Psychogenic Disease in Infancy (1952)

★★★★★ · Controversial and Intriguing · ns87 · 2009-12-23

First, I just want to address the following comment from a previous reviewer: "I will grant that depriving a child of a caring parent will dramatically impact his or her emotional development. I am wondering how they came across three children who were neglected for months at a time, though; even without a mother, there are fathers, or adoptive parents/caretakers, who can provide the social interactions an infant needs." How did they come across these children? During the 1950s, orphanages and hospitals for children were inadequate. That's where Spitz "found" these children. The medical…

★★★★★ · Groundbreaking science! · SannaGosing · 2008-08-09

I am enourmously greatful to be able to directly see this film. This is one of most disturbing things I have ever seen. Although difficult to understand, (I would appreciate some professional comments, for my own knowledge, and for others considering other reviews), it gives clues to the development of post war psychology. These children should be crawling around, investigating, playing, crying. But they aren't, they are staying in their cot, as they were put there by the carers. Note that this was not some cruel experiment back in the 1940s, it was the standard caring of orphaned infants.…

★★★★★ · Context · morganjones65 · 2010-07-06

Robert Karen provides this confluence of factors for historical context: In the early 20th century, orphaned children or those who had been given up by their parents were still typically raised in institutions in their early years rather than placed in foster care or an adoptive family. Influential proponents of eugenics OPPOSED early adoption on the grounds that it was better to let the child grow a bit and see if it was defective in any way. In 1928, Arnold Gesell, a prominent developmental psychologist at Yale, was convinced that children will be what they will be regardless of how they…

★★★★ · Thought provoking for those in the Medical field · 62Baby · 2008-02-08

Wow, this was really disturbing to watch. Not the mother-child relationship they were trying to show, but how the children were used "in the name of science" to see what would happen. I really find it hard to believe that eczema is caused by an overly aggressive mother or whatever. Were these children used as "test rats"? Were these children willingly left by their mothers to "further science"? Were the children WELL compensated, presuming they lived, for their part in this film? Although, there are many, many mothers (and fathers for that matter) who do not deserve children, I don't believe…