You’re made needing attachment
November 10th, 2009

For over 10 years I’ve been a student of transformation. From leadership to self-help to psychology to biblical studies I’m constantly looking at the angle of why we don’t change as much as we want and how to facilitate transformation. For the next series of posts we’ll be diving deeply into this subject matter looking specifically at the newest research on the brain.

We’ll come at this from the angle of mental health showing how Scripture affirms the newest research and widen the application to our lives.

The starting point is what our brain needs. Mental health is the ability to process life, the good and bad, framing what happens in the context of our larger life story. We keep what is beneficial to remember and learn from life’s events while discarding the useless and negative information. If we haven’t discarded the negative information it manifests itself in our inability to process life through negative talk and thoughts that constantly occur in our brain. This negative information is stored implicitly and drives our self-defeating behavior. We’re typically not aware that these thoughts occur.

How do we develop the ability to process?

“(T)he mother shapes the infant’s stress coping systems” (120)* What that means is that your brain is given the the hardware to process life but an attachment to a caregiver or parent that soothes your troubled emotion is the software that makes it happen. Your hippocampus processes the stress. And that doesn’t start working on it’s own until to two or three. And if you don’t get the software from an early age your hippocampus’ development will be stunted, thus stunting your ability to process life and it’s stresses.

See, “(t)he baby’s brain is not only affected by these interactions, its growth literally requires brain-brain interactions and occurs in the context of a positive relationship between mother and infant.” (Journal article in Development and Psychopathology, 8, 59-87.) Your brain has to have to an attachment to develop properly. The baby’s mind requires the parent’s mind to form the neural circuitry that allows it to self-regulate in stress and process life. Another way of saying it, “Experiences shape the brain connections that create the mind and enable an emerging sense of “self” in the world” (10)*

Implications:

• Experiences, especially our earliest, are the most important determining factor in the development of our ability to thrive in the midst of life’s demands and hurts.
• You were made for attachment to someone who is patient, supportive, empathetic, and nurturing.
• Most didn’t get that in life but we can find healing and learn to thrive in a relationship with a caregiver who emulates these characteristics and gives us a safe place to learn new life skills.
• At it’s deepest level this means we were created for attachment and that attachment is most fulfilled in Jesus. We can be attached to an intimate, patient, non-judgmental, accepting, and affirming love that will literally re-wire our brain with new neural connections. That is healing!

We had to go deeper and more technical in this post. Hang on, we’re just getting started and I promise to help make the journey of learning this as smooth as possible.

Thoughs?

*Unless noted differently quotes are from Healing Trauma. (Click on my amazon link if you want to purchase.)