van der Horst Frank C P, van der Veer René
Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands.
Attach Hum Dev. 2009 Mar;11(2):119-42. doi: 10.1080/14616730802503655.
It is generally believed that the work of Bowlby and Robertson was new and decisive in changing the hospital conditions for young children. The fact that parents in the UK and other European countries can now visit their sick child at any time they wish or even room-in is attributed to an acquaintance with Bowlby's findings and Robertson's well-known films about the potentially detrimental effects of hospital stays for young children. In this paper we shall argue that this picture is incomplete and that, historically, things were rather more intricate. Bowlby and Robertson were neither the first nor the only researchers who tried to change hospital policies. Moreover, the older hospital policies were not uniformly bad. Long before Bowlby and Robertson began their plea for reforms, several individuals and hospitals had already introduced conditions that we now still regard as exemplary. The whole change towards more liberal, flexible, and humane practices in children's wards took place over several decades and was fuelled by both worried medical doctors, pressure groups of parents, sympathetic editors of medical journals, and emerging new research findings such as those provided by Bowlby and Robertson. In that societal debate, the voices of Bowlby and Robertson were influential but not necessarily new or decisive.
人们普遍认为，鲍尔比和罗伯逊的工作在改变幼儿的医院环境方面是新颖且具有决定性的。英国和其他欧洲国家的父母现在可以在他们希望的任何时候探望生病的孩子，甚至可以陪床，这一事实被归因于他们了解了鲍尔比的研究结果以及罗伯逊关于幼儿住院可能产生有害影响的著名影片。在本文中，我们将论证这种观点是不完整的，而且从历史角度来看，情况要复杂得多。鲍尔比和罗伯逊既不是最早也不是唯一试图改变医院政策的研究人员。此外，过去的医院政策并非全是不好的。早在鲍尔比和罗伯逊开始呼吁改革之前，一些个人和医院就已经引入了我们现在仍视为典范的条件。儿童病房朝着更宽松、灵活和人道的做法的整个转变历经了几十年，推动这一转变的有忧心忡忡的医生、家长压力团体、富有同情心的医学期刊编辑，以及诸如鲍尔比和罗伯逊提供的那些新出现的研究结果。在那场社会辩论中，鲍尔比和罗伯逊的声音很有影响力，但不一定是新颖的或决定性的。
