>
>
>I just read something that gave me more insight into the rage filled 
>reaction to the possibility that people's firmly held beliefs about 
>infants might be damaging.  I've been reading more information on 
>attachment theory and found reference to Rene Spitz film "Grief - A 
>Peril in Infancy (1947).  Apparently, people walk out when they see 
>this film because it is too painful to watch.  So painful that the 
>reaction is rage against the filmmaker.  Deniability and 
>transference is a strong coping mechanism.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Susan E. Burger, MHS, PhD, IBCLC


Fascinating stuff.

Reminds me of the huge difficulty experienced by the Roberstons who 
made the wonderfully influential film  A Two-year-old goes to 
Hospital (1952).

James Roberston (1911-1988)  was a working class Scot, who became a 
psychiatric social worker (one of the very first) and whose 
psychoanalytic studies convinced him that children were badly damaged 
by enforced separation from their parents when they needed a 
hospital stay. With the support of his wife Joyce , and attachment 
pioneer John Bowlby,  he made an explanatory film (he had never used 
a camera before then) about it.

The furore was massive.

Years ago (and about 25 years after the release of the film), I 
interviewed the founder of the organisation NAWCH (Nat Association 
for the Welfare of Children in Hospital) who told me that Robertson 
was vilified for years by some powerful interest groups. What a huge 
fuss about nothing. We can't have parents on the wards. Children get 
over it....blah blah blah. The anger directed at Roberston was very 
great - and all because of a little black and white amateur film. The 
reaction was 'rage against the film maker', as Susan says.

Of course, eventually (and it took years and years) the view that 
children's feelings are real and matter became mainstream and no one 
dreams of splitting up parents from their sick children any more.

So things do change.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
-- 

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