Bowlby’s 44 juvenile thieves of the 1930s 2
Case study examples and findings
Back from holiday, and running a bit later than usual; hope to catch up soon.
I’m looking this week at some more detail from Bowlby’s famous study of 44 juvenile thieves, collected from his child guidance work in the 1930s and written up in the 1940s. The previous post in Social work history bites introduced this forerunner of his work in the 1950s on maternal deprivation.
There are several things that are striking about the case studies of these child thieves. One which might shock today’s readers is the ready acceptance of the value of ‘thrashing’ children (usually by the fathers or stepfathers) for minor misbehaviours. Another is the referral to police, probation and child guidance for really quite minor social problems and thieving (often of ‘pennies’ – even with inflation it seems like over-reaction).
The case studies also remind us of the significance of diphtheria, tuberculosis (TB) and other major infections in the lives of people in the 1930s. There were often parental and child deaths and incarcerations in sanatoria for lengthy periods for so many children whose development, life and relationships would not be disrupted in these ways today. Another striking feature of several of the case studies is sexualised behaviour in sometimes very young children, which would lead any social worker of today into looking for sexual abuse, but here, while it is noted, it is not taken up. Looking at Bowlby’s psychoanalytic analysis, this may be because he notes sexual feelings as relevant to emotional development in childhood. Or it may be because child sexual abuse did not become an accepted factor of concern in children’s lives until the late twenieth century at the earliest.
After a few examples of the case studies, which are provided at length in the book, I focus in on the psychiatric emphasis in the judgements made. In particular, I look at Bowlby’s discussion of the ‘affectionless character’, which is strikingly emphasised in the text. It seems all so psychiatric, reflecting Bowlby’s interests and also the psychologization of child offending at the time, even though he is quite socially aware in many of his judgements in the case studies.
Categorisation
The 44 thieves are categorised into six groups. The majority are in the
‘hyperthymic’, or constantly over-active, group (13) or
‘affectionless’ group (14).
The other categories are:
‘normal’ (2)
‘depressed’ (9)
‘circular’, unstable children, alternatingly depressed or over-active (2)
‘schizoid’, with marker schizoid or schizophrenic symptoms (4).
Some case examples
Claud, a ‘normal’ thief of normal intelligence, 16 years, referred by the probation officer, started stealing after leaving school at 14 (pp. 7-8). His mother had been married twice and was now living with the third man, who was usually kind to Claud, although sometimes threatened to thrash him. Claud was a son of the second husband, divorced when he was seven. After this, the mother had a full-time job, leaving Claud with a friend.
He was reported sociable and friendly, got on well with his younger brother, but sullen and unfriendly to his mother. When he was younger, she punished him severely, keeping him in bed for days at a time, but now could not assert herself. He became increasingly ‘difficult and disobedient’ (p. 7) and they had rows, during which she threw things at him. He had stolen only from her, breaking open the gas meter (the cause of the probation order) and taking money from her bag and money box. He had had about ten jobs in the last years, often being sacked for playing about and being cheeky.
He seemed in the clinic ‘a bit solemn’ but straightforward in manner. He discussed the home situation without malice, including his mother’s temperamental behaviour, demands on him for his earnings and tempers. In one row about his giving up a job, she refused to give him anything to eat. She was only concerned he should take a job with good money, even if it had poor prospects. When he was younger, she had insisted on his helping at home, stopping him from going out to play.
Placed in a hostel for a while, ne became much happier, saw his mother occasionally but did not want to return home. Bowlby thought he might have been emotionally disturbed, but mainly seemed to be a normal boy reacting to adverse home circumstances.
Bowlby divides depressed children into two groups (p. 8):
Timid, inhibited and ‘vaguely miserable’ but not severely depressed
Considerable depression, with a definite onset, usually following a distressing event, having previously been cheerful.
Lily, a timid child, had a low IQ, was 11 and a quarter, unwanted at birth, fourth of seven children, one of whom had died. She had been in ‘fever hospital’ at nine months for six weeks, not recognising her parents, who did not visit her, when she returned. The mother was ‘known as a shiftless woman who drank and smoked heavily’ (p. 8), had a bad temper, often shouted at the children, rowed with her husband and had tried to cure Lily’s stealing by threatening her that she would be put in a home until she was 18. As the eldest girl, Lily was expected to do a lot of work round the home; sometimes cooperative, sometimes not; her 16 year-old brother had recently been put on probation for stealing a bicycle. She often seemed dreamy, ‘miles away’, ‘creepy’. She liked school, made friends and had one best friend. Caught stealing at school, she was referred to the clinic. Bowlby thought her ‘chronically anxious and depressed’ presumably because of her mother’s ‘unremittingly hostile and threatening attitude towards her’ (p. 9), combined with poor economic conditions and low intelligence.
James, a considerably depressed child of 12 and three quarters, with a high IQ, was also referred by his school for stealing and lying for three years, had been very depressed. He was a happy healthy second child, very much wanted. His father, after developing TB during the pregnancy, was unable to work, and his mother started to work full-time, living at her employment with James being looked after by strangers. His father died when he was six months old, and through visiting James fortnightly, came to marry the son of the house, who was ‘like an uncle’ (p. 11) to James. While nominally living with his mother and new stepfather, James in fact was mainly cared for by his grandparents for long periods during his mother’s succession of serious illnesses. After one of these periods, he appeared a changed child, felt unwanted and was jealous of his older sister’s more stable home life. The mother seemed to Bowlby to be kindly, but sentimental and self-pitying, and the stepfather was relentless about lying and the need to have gratitude to his parents, threatening to write to the NSPCC about James’s behaviour. At 10, James became moody and depressed, received little affection from his mother and offered little to her, despite being fond of animals. He was stealing coins and latterly from chain stores.
Bowlby saw the depression as a result of his mother’s illness and being sent away, with his unsettled early life disposing him to emotional disturbance.
Audrey, aged 12 when referred by her school for ‘stealing and romancing’ (p. 12 – the school was unable to tell whether her stories were true), was an example of a circular child. Highly intelligent, she had three younger brothers, one of whom was killed in a road accident four years previously at the age of 5. Previously Audrey had been happy and sociable, and she had done well at school, but after the accident had become ‘listless and mopy’, stealing money and hiding other children’s property. An example of romancing was being given money to run an errand, disappearing and returning much later describing an adventure with a man.
Assessed, she lacked interest in school work, but was said to have a charming manner, but lacking though wanting friends. With the psychiatrist, her frankness was ‘half-defiant’ and she asked when she was to be given ‘the lecture (p. 13)’; she told a story about a dying squirrel, which Bowlby interprets as referring to her brother’s death. To quote the diagnosis: ‘This girl’s behaviour was typically hysterical, but I think the case is better understood in terms of a depressive phase following her brother’s death, followed by an elated phase, in which hysterical behaviour was prominent (p. 13)’.
Hyperthymic children are divided into three groups:
Hysterical (2) - excitable and histrionic, quick tempered with jealousy of younger brothers
Cheerful (7) – girls were somewhat hysterical, boys being over-cheerful and boastful; pyknic (stocky) in physique; some had stolen very little
Aggressive (4) – all 8-9 year-old boys were chronic thieves; ‘gangsters in the making’ (p. 20), over-active, restless characters, domineering, defiant, sometimes reacting to parental dislike and rejection.
Affectionless characters
There is a lengthy section on the 14 thieves ‘distinguished from the remainder by their remarkable lack of affection or warmth of feeling for anyone’ (p. 20).
Nansi, an intelligent girl aged 8, was referred by her ‘schoolmistress’ for dishonesty and pilfering money to spend it on sweets (p. 25). She was second of five children of a widowed mother obliged to be in full-time work, all ‘looked after by a decrepit old grandmother’. The parents’ marriage was ‘ideally happy’, with a respectable father who had died when Nansi was 5. She thrived as a baby, but at 12 months suffered bronchitis, and was nine months in hospital, where she also experienced bouts of pneumonia and measles, never seeing her parents who were only allowed to visit when she was asleep. Returning home, she wet and soiled her bed every night, having previously been clean, and was detached when daytime soiling or wetting were revealed. The mother described Nansi as the ‘odd one out’, indifferent to her mother and how she was treated, not interested in her brothers. At school she was bright, enjoyed her work and played normally. But she was preoccupied with her faults, for exaample going to the teacher to say she had been good all week. She systematically stole from every source, ‘swindled her brother out of his milk money for a whole term’, and was unashamed when found out. At the clinic, she was ‘withdrawn, detached and umemotional’ asked if she might take toys home for her brother, wanted to take the whole box, and when offered an elephant also secreted a doll. Bowlby’s ‘diagnosis’: her detached indifference to all emotional relationships at home, together with shamelessness over her faults show that she was a typical example of the Affectionless Character (Italics original), which had evidently developed as a result of prolonged hospitalization’.
The four cases of schizoid or schizophrenic characters were ‘shut in’, experienced hallucinations but were also often affectionless; there was often a history of parental mental illness.
Bowlby’s account of affectionless children
I noted in the previous post that Bowlby’s lengthy analysis of the case studies identified broken homes, maternal deprivation and early home environments as important factors in generating thieving. Affectionlessness, however, receives a great deal of attention in the book (pp. 49-53).
The foregoing statistical analysis has demonstrated that a prolonged separation of child from his [sic] mother (or mother-figure) in the early years commonly leads to his becoming a persistent thief and an Affectionless Character (p. 49).
He outlines how this occurs, in his ‘notes on the psychopathology of the affectionless character’.
Libidinal and aggressive impulses are excessively stimulated by the frustration of separation (he means emotional pressures deriving from family or perhaps sexual feelings). The child starts stealing to gain emotional satisfaction from the possession of things. Most of the children stole food or money to buy food or sweets. These needs become violent when meeting them is frustrated by untoward circumstances in the family. The aggression derives from the fact that stealing ‘impoverishes and hurts others’ (p. 50); a revenge then. These children experienced deprivation and it is not surprising that this leads them to inflict suffering on others. Aggressive impulses are directed towards parents. These impulses are not inhibited, as with most people, and because the children cannot feel or express love, they cannot make permanent personal relationships with others. Inhibition of the possibility of love is combined with uninhibited impulses. There is, consequently, a lack of a developed super-ego which would regulate these impulses.
Several factors lead to the development of these impulses.
Lack of opportunity at an early stage of childhood to develop relationships with a love-object
A swamping of affection with rage, deriving from situations in which they were expected to settle down happily with strangers.
Love is impossible if hate is entrenched (p. 51)
The mood of hatred is perpetuated through phantasy; he means creating images of unrealistic and improbable meanings. Hating your mother means not just being frustrated by her, but as someone who is malicious and hostile justifying animosity and revenge.
Misconceptions of others’ motives, for example in punishing the child, also lead to ideas that the child is not worth loving.
A determination not to experience again the disappointment of the early separation from potential love-objects.
In this account, you can see how Bowlby’s psychoanalytic ideas enable him to create a picture of the factors driving stealing behaviour that comes from disrupted childhood relationships.