The whole psychoanolytical/freudian belief in the inportance of early
experience has some validity.

The brain of a child prunes neural
connections that are not used during the first year or so of life.

Hi,

My mother, who has been a psychotherapist for over 25 years, and who has
a postgrad diploma from Oxford University and a masters in
psychoanalysis, confidently says that a lack of a 'constant parent
presence' for the first few years of a child's life can be very
damaging. She says there have been many studies into this, that it is
accepted as fact, and she can be quite 'militant' about young mothers
returning to work while leaving the baby in daycare (where there might
be 20 babies looked after by 2 or 3 people).

My saying 'young mothers'
is unfair, a 'constant parent presence' would be better phrasing;
someone -ideally a parent- whom the baby knows, but a grandparent or
even a consistent full-time nanny would serve the same purpose.

She was unable to give me a satisfactory answer when I asked her how it
is known that 'a lack of a 'constant parent presence' for the first few
years of a child's life can be very damaging', other than to say there
have been many studies into the issue.

What I would like answered is how do you determine that it was a lack of
a 'constant parent presence' that has caused problems?

Children are
exposed to so many new experiences over so many years, with so varied
types of parental or other care, that it seems to me very hard to
pinpoint one aspect of their care as being THE cause of psychological
damage or less desirable personality traits. Constructing experiments in
the way of one of the natural sciences is, of course, impossible.

Can someone explain to me how the studies she mentioned came to the
conclusion that a lack of a 'constant parent presence' for the first few
years of a child's life can be damaging?