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This book contains an account of a research project undertaken by the Child Development Research Unit at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, London. The aim was to study the effects on young children of short periods of separation from their parents. For this purpose they selected ten children in their second and third years admitted temporarily to residential nurseries, and as a contrast group chose ten children matched for age and sex, who remained in their own homes with their parents during comparable periods of time. The behaviour of each child was observed before and during the separation and for at least twenty weeks after reunion, using a coding system of recording the child's behaviour especially in interaction with other people, as well as objects. Standardized doll-play sessions were also included at set times during the separation. These more objective data were supplemented by the nurses' accounts as well as the observers' own clinical descriptions. Identical methods of observation and recording were used for the contrast group. Care was taken to test observer reliability.
The stimulus of this project is the earlier work of Anna Freud and Dorothy Burlingham, James Robertson, and of course John Bowlby himself who is Director of the Child Development Unit and whose help in the planning and execution of the project is acknowledged by the authors. "While all research must be inspired and guided by theory", states Bowlby in the foreword, "it is desirable, in the exposition of data, that theory be reduced to a minimum. In this the authors of the present study have been meticulous". This is so, and very refreshing was the resulting mode of presentation for this reviewer. The procedures are clearly described, the findings stated with necessary reservations, the literature reviewed fully in a rather original fashion by introducing the relevant sections under appropriate parts of the whole text, and listed in a concluding bibliography.
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