Citation

Batchelor IRC, Napier MB. Br. J. Delinq. 1954; 4: e99.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1954, Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency (Great Britain))

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The social and medical importance of 'broken homes' adversely the mental health of the children nurtured in them is now widely recognized. Bowlby (1951) has recently published an excellent survey of the whole problem in childhood: and has stressed particularly the supreme importance for the individual's mental health of mother love in infancy and early years. Less attention has been given to the significance of broken homes in the aetiology of adult mental illness. American investigations, by Pollock, Malzberg and Fuller (1939), Lidz and Lidz (1949) and Oltman, McGarry and Friedman (1952), are in fair agreement about the incidence of parental deprivation in cases of schizophrenia, figures varying between 34 per cent and 40 per cent being reported by them. The first two of these groups of workers have also reported accordant figures for the incidence of depressive states-16-7 per cent and 20 per cent (respectively): whereas Oltman et al. have recorded an incidence in manic-depressives of 33•9 per cent. Oltman et al. give an incidence of 48•9 per cent in psychoneuroses and of 47.7 per cent in cases of psychopathic personality. Madow and Hardy (1947) found that amongst soldiers suffering from war neuroses 36 per cent came from homes which had been broken before the patients were 16: McGregor (1944) investigating similar case material found 48 per cent affected. While some of these figures clearly suggest that child- hood deprivations have played an important role in predisposing to certain adult breakdowns, it remains true that the aetiology of nervous and mental illnesses is usually complex, and that one cannot safely neglect or minimise either endogenous or exogenous influences. A broken home in most cases can be only one adverse factor amongst many, and is frequently of less importance than, for example, a morbid inheritance. The significance of these figures depends also obviously on the incidence amongst controls. 'The majority of reports appear to indicate the presence of parental deprivation in approximately 30 percent...