Separation and the Very Young

How do small children feel when they are separated from their parents and from familiar surroundings? What is it like to be a toddler in a hospital or under institutional care?

In this account the authors describe the anxiety, loneliness, and despair of young children in hospitals, foster homes, and institutions in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s.

It is the first history of a uniquely influential couple, James and Joyce Robertson, in the field of child health who pioneered research into the effects of separation from the mother when a small child went into a hospital.

Their work revolutionized the policy of hospitals in Britain and elsewhere.

These papers are fascinating not only as a historical record of change and as a description of new ideas about child development, they are also a very vivid and intimate account of what early childhood is really like. Margaret Drabble

James Robertson was a remarkable person who achieved great things. His sensitive observations and brilliant filming made history, and the courage with which he demonstrated - often in the face of ignorant and prejudiced criticism - what were the very unpopular findings, was legendary. He will always be remembered as the man who revolutionized children's hospitals, though he accomplished much else besides. I am personally grateful for all that he did.
John Bowlby

More information is available on robertsonfilms.info.

Available As: Softcover Book
Written By: James and Joyce Robertson
Book Length: 242 Pages