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CHILDREARING, CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH: EXPLORING AN ETHOLOGICAL–EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE IN CHILD PSYCHIATRY AND PREVENTIVE MENTAL HEALTH WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO TWO CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO EARLY CHILDREARING
Author(s) -
Cook Peter S.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1978.tb76868.x
Subject(s) - distrust , psychology , mental health , developmental psychology , harmony (color) , population , perspective (graphical) , social psychology , sociology , psychiatry , psychotherapist , artificial intelligence , computer science , art , demography , visual arts
A shift of historic significance in some aspects of Western attitudes to childrearing is occurring. In this period of transition the coexistence of two contrasting approaches to childrearing has given rise to much contradiction and confusion in the advice offered to parents. This paper seeks to explore some mental health aspects of this situation from an evolutionary and historical perspective. The term “phylogenetically‐” or “ecologically–determined maladjustment” has been proposed for that particular kind of disturbance in an organism, or in a population, which is due to the fact that the environmental conditions have deviated significantly from those to which the species has become genetically adapted through evolution. This concept, which is a corollary of Darwinian theory, has health implications and appears relevant in psychiatry both for understanding psychological disturbance and for promoting mental health. It is particularly applicable in early childhood. I suggest that childrearing in English–speaking societies is emerging from an era in which many widely held beliefs, values, attitudes, and practices have been so out of harmony with the genetically influenced nature and needs of mothers and their developing children that they have contributed to conflict, stress, and emotional and behavioural disturbance in the infant and developing child. An attitude of basic distrust towards the human biological “givens”, combined with a belief in coercion, have characterized this approach to childrearing, which is here termed the “basic distrust orientation”. It is undesirable that developing countries, seeking beneficial, scientifically–based advances, should also inadvertently and unnecessarily import some of these tenets and practices which may be prejudicial to mental health. The basic distrust orientation is contrasted with a “trusting cooperative” approach to early childrearing which appears to be more in harmony with the nature and needs of developing children and their parents. These principles are relevant to the diagnosis and therapeutic management of emotionally disturbed children. They also suggest guidelines for the promotion of mental health. It is necessary to understand and respect the biological “givens”, together with the potentials of such inbuilt regulatory mechanisms as have evolved, and then to cooperate with them, rather than work against them in the approach to early childrearing, family life, and the social settings in which they occur. In many ways this can be, and is being, done now.