In my last post, I made a correlation between what we know we need as children to feel seen, to feel felt, to feel gotten. The general answer is consistent emotional availability and timely, appropriate responsiveness from our caregivers. By appropriate, I mean a response that addresses our needs within the context of our developmental moment. In infancy, we need holding and rocking much more than we do at age four. Timeliness is critical because as babies, we don't have the capacity for patience. We cannot rationalize (the left hemisphere being largely as yet undeveloped) why it is taking Mommy so long to feed us or pick us up or warm us. For the total package of what we need, I tend to prefer the term "emotional resonance" and include all of the above in it.
We can build on this theme and go further to say that as infants in particular, we have a powerful need to be held, touched and physically cared for. We also have a powerful need to gaze into the eyes of caregivers who are gazing back at us with love. Further, we have a built in need for play, which will include touch and a variety of pleasantly stimulating facial expressions and vocalizations. Speaking of vocalizations, it is probably an infant can read its parents vocal tones with some degree of nuance. He has no words or ideas for anger, fear, sadness or happiness but the odds are, he can feel the difference and loud voices expressing a disturbed state are received as a kind of "disturbance in the force" to borrow an apt term from one of our modern myths, Star Wars. All of these kinds of interactions will tend to stimulate our brains toward optimal development on all fronts.
So doesn't it make sense that a fulfilling adult relationship would have among its core components the same experiences, recalibrated to our adult developmental moment? Sex is an adult need, but it is not the only or even our most important physical need. We also need to be held and touched in non-sexual ways that let us know we are deeply cared for and connected to our partner. We need to gaze into a face that gazes back at us lovingly. When we consider this, it underscores that even a facial expression can be violent, even though no violent action is taken. Our lover looking "daggers" at us can be deeply wounding. Or, more mundanely, their just screwing up their face, rolling their eyes or smirking in disapproval of something we think, feel, say or do. A blank stare when we need a feeling response can do violence. The utter absence of gaze due to depression can do violence. Loud voices with angry edge in them no doubt do violence to our hearts, not just our ears, whereas loud voices expressing joy do the opposite. The failure to provide a caress or hug when one is especially needed is a kind of violence, just as too much caressing and hugging can do similar damage. We also need our partners to be playful in innocent ways that are silly, fun and stimulating without teasing or sarcasm, both of which can be deeply hurtful. The absence of playfulness is a kind of quiet violence upon the spirit. So let's hear a round of applauds for grownups who can still make faces at each other and cavort to their favorite music!
It is important for us to feel and think into these ideas. If we weren't all carrying around a lot of childhood injuries, our partner's disapproval or emotional absence would not carry as much charge. But the truth is, we all do carry those some of those injuries. When Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt exhort us to rid our relationships of all negativity, we have to broaden and deepen our understanding of negativity to include how we touch, when we touch, how we look or don't look at each other and when we look or don't look, also how much we play with each other and the quality of that play. These are essential to feeling loved. Now that is the nutshell of this post. If you want some of the science, read on.
There is a growing mountain of evidence that our adult ways of being in relationships, especially love relationships, are, to a highly significant degree, elaborations of templates laid down in our brains in the womb, at birth and in the first three years of life outside the womb. The challenge for all of us in the rearing and healing arts is that there is no explicit memory of the events that were so powerful in shaping personalities--the laying down of critical setpoints for feeling /not feeling and reacting/not reacting. Douglas Watt, neuroscientist at the Neuropsychology Department, Quincy Medical Center in Quincy, Massachusetts, has called these early years before the left hippocampus begins to record explicit sequential memories (the who, what, where, when, why and how data), "unrememberable and unforgettable". They are unrememberable because of the immaturity of the left hippocampus and temporal lobe which will ultimately collaborate in recording explicit memories. They are unforgettable because they are deeply imprinted in the developmental systems as they exist at any given moment. The memories are in neurons and synapses, in brain structures, in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and, most likely, the very cells throughout our being. These memories carry enormous energy, in spite of our lack of access to them through conventional remembering using words or idea and data points. They are the early music of our lives--primal sonatas from which symphonies will later be constructed.
As infants, our brains become wired by our interactions with our caregivers and other individuals. Sue Gerhardt, in her wonderful book, Why Love Matters, does an exquisite job of detailing this, synthesizing the work of many others. She shows us how critical the quality of facial interaction is between caregivers and infant in arms, as well as the frequency and quality of being held and physically cared for, being cooed and spoken to and the speed, consistency and appropriateness of caregiver responses in satisfying a baby's needs and returning him to a state of calm and joyfulness. She writes, "...the kind of brain that each baby develops comes out of his or her particular experiences with people. It is very 'experience dependent'..."One of the most dramatic examples of this has emerged from studies of Romanian orphans. Those left in cribs and beds with practically no human interaction basically have no developed Orbital Frontal Cortex--a critical part of the brain in social relationships. What more horrifyingly eloquent testimony could we need to make the point?
Dr. Allan Schore of UCLA, tells us that the single most important stimulus to the development of an emotionally intelligent brain is the quality of facial expressions the baby experiences coming from his caregivers. Human babies are wired to read these expressions in detail for their global meanings as well as their subtle and specific nuances. When they are deprived of that interaction, or when that interaction is often scary, they develop problematic attachment and anxiety. I'm not sure it is necessary to single out caregiver facial expressions from the array of critical interactive elements, but Schore's point is important.
To put it succinctly, the quality of caregiver interactions set up a lifetime's worth of wiring in our brains before most of us can remember a single event.
This may make the possibility of transformation toward a greater wholeness in adulthood seem like a distant grail. But fortunately, we have also seen that through the slow, steady application of processes like Dialogue that bring calmness and welcome grieving, transformation can indeed happen. Pain can eventually be released even from those early imprints, albeit as physical sensations--pain in the muscles and viscera, pain that should properly be called "the pain with no name" because it does not conform to our usual vocabulary for feeling, other than to use wordslike hurt. terror and helplessness. This pain is real. I have felt it myself...and while going down into it is certainly no picnic, it can be profoundly resolving. This is generally only likely to happen after we have dealt with those issues of explicit memory first, progressing gradually backward and downward from the prefrontal cortex into the limbic system and even into the brainstem where our earliest experiences have left their marks in total body processes.
As the science advances and we are called to broaden our understanding of what emotional resonance looks like, we are also called to open to the irrefutable reality of those early hurts that, like silent children hiding in the dark corner of a classroom wait to step forward and be fully known. It is hard to imagine how a therapy will be considered valid in the not too distant future without credibly addressing these original deficits in a way that can be scientifically validated.
C2011 Bob Kamm
We can build on this theme and go further to say that as infants in particular, we have a powerful need to be held, touched and physically cared for. We also have a powerful need to gaze into the eyes of caregivers who are gazing back at us with love. Further, we have a built in need for play, which will include touch and a variety of pleasantly stimulating facial expressions and vocalizations. Speaking of vocalizations, it is probably an infant can read its parents vocal tones with some degree of nuance. He has no words or ideas for anger, fear, sadness or happiness but the odds are, he can feel the difference and loud voices expressing a disturbed state are received as a kind of "disturbance in the force" to borrow an apt term from one of our modern myths, Star Wars. All of these kinds of interactions will tend to stimulate our brains toward optimal development on all fronts.
So doesn't it make sense that a fulfilling adult relationship would have among its core components the same experiences, recalibrated to our adult developmental moment? Sex is an adult need, but it is not the only or even our most important physical need. We also need to be held and touched in non-sexual ways that let us know we are deeply cared for and connected to our partner. We need to gaze into a face that gazes back at us lovingly. When we consider this, it underscores that even a facial expression can be violent, even though no violent action is taken. Our lover looking "daggers" at us can be deeply wounding. Or, more mundanely, their just screwing up their face, rolling their eyes or smirking in disapproval of something we think, feel, say or do. A blank stare when we need a feeling response can do violence. The utter absence of gaze due to depression can do violence. Loud voices with angry edge in them no doubt do violence to our hearts, not just our ears, whereas loud voices expressing joy do the opposite. The failure to provide a caress or hug when one is especially needed is a kind of violence, just as too much caressing and hugging can do similar damage. We also need our partners to be playful in innocent ways that are silly, fun and stimulating without teasing or sarcasm, both of which can be deeply hurtful. The absence of playfulness is a kind of quiet violence upon the spirit. So let's hear a round of applauds for grownups who can still make faces at each other and cavort to their favorite music!
It is important for us to feel and think into these ideas. If we weren't all carrying around a lot of childhood injuries, our partner's disapproval or emotional absence would not carry as much charge. But the truth is, we all do carry those some of those injuries. When Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt exhort us to rid our relationships of all negativity, we have to broaden and deepen our understanding of negativity to include how we touch, when we touch, how we look or don't look at each other and when we look or don't look, also how much we play with each other and the quality of that play. These are essential to feeling loved. Now that is the nutshell of this post. If you want some of the science, read on.
There is a growing mountain of evidence that our adult ways of being in relationships, especially love relationships, are, to a highly significant degree, elaborations of templates laid down in our brains in the womb, at birth and in the first three years of life outside the womb. The challenge for all of us in the rearing and healing arts is that there is no explicit memory of the events that were so powerful in shaping personalities--the laying down of critical setpoints for feeling /not feeling and reacting/not reacting. Douglas Watt, neuroscientist at the Neuropsychology Department, Quincy Medical Center in Quincy, Massachusetts, has called these early years before the left hippocampus begins to record explicit sequential memories (the who, what, where, when, why and how data), "unrememberable and unforgettable". They are unrememberable because of the immaturity of the left hippocampus and temporal lobe which will ultimately collaborate in recording explicit memories. They are unforgettable because they are deeply imprinted in the developmental systems as they exist at any given moment. The memories are in neurons and synapses, in brain structures, in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and, most likely, the very cells throughout our being. These memories carry enormous energy, in spite of our lack of access to them through conventional remembering using words or idea and data points. They are the early music of our lives--primal sonatas from which symphonies will later be constructed.
As infants, our brains become wired by our interactions with our caregivers and other individuals. Sue Gerhardt, in her wonderful book, Why Love Matters, does an exquisite job of detailing this, synthesizing the work of many others. She shows us how critical the quality of facial interaction is between caregivers and infant in arms, as well as the frequency and quality of being held and physically cared for, being cooed and spoken to and the speed, consistency and appropriateness of caregiver responses in satisfying a baby's needs and returning him to a state of calm and joyfulness. She writes, "...the kind of brain that each baby develops comes out of his or her particular experiences with people. It is very 'experience dependent'..."One of the most dramatic examples of this has emerged from studies of Romanian orphans. Those left in cribs and beds with practically no human interaction basically have no developed Orbital Frontal Cortex--a critical part of the brain in social relationships. What more horrifyingly eloquent testimony could we need to make the point?
Dr. Allan Schore of UCLA, tells us that the single most important stimulus to the development of an emotionally intelligent brain is the quality of facial expressions the baby experiences coming from his caregivers. Human babies are wired to read these expressions in detail for their global meanings as well as their subtle and specific nuances. When they are deprived of that interaction, or when that interaction is often scary, they develop problematic attachment and anxiety. I'm not sure it is necessary to single out caregiver facial expressions from the array of critical interactive elements, but Schore's point is important.
To put it succinctly, the quality of caregiver interactions set up a lifetime's worth of wiring in our brains before most of us can remember a single event.
This may make the possibility of transformation toward a greater wholeness in adulthood seem like a distant grail. But fortunately, we have also seen that through the slow, steady application of processes like Dialogue that bring calmness and welcome grieving, transformation can indeed happen. Pain can eventually be released even from those early imprints, albeit as physical sensations--pain in the muscles and viscera, pain that should properly be called "the pain with no name" because it does not conform to our usual vocabulary for feeling, other than to use wordslike hurt. terror and helplessness. This pain is real. I have felt it myself...and while going down into it is certainly no picnic, it can be profoundly resolving. This is generally only likely to happen after we have dealt with those issues of explicit memory first, progressing gradually backward and downward from the prefrontal cortex into the limbic system and even into the brainstem where our earliest experiences have left their marks in total body processes.
As the science advances and we are called to broaden our understanding of what emotional resonance looks like, we are also called to open to the irrefutable reality of those early hurts that, like silent children hiding in the dark corner of a classroom wait to step forward and be fully known. It is hard to imagine how a therapy will be considered valid in the not too distant future without credibly addressing these original deficits in a way that can be scientifically validated.
C2011 Bob Kamm
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