Concept
Anaclitic depression
A depressive syndrome that René Spitz and Katherine Wolf described in 1946 in infants separated from their mothers in the second half of the first year, after at least six months of good relations with them. Weeping and clinging give way to withdrawal, loss of weight, insomnia, susceptibility to illness and a fall in developmental level. Spitz counted it a partial emotional deprivation and, unlike hospitalism, reversible if the mother came back within a few months. The name draws on Freud's notion of anaclisis (Anlehnung): the infant has lost the object on which its development leans. Spitz's data were sharply criticised on methodological grounds, and the concept has since been widely questioned.
Development
1946
introduced by René Spitz
Spitz coined the term in the 1946 paper he wrote with Katherine Wolf.
In Anaclitic Depression: An Inquiry into the Genesis of Psychiatric Conditions in Early Childhood, II (1946)
1955
critiqued by Samuel R. Pinneau
Pinneau's 1955 review challenged the evidence Spitz offered for anaclitic depression.
In The Infantile Disorders of Hospitalism and Anaclitic Depression (1955)
Relations
- 1955 critiqued by Samuel R. Pinneau
Pinneau's 1955 review challenged the evidence Spitz offered for anaclitic depression.
- derives from Leaning-on
Spitz took the word 'anaclitic' from Freud's notion of Anlehnung, the leaning of the drives on the functions of self-preservation, rendered as anaclisis in the Standard Edition.
Works
- 1946
Anaclitic Depression: An Inquiry into the Genesis of Psychiatric Conditions in Early Childhood, II
The second part of René Spitz's inquiry into psychiatric conditions in early childhood, written with Katherine M. Wolf and published in The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child in 1946, following his paper on hospitalism. Observing infants in the nursery of a penal institution, the authors describe a syndrome that appeared in children who had enjoyed good relations with their mothers for at least the first six months of life and were then separated from them. Weepiness and clinging gave way to withdrawal, loss of weight, insomnia, greater susceptibility to illness and a fall in the developmental quotient. They name the syndrome anaclitic depression, after the infant's dependence on the mother as its first object, and compare it with depression in adults. The condition lifted when the mother returned within a few months, while longer separations threatened lasting harm. The paper sets the syndrome beside hospitalism: anaclitic depression follows a partial and reversible loss of the mother, hospitalism a total deprivation of her.
- 1955
The Infantile Disorders of Hospitalism and Anaclitic Depression
A methodological critique of René Spitz's reports on hospitalism and anaclitic depression. Pinneau re-examines the samples, the developmental tests and the published figures and argues that the data do not establish that maternal deprivation caused the decline Spitz described, pointing to gaps and inconsistencies in the reporting and to other factors that could account for the findings. It was printed together with Spitz's 'Reply to Dr. Pinneau' and a rejoinder by Pinneau.
See also
People
References
- Anaclitic Depression: An Inquiry into the Genesis of Psychiatric Conditions in Early Childhood, II1946Evidence for a relation
- The Infantile Disorders of Hospitalism and Anaclitic Depression1955Evidence for a relation