Juvenile Delinquency
The Royal Medico-Psychological Association was recently invited to prepare a memorandum for tfr London County Council Committee on Juvenile Delinquency, and the Subcommittee entrusted with the preparation of this memorandum considered that they would most profitably formulate the principles governing normal social development as generally accepted by a psychiatrist.
Abstract
potentiality the mature pattern of social behaviour depends upon the pattern of behaviour established in early family relationships. Normal behaviour presupposes that the child in the home should have met firstly with stable and secure affection. This is a biological need without which he cannot develop normally. In its absence, relative or, rarely, complete, he will be liable to a wide variety of neurotic disturbances. For his social development the most important of these is that, lacking affection in his early years, his capacity to return affection is