Neurological Attachment in ChildhoodUntangling the Threads

(30 slides)

creatively compiled by dr. michael farnworth

The purpose of this presentation is to help us understand the impact of early childhood experiences and the resulting stress and survival templates (coupled

with the conclusions of preoperational thinking and their long term results) as we engage with others in the relationship of our young

lives.

The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.

William Faulkner

Lesson disclaimer

• The information in this lesson does not necessarily have anything to do with us directly as we are each uniquely the exception and certainly not the rule.

• So please remember this information doesn’t necessarily apply to us, just to people who are in therapy or who should be, but aren’t because of denial.

The biological imperative necessary for survival

• Human beings are biologically classified as mammals and as such, we have the genetic biological imperative to bond to our care givers the best we can.

• Infants, biologically know, they need to bond to caregivers in order to survive.

• It is programmed into their DNA.

The most sophisticated sensing miracle of the CNS…

• The central nervous system of a human being is a wonder of neural, chemical, hormonal communication and feedback.

• What ignorance we demonstrate to think that children are basically unaffected (not to worry) by early trauma and stress experiences.

• These events, when of sufficient duration, intensity and

frequency can change brain function and synaptic responses!

The Ultimate Irony…

• “In the developing brain, (i.e. infancy and childhood) neurotransmitters and hormones play key roles in neuronal migration, differentiation, synaptic proliferation and overall brain development.” (J. Lauder, Progress in Brain Research 73, 1988.)

• The very time when humans are most venerable to the effects of trauma and stress (i.e. infancy and childhood) most adults assume the most resilience and minimize the whole phenomenon, as they won’t remember it anyways.

Neural Templates

• Since infants and children are in a malleable and pliable state the more frequent and intense a certain pattern of neural activation is-- the more indelible and imprinted the response neural template will be.

• Early childhood experiences provide the organizing framework for adaptive responses to stressful events.

• An example: The story of Albert and the white rabbit (picture a toddler, a little white rabbit and a pair of cymbals)

The Arousal Template

• A template is a pattern used to duplicate something. Everyone has an individual arousal template unique to their own history.

• The template can be one that evokes threat or safety.

• This template was created in early childhood by experiences that scared and threatened the young and impressionable child or that brought them comfort and safety that was furthered complicated by the cognitive stage of pre-operational thinking.

Attachment Problems

• Attachment problems can begin in infancy and childhood and get played out in adulthood.

• Emotional hunger can be easily confused with love and the defended and redundant patterns of brain-chemistry templates and the resultant brain\body-physiology can produce alienation from others and a state of addicted self sufficiency.

Attachment Disorders...

• Attachment disorders are often reflective of attention deficits of loving and involved significant others in the child's life.

• Children crave being attuned to and attention that is undivided carries with it a very strong positive energy that the child can feel.

• When the attention is absent then alienation occurs.

Child Sensory Brain Deprivation:

• Parents who neglect, who are disengaged from the care-giving process, who are too busy, too impatient, too irritable, too hostile, who abandon their children for long periods of time, who have little or no positive energy for their children have a tendency to produce sad and melancholy off spring prone to alienation.

The Inhibitors of Brain Development:

• Danger• Deprivation• Fear• Stress• Anxiety• Hurt• Hunger• Exposure• Neglect

Remember This Formula:

Attention = attachment andNon attention = alienation

The good news– bad news syndrome…

• The good news for some of us is that we were raised by normal parents who, though having their faults and idiosyncrasies, did a fairly decent job of making the bonding process easy and enjoyable for us.

• The bad news is that some of us were raised by wounded and hostile parents who inflicted fear and pain upon us and who made it a difficult and traumatic bonding process, but bond we did.

The attaching to the perpetrator…

• As imperfect parents, I think we would all qualify as perpetrators in one way or another.

• And as Alice Miller, Drama of the Gifted Child has written:

We live in a culture that encourages us not to take our own suffering seriously, but rather to make light of it or even to laugh about it. Many are proud of their lack of sensitivity toward their own fate and particularly toward their fate as a child.

Human children are bonded to, by and are drawn to parental energieswhether the

If the bonding energies were extreme, intense and abusive, then…

As humans it is impossible to experience positive sensations at the same time we experience negative sensations. Over time, we will get stuck in one extreme or the other.

To survive-- we fracture or split off. This split occurs within our selves.

I had to love the person who was hurting or scaring me.I must. I will. I do.

I grow up either raging, hostile and acting out orI become quite, docile, nice and invisible.

Traumatic bonding and energy.

• Children are bonded (neural templates of attachment and arousal) by parental energy.

• The bonding is most powerful when the energy is high and intense.

• Children will internalize the voice of the parent at its energy peak.

• The voice then lives on in the child’s soul, to reemerge time and time again in relationship to self and future children.

The “Stockholm Syndrome”

• Just as hostages will bond with their captors in an effort to survive, children will bond to abusive parents for the same reason.

• Cognitive distortions rationalize the violence, shame and abuse to find hope in an otherwise overwhelming situation.

• If competent adults can distort reality to survive threatening situations-- imagine the vulnerability of the child!

The Child’s Dilemma…in relation to their abusive parents.

• Ownership is total• Control is complete• Hope of rescue is minimal

Safety and self esteem

• The first building block of self-esteem is safety, physical emotional, sexual and spiritual safety.

• If safety is missing, then it is near impossible to develop an acceptance and compassionate view of the self.

The self-blaming mechanism of pre-operational thinking...

• Children in the pre-operational stage of thinking (2-7years) often blame them selves for events that occur to or around them.

• A good example is the event of divorce... “if I would just be good enough.”

• Or the 9-11 tragedy… “the cloud was chasing me.”

The Locus of Control Shift begins:

• Since the preoperational child has so little control in their life they begin shifting the control over to themselves by blaming themselves.

• Blaming the self gives the child some of the needed sense of control and predictive power in their life to satisfy that basic human need.

The Locus of Control Shift…

perpetratorchild‘Badness’

PowerControl mastery

The child blames the self. I am in control. I deserve it. I will do better. I am the mistake. I am bad. I love the ‘perpetrator’. I can be better. I must be good.

The preoperational thinking lives on…

• The preoperational thinking lives on but not as intellectual constructs that can be recalled to conscious memory. But rather feelings (neural templates) and energies as something about the self that is amiss, lacking or fundamentally wrong and faulty.

• This energy provides the basic conviction about the self that is foundational in later life.

• Let any therapist tell you about the resistance inherent in changing that basic perception of the self in the therapeutic healing process.

Alienation and Attachment Disorder Described...

• The distorted notion of being bad invites self sufficiency and not needing other people.

• Self nurturing and defended stances (arousal templates) that alienate and put off others are formed.

• Being externally referenced and cut off from one’s inner reality of being becomes second nature.

• Self comforting skills that mood alter and thus become addictive over time occur.

The neurochemistry of attachment disorders:

• Alienation from others and self produces withdrawal into pleasurable, mood altering, self-comforting activities and hence.

• These activities become addictive over time when primary emotional needs are not meant we turn to secondary processes.

• The neural arousal and comforting templates associated with withdrawal from others and self are carried into adulthood.

Much of the adult dysfunction in our lives occurred when we were very small and just trying to survive.

We need to stop blaming our self.

We need to start being more protective and nurturing.

We need to engage the past survival energies in such a way as to process them out of bodies instead of keeping them stuck and being victimized by

them over and over again.

Healing from our childhood is difficult work but it can be done if we are willing to awaken and do the work.

the end