by the child, John Bowlby soon realized the importance of the real experiences between the mother and child. Bowlby redirected the attention of the mother/child relationship in a 1948 report to the World Health Organization in which he stated, “The mothering of a child is not something which can be arranged by roster; it is a live human relationship which alters the characters of both partners. The provision of a proper diet calls for more that calories and vitamins; we need to enjoy our food if it is to do us good. In the same way, the provision of mothering cannot be considered in terms of hours per day but only in terms of the enjoyment of each other’s company which mother and child obtain.”

Bowlby’s work and that done by Harlow have clearly established through scientific methodology, the importance of the mother child bond on both normal and abnormal psychological development. Attachment theory as it has come to be called, has emerged as a premier theoretical orientation serving to explain manifestations of psychopathology in both children and adults. The central proposition is that children separated from their mothers will exhibit severe distress, despite being cared for and fed by others. The disruption in the bond can be manifested in many ways and the distress exhibited in many forms.

Bowlby, acknowledged both behavioral and biological components of the attachment process. He arrived at his theory through discussions with colleagues from such fields as biology, developmental psychology, cognitive science, and control systems theory. While Bowlby’s original focus was on the normal development of the infant, there is much current research devoted to understanding and treating the psychopathology that results from attachment disorders, or as some may say, bad mothering.

Attachment disorders are felt to manifest themselves through the individuals’ sense of self, view of the world, relationships, anger, grief, sadness, indeed all aspects of ones life. Problems can be manifested in childhood (Greenberg, 1999), and adulthood (Dozier, Stovall, Albus, 1999). There is literally no part or time of our lives when mom is not in some way present. Over the years, this theory has been modified and utilized in many different ways. One needs not look far to see who gets the blame for psychological dysfunction.

Gregory Bateson who developed the “Double Bind” theory to explain the development of schizophrenia, stated “We do not assume that the double bind is inflicted by the mother alone, but that it may be done either by mother alone or by some combination of mother, father, and/or siblings” (Bateson, 1972). While Bateson placed this disclaimer in the definition of the double bind, as he went on to explain his theory he almost exclusively used the word ‘mother’ to describe the culprit.

Bruno Bettelheim blamed “refrigerator mothers” for causing infantile autism in their children (1967). Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), is currently the most popular form of treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder and has as its central concept used to explain the formation of the disorder: “Invalidating Environment” which is defined as “one in which communication of private experiences is met by erratic, inappropriate, and extreme responses. In other words, the expression of private experiences is not validated; instead, it is often punished, and/or trivialized. The experience of painful emotions, as well as the factors that to the emotional person seem causally related to the emotional distress, are disregarded. The individual’s interpretations of her own behavior, including the experience of the intents and motivations associated with behavior, are dismissed” (Linehan, p.49).

While Linehan takes greater pains not to mention mother than Bateson did, her case studies usually implicate mom, and this is to be expected given that mother typically forms the core of the child’s environment. While psychology has not always been kind to mom and indeed often wrong about her culpability in the genesis of psychopathology, it has seldom ignored her importance.

While the maternal role may be the most visible and commented upon with regard to the development of psychopathology, so is it the strongest force in our ability to love ourselves, others, and life itself.

“If monkeys have taught us anything it’s that you’ve got to learn how to love before you learn how to live” (Harlow, 1961).

References: Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine Books. Bettelheim, B. (1967). The empty fortress: infantile autism and the birth of self. New York: The Free Press. Blum, D. (2002). Love at Goon Park. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing. Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P. R. (Eds.). (1999). Handbook of attachment. New York: The Guilford Press. Chapin, H. (1915). A plea for accurate statistics in infant’s institutions. Journal of American Pediatrics Society, 27(180). Dozier, M., Stovall, K., & Albus, K. E. (1999). Attachment and psychopathology in adulthood. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of Attachment (pp. 497-519). New York: The Guilford Press. Freud, S.(1910). The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud: Vol. 11. Five lectures on psycho-analysis (J. Strachey & A. Freud, Trans.). London: Hogarth Press. Greenberg, M. T. (1999). Attachment and psychopathology in childhood. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of Attachment (pp. 469-496). New York: The Guilford Press. Harlow, H. F. (1958). The nature of love. The American Psychologist, 13(12). Holt, L., Duffus, R., & Holt, L., Jr. (1994). Pioneer of a children’s century. In R. Karen (Ed.), Becoming Attached: Unfolding the mystery of the infant-mother bond and its impact on later life. New York: Warner Books. Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York: Random House. Kendler, H. H. (1987). Historical foundations of modern psychology. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing. Klemm, W. (1977). Discovery processes in modern biology: people and processes in biological discovery. Huntington, NY: R.E. Krieger Publishing. Linehan, M. M. (1993). Cognitive-behavioral treatment of borderline personality disorder. New York: The Guilford Press. Watson, J. (1928). Psychological care of the infant and child. New York: W.W. Norton.

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