You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In 1956 Sylvia Brody published her first book, Patterns of Mothering. This derived from a pilot study based on observations of 32 infants, each in the presence of their mother. Significant relations between four broad types of maternal behaviour were elucidated as a result of these investigations. Further studies were begun in 1963, and it was hoped to enlarge on the results of the pilot study in an attempt to find whether the classification of maternal behaviour could be identified in a more extended and diverse sample. But it has to be said that the authors' efforts met with scepticism from those who doubted the value of such observations on normal mothers and their infants. This partly sprang, in the Sixties, from a failure in many to recognize that infancy itself might be a critical period in development. Although infant observation in its many and varied forms is now almost commonplace, and its value universally recognized, the careful and painstaking work described makes this new and revised paperback edition of interest for all those engaged in the field and all concerned with child care and upbringing.