How parental love shapes a child's brain. Sue Gerhardt - How does love shape a child's brain? The basis of easy parenting is good relationships

I remember how, in the last month of pregnancy, the book of the British psychotherapist Sue Gerhardt, “How love shapes the brain of a child,” fell into my hands. It was highly recommended to read it by my psychology teacher. And what do you think? This book completely changed my perspective on parenting!

This book, unlike the currently popular books on psychology, is the result of many years of observation, supported by training and psychotherapeutic practice, in which special attention was paid to the relationship between infants and their mothers.

I think that many people know that babies are not just defenseless creatures that can only eat, poop, cry. Everyone knows that communication between a child and adults is very important and should not be limited to satisfying his physiological needs. Mandatory manifestation of love, responsiveness, affection, otherwise the timing of the manifestation of communication begins to linger, there may be a paucity of the emotional sphere, low initiative.

The book pays special attention to the atmosphere in which the child grows up. It is a system in which everything is interconnected. How one person behaves affects how another behaves, and then the behavior of this other person affects the first, and so on.

Here is John Bowlby with his theory of attachment - in order to understand people, you need to understand the environment in which they are. The formation of a child is influenced by other people, to the same extent as the food he eats and the air he breathes. Moreover, the baby is the most socially influenced creature on the planet. In this influence can be found the key to what his emotions are and how to manage them. This means that our childhood experiences have a far greater influence on the kind of adults we become than we ourselves think. It is in infancy that we feel for the first time and learn what to do with these feelings, we begin to systematize our own experience and develop mechanisms that will influence our future behavior and mental abilities. Neurologist Doug Watt called early infancy a period "unremembered and unforgettable."

Mother's love and care for the baby helps to develop the brain and body. Many aspects of bodily functions and emotional behavior are formed in a person as a result of social behavior. For example, a child who was poorly cared for in infancy (maternal postpartum depression) shows a more reactive response to stress than a child who is properly cared for, and his biochemical responses will also be different.

The book describes the destructive effect of the hormone cortisol on the still unformed brain of an infant. How the advice passed down from generation to generation - let him scream, let his lungs clear - contribute to a sharp jump in this stress hormone.

If a child cries, then some of his needs are not satisfied. The book demonstrates that such needs are not a fantasy, not a propaganda tool to enslave women, they have a biological basis. During the "primary period," as Michel Auden called the period of dependent infancy, babies do have very pressing needs. They are costly because they are lengthy, sometimes difficult to understand in the absence of speech, and they are inconsistent with the needs of adults. You can't ask a baby to wait until you finish your phone call or your lunch. As soon as a cry is heard, there is a need to calm him down and this is above all. The baby cannot wait, because he has no concept of time and therefore does not have the ability to postpone his need for something for 10 minutes.

What may appear to an outside observer as minor differences in behavior - between a mother who rushes to her baby as soon as she hears him cry, and one who first finishes her cup of coffee, between a parent who speaks extremely positively about her child, and speaking of it as "a thorn in one place" can have significant consequences. Reluctant parents, hostile parents, stressed parents, absent or neglectful parents will not be able to provide the child with the environment that he needs for the development of the emotional sphere. Their children may be well fed, they may pass all the milestones of their development, they may even be smart in the field of mastering new knowledge if they receive other types of stimulation in the right amount, but in an emotional sense they will be underdeveloped.

To my children, Jessica and Lawrence

Translated from the English edition of Psychology Press, a member of the Taylor&Francis Group.

About the author: Sue Gerhardt is a British private counseling psychotherapist and psychoanalyst and co-founder of the Oxford Parent and Infant Project (OXPIP), a leading charity providing psychotherapeutic care to parents and children.

Thanks

Many participated in the creation of this book, some without knowing it. I would especially like to thank my patients who have visited me all these years for teaching me so much.

I would like to thank my friends who took the time to read the manuscript and provided me with invaluable feedback: Jane Henrichs, Paul Gerhardt, Diane Goodman, Paul Harris, Molly Kenyon-Jones, John Miller, John Phibbs, Pascal Torracinth, and Andrew West.

I would also like to thank Fiona Duxbury, John Edgington, Morten Kringelbach, and Allan Shore for helpful comments on individual chapters.

In my professional life, I would like to thank Daphne Briggs for the inspiring presentation of the results of the observation of infants that started it all. I would also like to thank Penny Jakes for her continued support in my struggle to work with parents and children, and all my colleagues at the Oxford Parent and Infant Project, especially Joanna Tucker. As well as Jean Knox and other colleagues in the International Attachment Network, who also expanded my understanding of attachment.

I would also like to thank all my friends for their support, especially Jane Henrichs, Angie Kay and Nigel Barlow for brainstorming and encouraging my kids to put up with all of this, John Phibbs for his support in the last stages of writing. books.

My deepest thanks go to Paul Gerhardt, who has been my lifeline all this time and without whom this book would not have been written.

Thanks for using third party content

Text

Six lines from "The Last Fragment" by Raymond Carver courtesy of Grove/Atlantic.

Description of Dennis Potter from Biography by Humphrey Carpenter with permission from Faber & Faber.

Approximately 45 words from The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Stephen Pinker (Viking Penguin, member of Penguin Putnam Incorporated, 2002).

Reproduced with permission from Penguin Books Limited.

Extract from the chapter "Tenderness and Anger" in The Birth of a Woman: Motherhood as an Experience and an Institution, Adrienne Rich, 1986, 1976. All rights reserved. Norton & Company, Incorporated. Used with permission of the author and Norton & Company, Inc.

Scheme

Introduction

A new way of understanding

This book is the result of many years of observation, supported by teaching and psychotherapeutic practice, in which special attention was paid to the topic of problematic or disturbed relationships between infants and their mothers. Following my premonition that early relationships would definitely have an impact on later psychological state, I began to study the work on the development of the brain in infants and young children. Later, I was able to connect these data with data related to psychologically dysfunctional adults - people suffering from a range of problems, from mild depression to mental and physical psychopathology.

As I studied, it became clear to me that something new and wonderful was happening and that my own discoveries were very timely. We have come to a point where a new understanding of emotional life has been born from the fusion of several different disciplines. I would like to offer you a guide to this new world, which may change your understanding of partnerships and will be useful for both the parent and the medical professional. The often difficult to understand by the layman and dryly written medical, scientific and academic texts that I rely on contain vital information, but it is not available to a wide range of readers. It was this information that radically changed my understanding of emotional life. By combining information from these sources and "translating" it into a more understandable language, I invite you to make such discoveries yourself.

The new perspective on emotional life was not due to any particular insight, but due to the impact of many events occurring simultaneously in neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis, biochemistry. Since these disciplines began to communicate with each other and influence each other, there has been a deeper understanding of how a person becomes a person and how he learns to feel emotions in relation to other people. For the first time, a completely biological explanation of our social behavior has become possible, through understanding the infancy period in human life, the development of our "social brain" and the study of biological systems involved in the process of emotional regulation. The challenge now is to place this scientific knowledge at the center of our understanding of human emotional life.

For me, this process was a kind of journey - exciting, and sometimes quite painful. On the one hand, my discoveries have led me to understand that the lack of parental awareness or the inability of parents to meet their responsibilities in caring for an infant can lead to serious negative consequences for their offspring, a kind of disability that will inevitably cause harm to other people. On the other hand, I have come to understand that it is possible to avoid the manifestations of behavioral abnormalities, diseases or propensities for criminal behavior, which are usually considered the result of "bad genes", inevitable and predetermined. Moreover, my research has given me hope that with enough desire, will, and resources, it is possible to prevent the transmission of trauma from one generation to the next: a child who grows up in a traumatic environment does not necessarily become a traumatized and traumatic parent.

Officials, guided by good intentions, realized that there is a need to support family life. And they even took some steps to do so, from tax breaks to courses for expectant parents. Politicians fear that the influence of troubled families associated with criminal behavior, violence and drugs will cost society too much. Although such support is vital for such families, it is very much like giving food to the hungry or, to use another analogy, investing in the upkeep of a poorly built house. Persistent problems with leaks, poor heating or soundproofing can be temporarily fixed, but nothing can change the fact that the house is poorly built and will still cost a lot to maintain. It is the same with people whose foundations were not properly laid in their time. Although costly repairs can be made later in life, the period of laying the foundation - when the correction is most effective - is already over. In order to build a good house, its foundations must be designed in advance.

These foundations are laid during pregnancy and during the first two years of a child's life. This is the period of construction of the "social brain", the period when an individual emotional style and emotional resources are formed. In Part I of this book, I will describe the formation of the social brain, that is, the part of the brain in which the process of managing feelings in accordance with the actions of other people is formed, as well as the processes of becoming a mechanism for responding to stress, immune responses and the actions of neurotransmitters that affect further emotional life. A newborn person is formed due to the impact of various socially and culturally conditioned programs - from physiological attitudes, ending with emotional expectations and mechanisms for finding a mate.

With insufficient delicacy of this impact, the prerequisites are laid for a whole range of social and emotional difficulties in the future. Part II of this book discusses certain developmental trends during early development that lead to conditions such as anorexia, psychosomatic illness, addictions of various kinds, antisocial behavior, personality disorders, and depression.

What can science offer?

Thanks to the efforts of the scientific community, cures have been developed for all kinds of diseases - pills for addicts to overcome addiction, antidepressants for those who are depressed, etc. But until recently, the scientific community had nothing to offer in the field of understanding emotional life. The modern scientific paradigm that developed during the Enlightenment was based on a certain approach to knowledge that does not apply to emotions. This approach assumes linearity and predictability: the effect is determined by the cause, the stimulus determines the response. Feelings in such a situation can only bring confusion, as they are difficult to predict and measure. It is difficult to apply to them the technological achievements that science is so proud of.

This logical approach was a good antidote to the superstitious world of the Middle Ages. The main driving force that dominated the 17th century was the desire to find a way to overcome hunger, poor living conditions and early mortality by improving the material conditions of life. And it should be noted that scientists and inventors have made significant progress in this direction. But we take these world changes for granted. In our time, at least in developed countries, we can say with a fair degree of certainty that people can not be afraid of hunger and most will live to old age. With such a base, we can pay attention to other aspects of life.

Ironically, the current fascination with emotions has been fueled by the technological advances of recent decades. Science has finally reached a state where emotions can be measured and counted - to a certain extent, of course. In neuroscience, new tomography technologies have enabled scientists to map the brain activity at times when a person experiences emotions, making it possible for the first time to get some sort of technical measurement of emotion. This kind of research now forms a distinct and vibrant field of science, represented by neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio, Joseph LeDoux, Doug Watt, and Jaak Panksepp, who advocate the study of emotions within the framework of neuroscience. Similarly, biochemists such as Candace Perth, Michael Ruff, and Ed Blalock have relatively recently isolated the biochemical compounds that trigger emotional responses and mapped their receptors. Thus, after 300 years of rejection, fundamental science began to study emotions.

Similar processes took place in developmental psychology, which updated, including technologically, its tools necessary for understanding early emotional life. At the very beginning of the 1970s, psychiatrist Daniel Stern began to explore the world of mother and child with the help of video. He filmed mother-infant interactions and then analyzed them frame by frame, building a more complete understanding of early development than had been available before. The basis for his work was the "skeleton" of the so-called attachment theory, first voiced by psychoanalyst John Bowlby and psychologist Mary Ainsworth in the 1960s. They pioneered efforts to combine contemporary scientific developments with psychoanalytic thinking in order to understand emotional life in its biological context. Mary Ainsworth independently developed an experimental procedure called the Strange Situation Test to measure the degree of emotional attachment between one-year-old children and their parents (Ainsworth et al., 1978). During the test, the child is briefly separated from his parent under certain conditions and examines the reaction of the child to the departure of the parent, his subsequent return, as well as the appearance and departure from the room of an unfamiliar adult. This technique turned out to be so accurate in its assessments of the quality of the “child-parent” relationship that it is still used as a baseline.

Another pioneer in the study of emotions, along with Stern, was Allan Shor, who was able to analyze and combine a huge amount of information from various disciplines and form a synthetic view of the study of emotions, which became the basis for his book. His work opens up the possibility of understanding emotional life in its biological and social aspects.

Return of emotions

The most striking thing about this work is that it begins to combine disciplines that until then tried to stay away from each other. I encountered this as a teenager, when I wanted to study both literature and biology at the same time, but everyone told me that you can’t mix the humanities and natural sciences, you need to choose one thing. I chose literature and then became a psychotherapist, but this need to choose confused me and seemed to diminish the importance of each discipline. This newfound ability to connect different disciplines seemed to breathe new life into each of them.

Ironically, it is now scientifically confirmed that feelings are primary and our rationality, so highly valued by science, is based on emotions and cannot exist without them. It is increasingly recognized that the process of cognition depends on emotions, and Damasio proved this. As he showed, the rational part of our brain cannot work in isolation, but only simultaneously with the parts responsible for the basic regulation and expression of emotions: with her” (Damasio, 1994: 128). The higher parts of the cerebral cortex cannot function independently of more primitive instinctive reactions. Cognitive processes process emotional processes, but cannot exist separately from them. The brain constructs ideas about internal physical states, associates them with other ideas already available, and then sends signals to the body in a process of constant internal feedback, thus triggering new physical sensations, and so on.

These conclusions would certainly have shocked philosophers and scientists of the Enlightenment, whose attempts to assert the power of rationality included a complete rejection of emotions as something alien and unnecessary. This denial, of course, was not caused by a lack of interest, but rather by the lack of the possibility of understanding the emotional sphere within the framework of science. There were also quite pragmatic reasons for the separation of mind and body. By separating them into different territories, scientists ensured that powerful religious authorities were calm about dissecting bodies for scientific purposes, what Candace Perth called "the division of territory with the Pope" (Perth, 1998: 18). The desacralization of the body has played a huge role in both medicine and religion. This deal allowed for a more rational, free-thinking culture to emerge. As a result of this pact, science and technology were able to break into many areas of human life with technical improvements that appeared in the machine age, in the 17th and 18th centuries. But the emotional life cannot be “fixed” with the help of technology, which is why the dividing line appeared here - emotions have moved into the realm of fiction, and not science, which deals with facts.

To some extent, emotions also became an obstacle to the build-up of industrial power that had such a significant impact on changing the material conditions of life in industrialized countries. Without a doubt, industrialization has been extremely successful in achieving hitherto unknown levels of comfort, literacy, longevity, entertainment and mass communication. But human feelings were left out of this endless penetration of capitalism. The most severe damage was done to the most helpless, but these changes certainly affected the emotional life of all segments of the population, both men and women. Thus, the drive to maximize productivity has led factory owners to treat their workers as appendages of machines rather than as human beings with feelings. For hours standing next to their looms, people did not even have the opportunity to say a word to each other. In our time, of course, such extremes are no longer encountered, but we have not yet gone as far from them as we would like to believe. The sweatshops of early capitalism have been carried over to third world countries that produce goods exported to the West, while in developed countries most people are also advised not to be too zealous in expressing their emotions for most of the day, even though they do not work in factories.

By the turn of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud realized that we were paying too much for this new "civilization" by oppressing many of our most powerful emotions. Nevertheless, he believed, like most people of the time, that the high price was worth paying, and directed his efforts to find a way to manage powerful emotions in some rational way. He wanted to provide people with some kind of alternative instead of the total oppression of forbidden sexual and aggressive emotions. His "talking cure" offered a more subtle and intelligent approach to emotions - acknowledging them and speaking them out to reduce tension. Early psychoanalysts hoped that such treatment would rid the patient of "neurosis" and strange, hysterical behavior.

Be that as it may, by the time such psychoanalytic procedures became fashionable and people became more willing to share their sexual experiences, the economy began to change. With the advent of new methods of mass production, it also became necessary to create new markets and buyers willing to consume new products. The balance shifted from a tightly controlled workforce whose values were centered on self-control and saving for the future, to a mass consumer society whose every desire was to be satisfied. The process of promoting new products drew inspiration from psychoanalytic ideas about the omnipresence and power of subconscious feelings and desires. In particular, advertisers appealed not only directly to sexual needs, but also to the desire to be loved, admired and accepted by other people. To achieve this, according to the advertising messages, it was possible to wear the right clothes or drive the right car, consume the right food or buy the right furniture. Obviously, people who spend money to satisfy their own desires should not control these desires too much.

Restrictions on sexual behavior were gradually reduced. Formal behavior and strict control over the senses were increasingly replaced by a growing acceptance of sexual feelings. Feelings might seem to be re-embedded in the culture. Nevertheless, the gap between "mind" and "body" in science remained the same. Modern medicine is still trying to exclude emotions from consideration, in terms of such concepts as the circulatory system or the process of infection, doctors and pharmaceutical companies still insist on finding remedies that can quickly rid a person of the symptoms of some disease, without striving to understand how the human body works as a whole.

Sue Gerhard

How does love shape a child's brain?

Why Love Matters How affection shapes a baby's brain

Thanks

Thanks for permissions

Introduction

BASICS: BABIES AND THEIR BRAIN

1. Going back to basics

2. Building a brain

3. Destructive cortisol

UNRELIABILITY OF THE BASIS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

4. Trying not to feel

5. Sad baby

6. Intentional harm

7. Suffering

8. Original sin

TOO MUCH INFORMATION, NOT ENOUGH SOLUTIONS

9. What should we do about this?

10. Birth of the future

Thanks

Many participated in the creation of this book, some without knowing it. I would especially like to thank my patients who have visited me all these years for teaching me so much.

I would like to thank my friends who took the time to read the manuscript and provided me with invaluable feedback: Jane Henrique, Paul Gerhardt, Diane Goodman, Paul Harris, Molly Kenyon-Jones, John Miller, John Fibbs, Pascal Thorracinth, and Andrew West .

I would also like to thank Fiona Duxbury, John Edgington, Morten Kringslbach, and Allan Shore for helpful comments on individual chapters.

I would also like to thank all my friends for their support, especially Jane Henrique, Angie Kay and Nigel Barlow for brainstorming and encouraging my kids to put up with it all, John Phibbs for his support in the final stages of writing books. My deepest thanks go to Paul Gerhardt, who has been my lifeline all this time and without whom this book would not have been written.

Thanks for using third party content

TEXT

Six lines from "The Last Fragment" by Raymond Carver courtesy of Grove/Atlantic.

Description of Dennis Potter from Biography by Humphrey Carpenter with permission from Faber & Faber.

Approximately 45 words from The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature by Stephen Linker (Viking Penguin, member of Penguin Putnam Incorporated, 2002). Reproduced with permission from Penguin Books Limited.

INTRODUCTION

A NEW WAY OF UNDERSTANDING

The new perspective on emotional life was not due to any particular insight, but due to the impact of many events occurring simultaneously in neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis, biochemistry. Since these disciplines began to communicate with each other and influence each other, there has been a deeper understanding of how a person becomes a person and how he learns to feel emotions in relation to other people. For the first time, a completely biological explanation of our social behavior has become possible - through understanding the infancy period in human life, the development of our "social brain" and the study of biological systems involved in the process of emotional regulation. The challenge now is to place this scientific knowledge at the center of our understanding of human emotional life.

The book explains why love is necessary for brain development in the first years of a child's life and how the characteristics of the emotional interaction between infants and their parents affect its further development and what consequences they lead to. Sue Gerhardt, an English psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, explores the impact of the earliest relationships on the formation of the infant's nervous system. She shows how brain development affects later emotional well-being and looks at specific early response patterns that can later influence how we perceive stress, as well as the onset of conditions such as anorexia, addictions of various kinds and antisocial behavior. This book is a lively and accessible interpretation of the latest research in neuroscience, physiology, psychoanalysis and biochemistry. This is an invaluable read for parents and professionals working in the field of child care.

A series: Modern psychology

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by the LitRes company.

The Basics: Babies and Their Brains

Back to basics

A tiger - whether female or male - remains a Tiger, whether he is alone in his natural wild environment or among thousands of his kind. But the essence of man is determined by his coexistence with other people; his abilities cannot be developed by him alone and on his own. Thus, the human race, not only in a metaphorical sense, but also in reality, approaches what becomes a single whole.

S.T. Coleridge, Letters, 1806

One dark winter night, I was awakened by a phone call that signaled that a home birth had begun, which I was about to capture on camera. I had met my mother before, but I did not know her closely. I arrived at her house and climbed three flights of stairs to a room on the top floor of the house, loaded with sound and lighting equipment. Mother and father sat on the edge of the bed in a rather empty and dimly lit room, on the floor of which newspapers were spread. The room was filled with an atmosphere of quiet practicality, a focus on the mother's body. The midwife moved around the room while I occupied one corner. Events unfolded quickly, and soon the mother was squatting over the newspapers, her husband supporting her, and I was recording the amazing range of sounds she made, which became more and more insistent and finally turned into a deep growl, signaling that the baby would be born soon. . My cameraman friend didn't make it in time to capture the birth, but I forgot to think about it, absorbed in the events of paramount importance. When the child was born, we all had tears in our eyes, we were stunned by emotions, in awe of the beginning of a new life and fascinated by the mystery of life in general.

That baby is now certainly ready to leave the parental home and start his own adult life, part of the life that is written in obituaries - four marriages or one, public life or life more closed, tragedies along the path of life, the story of the individual's contribution to the social common. Beyond the brackets is what made that child this young man, and the especially powerful influence of other people on the extent to which a newborn child was able to show his genetic inclinations and temperament potential.

This kind of problem is difficult to deal with at this level of description. Even in biographies, we can find information that the child was born there and then to such and such parents, whose life at that time unfolded in such and such a way, but it is almost impossible to recreate all the dynamics of relationships that connected at that time parents and child. Thus, we almost never find out what exactly happened in our infancy by asking direct questions, although some family stories and anecdotes shed some light on these stories. My mother says that I was a difficult child who cried with colic every night for many months, and I started walking and talking very early, she gave me thus reasons for pride and for rejection, talking about what is part of my own life history. But there are other ways to bring out our childhood stories, because we always carry them with us and live them over and over again in our relationships with loved ones.

In fact, our earliest experiences form specific ways of building relationships with other people, ways of responding to the ebb and flow of emotional tension, and are determined not only by psychological, but also by physiological patterns. They form the skeleton of our emotional life, hidden and external consciousness, they are the invisible history of each person. Like Freud, who called himself an archaeologist of personality, I am also often aware that I often look at people, scanning hidden structures. But unlike Freud, who sees beneath the surface the primitive motives, sexual and aggressive needs that he considered the invisible engines of human life, I look for the invisible patterns of relationships that are woven into our bodies and brains in infancy. These patterns guide our whole life in a certain way. Freud's own early relationship with his mother shaped in him a sense of his own identity, which he carried over to later relationships, along with guilt for the murder of a rival, his younger brother, whom he wished for death. Rivalry later played a huge role in Freud's professional life. Perhaps chaos theory will help explain this power of early childhood stories. It says that the slightest differences at the very beginning of the process can lead to significant discrepancies in the future. But this period of our lives—early infancy—has been called “unremembered and unforgettable” by the neurologist Doug Watt (2001:18). We cannot consciously evoke memories of these events, but they cannot be called forgotten either, since they are built into our body and shape our expectations and behavior.

Indeed, something exists under the surface, there are forces that impel us to something, but they are not quite the ones that Freud wrote about. Freud saw them in the needs of the body that exist in man as a biological being. He thought that these needs were in conflict with the social rules and pressures of civilization, which constitute that part of the personality that he called the "super-ego"; tensions and conflicts between these two poles can only be overcome by a strong controlling ego. This idea was very common and, it would seem, has the right to exist. But despite the fact that such an explanation corresponded to the individual history of Freud himself, it is not quite suitable for understanding modern emotionality, which is much less constrained by social pressure. And of course, this notion does not suit me at all - my idea of how the brain and body develop - because it suggests that the personality is much more autonomous and self-forming than it is claimed. It is my contention, and I will describe it later in detail, that many aspects of bodily function and emotional behavior are shaped in a person as a result of social interaction. For example, a child who has been poorly cared for in infancy will show a more reactive response to stress than a child who has been properly cared for, and his biochemical responses will also be different. The brain itself is a "social" organ, as Peter Fonagy, the eminent scientist who studied the formation of early attachment, called it. Our consciousness arises and our emotional sphere receives its organization with the participation of other consciousnesses, and not in isolation. This means that the very invisible forces that shape our emotional reactions throughout life are not so much our primitive biological needs as patterns of emotional interaction with other people, most actively formed during infancy. These patterns are not immutable, but like any other habits, once established, they are very difficult to change.

Feminine kingdom

In order to understand the response patterns unique to each person, we need to go back to the very beginning, to the basics, back to the wordless days of infancy, when we were held by the hands of our mothers, or even earlier - to the time when we were in the womb. This time is especially difficult to recall, not only because in infancy we do not speak, and conscious memory is not yet developed, but also because this period of a child's life traditionally passes in the relationship between a woman and a child. It passes behind closed doors, away from view, in the inarticulate territory of bodies and feelings, milk, gas and flowing saliva, driven by super-strong hormonal rushes that make mothers want to constantly touch and look at their babies; filled with feelings that seem completely irrational if you try to put them into words as difficult to name as the feelings that arise when having sex or falling in love. And since these experiences are the private experiences of women, not men, they were often hidden from view and not represented in culture, except on rare occasions when feminist writers did let them come out, as Adrien Rich did:

“Bad and good memories are inseparable for me from each other. I remember the moments when, while breastfeeding each of my children, I met his eyes wide open looking at me and realized that we were attached to each other not only due to the connection of the chest and mouth, but also due to our gaze directed towards at each other: the depth, calmness, passion of this dark blue look, filled with the wisdom of the ages. I remember the physical pleasure of having a baby suckle on my milk-filled breasts when I had no other physical pleasures, except for the guilt-filled pleasure of constantly eating. …I remember moments of calm and peace when, by some chance coincidence, I managed to take a bath alone. I remember how, almost dying from lack of sleep, I calmed a child who had a nightmare, straightened a fallen blanket, warmed a soothing bottle of milk, led a half-sleeping child to the toilet. I remember going to bed after a sharp awakening, filled with anger, knowing that my interrupted sleep would make the next day hell, that there were still nightmares and pleas for comfort ahead, that in my exhaustion I could yell at the children and they wouldn’t understand the reasons for this behaviour. I remember my thoughts that I had forgotten how to dream” (Rich, 1977:31).

The women's movement of the 60s and 70s of the XX century opened up the opportunity to talk about private home life, contributed to the destruction of the boundaries between the private and public spheres of life. We now freely discuss having sex and do not see the lips of those around us pursed in indignation, we are openly interested in the details of the private lives of the rich and famous. We have already ceased to be surprised that public people are just people and often violate morality, just like the rest. We acknowledge that children are sexually abused. Emotions are no longer something that is not talked about in society. Through these processes, the gap between body and mind, between the rational and the irrational, is more and more questioned. As I said earlier, in my opinion, this is due to the ever-growing interest from science in emotions, breaking through the last barriers in the scientific community to the study of our emotional essence.

However, measuring the level of brain activity or the level of hormones involved in the regulation of emotional behavior in adults can only serve as an aid to our understanding of emotional life. These indicators cannot explain why we behave the way we do. Adults are the result of complex interactions, stories written in the very systems of the body that have undergone change over time. They are too specific and unique. Rather, we must return to the origins of emotional life, to the earliest processes that determine our emotional trajectories, to the infant and his or her emotional environment.

unfinished baby

In terms of the process of personality formation, babies are like clay. Everyone is born with a genetic blueprint and a unique set of abilities. The child has a body programmed to develop in a certain way, but there are no means for automatic development. The baby is an interactive project, not a standalone one. Some of the human baby's body systems are ready to function, but many more are not yet complete and will evolve in response to the influence of other humans. Some scientists call the baby "a fetus that has fallen into the outside world," and this makes some sense, since the child is not ready to function independently and requires the influence of adults. In an evolutionary sense, this is of particular importance, since it allows the most complete transfer of human culture in the most efficient way from one generation to another. Thus, each child can be adjusted to the circumstances or environment in which he finds himself. A child born in an archaic highland tribe in Nepal will have different cultural needs than a child born in urban Manhattan.

Each small human organism creates its own symphony - vibrating, pulsing - from the various rhythms and functions that fill the body, conducting them through a system of chemical and electrical signals. Inside the body, many systems are connected with each other rather weakly, and disagreements often occur between them. These systems interact with each other through electrical and chemical signals, seeking to maintain an acceptable level of arousal, constantly adapting to changing circumstances - both external and internal. In the very first months of life, the body only establishes this most acceptable level of excitation, determines the initial state for each of the systems, which these systems will need to maintain in the future. When the events that occur cause the systems of the above level to be excited or drop them below the norm, the systems begin to take actions to restore the initial state.

But at the very beginning, the norm must be determined, and this is a social process. The baby cannot do this on his own; in order to set the norm, he needs to coordinate his systems with those people who are around him. Children of depressed mothers adjust to low levels of stimulation and get used to low levels of positive emotions. Children of restless mothers may become overexcited, and it may seem to them that feelings simply burst out of a person in an explosive way and that neither the person who feels feelings, nor others around him can do anything about it (or they may try to completely turn off all feelings, to cope with the surging wave). Children who receive sufficient attention expect others and the world to adequately respond to their feelings, as well as help in returning to a comfortable state in case of excessive stimulation. At the same time, receiving external assistance, over time they learn to manage the process on their own.

Early, infancy experience has a huge impact on physiological systems due to their immaturity and subtlety of regulation. In particular, there are certain biochemical systems that, in the event of a problematic early experience, may form in such a way that they cannot participate in the control of processes properly. For example, the mechanisms of response to stress can be damaged, as well as other processes of managing emotions, in the regulation of which neuropeptides are involved. Even the very growth of the brain, whose rates are highest in the first year and a half of life, can be disturbed if the conditions in which it develops are unfavorable. As in growing seedlings - in favorable conditions, the root system develops well and the flower grows quickly, so with people - emotional abilities, which in human cubs are very poorly programmed compared to other representatives of the animal world, are most dependent on experience and environment.

In its psychological simplicity, the baby also resembles seedlings. Feelings start at a very basic level. The infant experiences a general feeling of stress or pleasure, comfort or discomfort, but the differences between them, their complexity and the ability to manage them are still very small. He does not yet have sufficient mental capacity to process such complex information. But while he relies on adults - to reduce discontent and discomfort and to achieve comfort and pleasure - he comprehends this world more and more. Different people come and are near him, smells, sounds and pictures are constantly changing during the day and night, and gradually patterns and patterns begin to form. Gradually, the infant begins to recognize the most recurring events and features and store them in memory as patterns. It may be the soothing image of a smiling mother entering the room as he weeps in his cradle, or it may be a face filled with dislike and displeasure. Meanings begin to appear at the moment when the child begins to understand what this or that image will bring - pleasure or pain. The earliest emotions govern, to a greater extent, whether to approach the person or push him away, and these images become expectations about the emotional world in which the child lives, helping him to anticipate what will happen in the next moment and how best to respond.

Although the child is simple enough in many ways, his cells carry the programs for a more complex life. Each child carries a different set of genes that are activated one way or another depending on the experience gained. Already in the first weeks of life, manifestations of temperament can be observed. Some children are more sensitive from birth and show a greater reaction to various kinds of stimuli. All children have different response thresholds, and their responses to stimulation can be quite different. These characteristics of babies also affect those who care for them, and these people, in turn, also have their own characteristics. A sensitive mother of an energetic, active and less sensitive child may see him as aggressive and not feel that they are on the same wavelength. But it may also happen that she will consider it convenient, not requiring extra effort, one that is easy to take with you everywhere. Thus, an active, dynamic interaction between personalities begins.

It is important to note that the end result of the interaction depends more on the mother or father than on the child. Research shows that even the most difficult and irritable babies thrive and thrive if their parents are responsive and willing to accommodate their child's needs. Some researchers have even found it difficult to define a difficult infant in the very first weeks of life and suggest that such a definition depends largely on the perception of parents (Volke and St. James-Robert, 1987) and that this style of response is established during the first year of life (Sroaf, 1995). Difficult children may become problematic children in response to the emotional unavailability of their parents (Egeland and Sroaf, 1981). Be that as it may, a difficult temperament cannot be the reason for a guaranteed poor outcome (Belsky et al., 1998), although a more sensitive child has a greater tendency to develop unsuccessfully if his parents do not seek to know and satisfy his special needs.

From the child's point of view, he may have really "difficult" parents. There are two types of parents: inattentive parents and intrusive parents. At one pole - if the parent is inattentive - there are mothers in a state of depression, who find it extremely difficult to respond to the needs of their children, they are apathetic and self-absorbed, they do not maintain eye-to-eye contact with the child and take them in their arms solely in order to to change or feed. Their children develop a depressive way of interacting with others (Field et al., 1988). They show fewer positive emotions (and their left brain is less active). As they get older—when the child begins to walk—they perform worse on cognitive tasks and have problems attaching to their mother. In later childhood, their emotional problems persist and increase (Murray, 1992; Cooper and Murray, 1998; Dawson et al., 1992).

At the other extreme - if the parent is obsessive - are other mothers who may also be depressed, but they are much more angry, even if this anger is veiled. These are more expressive mothers who are in some way resentful of the needs of the child and feel hostility towards him. They may express this attitude towards the child by taking him in his arms abruptly and rudely, or by holding him in his arms coldly and aloofly. At the same time, such a mother is very actively occupied with the child, often interrupting the infant's initiatives and not reading his signals. Abusive mothers are also at this end of the scale (Lyons-Root et al. 1991). The children of such mothers also develop less well and do not show healthy attachment to the mother, tend to emotional avoidance, or are disorganized in one way or another.

Fortunately, most parents instinctively give their child enough attention to keep them emotionally safe. But what is most critical for the infant is the degree to which the parent or surrogate adult is emotionally available, his presence (Emde, 1988) sufficient to notice the signals and regulate the state of the child - to do what the child is not able to do. to do for oneself, except in the most rudimentary and primitive ways (such as sucking one's own fingers when hungry, or turning one's head away from an overly stimulating stimulus).

Early regulation

It's unpopular these days to describe the joys of parenthood since women fought hard to gain equal rights at work and don't want to feel the guilt of pursuing their careers while someone else takes care of their children. In my teaching practice, I often find that students inevitably raise the question of whether mothers should be blamed for not being perfect. Guilt and anxiety often fuel hostility towards researchers, as happened with Jay Belsky of the University of London, author of one of the most important studies in the field, which studied the impact of inadequate caregivers on children both at home and in kindergartens.

Of course, very little can be achieved by criticizing parents. Criticism does not positively affect their ability to respond positively to their own children. At the same time, positive support can help move away from defensive behaviors that harm their children and keep the vicious cycle of passing on to younger generations feelings of insecurity and inability to control their own emotions.

In a broader social sense, it seems to me that the real source of many of the difficulties of parenthood lies in the separation of work and home, private and public life, which has resulted in the isolation of mothers in their homes, without strong support from other adults and without the opportunity to diversify daily concerns. These conditions in themselves create the basis for the development of depression and feelings of resentment and discontent, which have such a deplorable effect on the development of children. Women are faced with an artificially created situation where they have to make a choice between work and children, although it is obvious that they need both (Newwell, 1992). But with limited choice, parents still need to build on an accurate understanding of what is happening to their child.

In a physiological sense, the baby is in many respects inseparable from his mother, from her body. He is dependent on the milk that she feeds him, it - the mother's body - helps him regulate his heart rate and blood pressure, it provides him with immune protection. His muscle activity is regulated by her touch, as are his hormone levels. She warms him with her body and helps lower his stress hormones by touching him and feeding him. This basic physiological regulation helps the child to survive. Rachel Kask, a writer who has described her experience as a mother, speaks of these regulatory processes as follows:

The cloudless existence of my daughter requires serious support. First of all, I perform the role of the kidneys in the body: I remove waste products. Then every three hours I pour milk into her mouth. It passes through the tubule system and out. I'm throwing these out. Every 24 hours I submerge it in water to cleanse it. I change her clothes. After she has been at home for a while, I take her out for a walk. After she walked, I bring her home. When she wants to sleep, I put her to bed. When she wakes up, I take her in my arms. When she cries, I hold her in my arms until she stops. I undress and dress her. I fill her with love, worrying about whether I give enough, little, or too much. Taking care of it is comparable to being responsible for the weather or grass growth (Cusk, 2001).

The main difficulty is that children need this kind of care constantly for many months. As Kask writes, these tasks "establish serfdom, slavery, my inability to leave." The child needs an adult who is so caring that he is able to fully identify himself with the child, to consider his needs and needs as his own; the infant in this period of life is a physiological and psychological continuation of his mother, inseparable from her. If she feels bad when her child feels bad, she will strive to do something about it immediately, to eliminate the cause of the child's discomfort - and this is the essence of regulation. Theoretically, anyone can do this, especially now that we have a bottle of breast milk replacement, but the baby's biological mother will also do this in connection with her own hormonal state, and it will be more common for her to establish a strong identification with the child, to feel his emotions as their own, having an internal source for it.

Early regulation also consists of a non-verbal response to the child's feelings. The mother does this mainly with the help of facial expressions, the tone of her voice, touch. She calms the loud crying of the child and his overexcitation, entering his state, attracting him with a loud voice that mirrors his crying, gradually taking him to rest, reducing the volume and intensity of the voice, talking calmly with him, transferring him to a peaceful and calm state by her example . Or she softens the tension of a child in good shape by rocking and hugging him tightly. Or she can cheer up a sad baby with her smile and wide eyes. By all means of non-verbal communication, she returns the child to a comfortable state.

Adult caregivers, if they cannot achieve this union with the child and have difficulty in noticing and managing their feelings, tend to perpetuate this regulation problem by passing it on to the next generation, to their own child. Such a child cannot learn to monitor changes in his own emotional state and effectively manage these changes if his mother or father did not teach him to do this and did not do it for him in early infancy. He may never have an understanding of how he can simply stay afloat, in his current state. He may also grow up with the feeling that he should not have any feelings at all, since his parents do not notice them and are not interested in them. Babies are very sensitive to these kinds of hidden cues, and they initially respond to what their parents do rather than what they say or think. But if the parents actually monitor the change in the child's emotions and quickly respond to these changes, allowing the restoration of a sense of well-being, the baby can learn to experience feelings and notice them. They can become conscious. If caring adults act consistently, predictably, then patterns of behavior can begin to emerge. The baby may remark: "When I cry, my mother always gently takes me in her arms" or "If she puts on a coat, I will soon feel fresh air." These unconsciously acquired, non-verbal patterns and expectations have been described by various authors. Daniel Stern (1985) calls them generalized patterns of interactions. John Bowlby calls them "internal working models" (1969). Wilma Bucci calls them "emotion schemas" (1997). Robert Klayman calls them "procedural memory". Regardless of the theory in which they are described, everyone agrees that expectations about other people and their actions are stored outside of consciousness, are formed during infancy and form the basis of our behavior in interaction with other people throughout our lives. We are not aware of such assumptions, but they certainly exist and are based on our earliest experience. And the most important of these assumptions is that we assume that the people around us will be emotionally available in order to understand feelings and find a way to cope with them, to achieve a comfortable state when necessary - in other words, to help the child in managing the senses and achieving a sense of well-being. Children who fail to form such expectations are referred to by researchers in the field of attachment as "insecurely attached."

Parents should be a kind of emotional coach for the child. They must constantly be there and in tune with the child in order to track his constantly changing states, but they must also help him move to the next level. To become a real person, the basic reactions of the child must be reworked and a more complex and specific mechanism of feelings must be formed. With parental help, the general feeling of “I feel bad” can be decomposed into a whole range of feelings, such as irritation, disappointment, anger, anxiety, pain. Again, an infant, and even a slightly older child, cannot make these distinctions without the help of an adult who already knows what these differences are. The parent also needs to help the child become aware of these feelings by becoming a virtual mirror for him. He uses baby talk, exaggerating and amplifying words and gestures so that the child can understand that parents do not express their feelings in this way, but "show" him his feelings (Gergeli and Watson, 1996). This is a kind of "psychological feedback" that provides an acquaintance with human culture, within which we can interpret thoughts and feelings - our own and others (Fonagy, 2003). Parents introduce the child into this more complex emotional world by recognizing and naming the various feelings clearly and distinctly. Usually this learning happens quite unconsciously.

Insecure Attachment and the Nervous System

When a caring adult, usually a mother, is at odds with her own feelings, it can be difficult for her to help her child through the process. If her own awareness of feelings is blocked or, on the contrary, if she is too absorbed by them, it can be extremely difficult for her to notice the manifestation of feelings in a child, to help manage them in some way, or even to designate, name them. Good relationships require a sensible balance between being aware of your own feelings and noticing how others express them.

They also depend on the ability to tolerate the manifestation of unpleasant feelings at the moments of their expression by other people. Perhaps the most common problem in relationships, especially parent-child relationships, comes from the need to regulate so-called negative feelings such as anger and hostility. If the mother has not learned to deal comfortably with these feelings, it will be difficult for her to tolerate their manifestation in the child; she may feel intense stress and discomfort and want to get rid of these feelings as soon as possible without understanding them. You can often hear a mother or father yelling at a child: “Shut up! Don't you dare treat me like that!" or “You little devil! This trick will not work with me! Their children will learn to keep such feelings to themselves, to deny the very fact of their appearance, to avoid their manifestation, as they can upset or anger their mother. Of course, it will not help either to cope with them, or to discuss them with the child. As a result, the child is forced to control the parent, protecting him from his feelings. But children's feelings do not disappear. Attachment researchers note that children in such families learn to look calm and carefree, but when measuring their heart rate and nervous excitement, the indicators went off scale. The body is in turmoil. Instead of getting help in restoring a comfortable state, the child understands that there is no way to cope with feelings. He tries to suppress them, turn off all feelings at once, but rarely succeeds. This type of attachment is known as avoidant attachment.

Other children whose parents are less consistent in their reactions to their own child's feelings—sometimes preoccupied with them, sometimes ignored—have to monitor their parents' moods to find the best way to get feedback. They keep their feelings close under the surface all the time, letting them simmer a little to the side until they think the parent is ready to pay attention to them. They also understand that help in regulating feelings is not to be expected. Instead of suppressing them, they opt for a strategy of exaggeration; they are constantly in a state of over-consciousness of their own fears and needs, which can lead to the undermining of their independence. In fact, this may be exactly what the parent subconsciously desires, as often adults of this type cope with self-doubt by trying to be extremely needed by other people. Their unpredictable behavior leads to the fact that children's attention is always completely riveted to them. Or they may be so preoccupied with their own feelings, which are in chaos, that they are simply unable to notice them in other people. Children with parents of this type form the so-called anxious or ambivalent attachment.

A child immersed in one of the types of attachments described will have a weaker sense of self than a child attached in a healthier way, due to the fact that he lacks an understanding of the optimal level of "sociobiological feedback". The parent was unable to provide such a child with enough information about his own, children's, feelings to give the child a mechanism to confidently interpret the feelings and actions - his own and other people's. Instead, the child may try to protect a shaky sense of self by avoiding others in situations of self-doubt (avoidant type) or, conversely, by clinging to others in an attempt to get more response (anxious type) (Fonagi, 2003).

Another type of attachment has been described recently - it has been called "disorganized" attachment. It is formed in those families where a lot of things go wrong from the very beginning and there is no way to develop an agreed defensive position. Very often, the parents themselves have not been able to work through the traumatic experiences that overwhelmed them at the time, such as bereavement or abuse. They fail to fulfill the most basic parental responsibility of protecting the child and creating a safe haven from which to safely explore the world. Their children not only lack psychological feedback, but also experience fear and uncertainty about how to manage their own feelings in the face of such pressure.

All of these types of dysfunctional parenting disrupt the natural rhythms of the body. In a normal state, physiological arousal caused by some intense emotional experience should result in some kind of action, then, as soon as the feeling is expressed, the body calms down and returns to a calm state. This is the normal cycle of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. But if the excitement is not removed, this cycle can be broken. In the case of the avoidant type, the inhibitory system can be triggered on top of the “letting go” mechanism, or, conversely, avoidance, the inhibited (parasympathetic) state can be suppressed by the sympathetic system with the requirement “go on!”. Such “incomplete cycles,” according to Roz Carroll (unpublished), can lead to adverse body conditions such as muscle cramps, shallow breathing, immune or hormonal disorders. Thus, the cardiovascular system will remain in an excited state even if feelings are suppressed (Gross and Levenson, 1997). Whirlwinds occur in the systems of the body where emotions should be regulated simply and unambiguously.

The flow of emotions

The sympathetic and parasympathetic systems represent only two of the body's internal systems. But the human body is also made up of other systems, each of which pulsates at its own rhythm: blood pressure, sleep mechanisms, respiration, and excretory systems all follow their own rules of operation at the same time, transmitting different signals to each other and to the brain (Weiner, 1989). The internal symphony of alternating cycles of inhibition and excitation self-organizes due to the feedback mechanism, the influence of systems on each other is mutual, due to which the process of mutual adaptation is constantly going on. Cells and organs regulate both their own activities and the activities of each other, each of them has its own functions, but they work as a whole. Approximately the same is the activity of an individual within the social system. We learn to control ourselves to a certain extent, but at the same time we need other people to control the states of our body and mind. In this way, a person adapts to life in the system of which he is a part.

This mechanism works because information circulates freely in all systems - both the internal systems of the body and external ones formed by other people, creating conditions for adaptation to current conditions. Our most intimate relationships in life are comforted by the rapid exchange of emotional information—what Tiffany Field has called "psychobiological attunement" (Field, 1985). This ability to perceive the condition of another person allows individuals to adapt to each other's needs. More formal (or less established) relationships suffer from a lack of such rapid response, with the result that adjustment is more effortful and more difficult. But individuals can also be attuned to varying degrees with the perception of their own internal states. Both emotional and physiological pathology can occur if information cannot freely flow through the electrical and chemical channels of the body through the brain and other systems. We need emotional cues so that our bodies can judge what is the best course of action.

Children who have not been able to form reliable strategies for dealing with emotions cannot tolerate the feelings that surround them and thus cannot respond to them properly. Due to their emotional characteristics, they tend to get rid of feelings too quickly. Children who have formed an avoidant attachment type tend to automatically immediately inhibit emotions at the moment of a strong feeling, so that they do not have to deal with what they cannot handle. Children with ambivalent attachments are ready to plunge headlong into expressing their own feelings strongly without regard to other people's feelings and how the expression of feelings can affect others. (Children with even more insecure attachment types tend to oscillate between these two strategies all the time.) In any case, they cut off their path to emotional information about their state and the state of other people, and without it they have a very narrow range of behavioral options. . They really have serious problems in how to coordinate their (biological) needs with their (social) environment and how to exchange emotional information with other people for the benefit of all parties.

These emotional characteristics are formed in infancy through interactions with the very first partners, usually our parents, and can be assessed as early as 1 year of age. In addition, parents themselves are part of social systems, and these external social forces can also play a role in shaping distorted emotional regulation patterns. When a society is focused on creating its own productive capacities, as it was in the 19th century, some part of the infants must be socialized in the conditions of the formation of personalities with a high level of self-control and denial of feelings. Freudianism may have been an attempt to reconsider the most immoderate tendencies of this process, nevertheless insisting on the importance of self-control. Otherwise, when the economy requires consumers who are overwhelmed with desires, social pressure can be directed towards greater indulgence towards children in the process of socialization, at lowering parental requirements and expectations from the child. These social urges, however, cannot be strictly regulated, so it can be said that different currents coexist in all eras.

Feelings as signals

Emotional regulation, in principle, is not related to the topic of control or its lack. It is about how to use feelings as cues that action is needed, in particular that is necessary in order to maintain a relationship. The child's anxiety when the mother leaves the room is required to help the mother and child stay close to each other, which contributes to the survival of the infant. Smiles and happy moments serve the same purpose. Anger indicates that there is some serious trouble that requires urgent attention. When people pay attention to such signals, they are more likely to adjust their behavior according to their own needs and the needs of others. Like the simpler physiological signals of thirst, hunger, or fatigue, they motivate you to take action to keep your body in optimal condition. If you ignore hunger, you can die from it. If you ignore your anger, then your social position may worsen and the chances of its recovery will decrease. But at the same time, if you express your anger without paying attention to how this expression affects others, do not notice their signals and do not make efforts to resolve the situation, then the social system loses its balance and a breakthrough of socially unapproved behavior occurs.

Attention to feelings is vital. If they are perceived as dangerous enemies, the only way to control them is through social pressure and intimidation. Otherwise, if every impulse is encouraged, relationships with others will become only a means for the release of one's own emotions. But if feelings are treated as respectable landmarks, another culture emerges in which the feelings of others are just as important as their own, and each member of society receives a motive for responding. A completely different attitude arises towards anger and aggression if it is believed that they can be controlled, when the people who experience and express them can be heard and understood. They can be used to maintain relationships. An emotionally secure, stable person carries a basic confidence that he will be heard, and this makes it easier for him to control himself. This confidence in others allows him to wait and think instead of acting impulsively. But if aggression and anger are tabooed, the person falls into conditions when the tension does not get any opportunities to escape, forcing him to rely only on the fear of the reaction of others, so as not to explode. This is a dubious strategy that can fail, leading to occasional out-of-control behavior and relationship breakdown.

As social beings, we need to monitor other people's states as much as our own states in order to maintain the relationships we depend on. Babies do this from the very beginning of their lives - noticing facial expressions, tone of voice - they are extremely alert and sensitive towards other people, this is typical even for newborns. If you watch a baby and its parent, you will see an impromptu dance, a kind of dialogue, when they take turns sticking out their tongues or making sounds. Later, children, gaining independence and mobility, constantly turn to their parents, tracking their facial expressions in order to find the right signal: is it worth touching a dog that has just entered the room? Or smile at a stranger? The figure of the person to whom the child has formed attachment becomes the starting point, the source of social knowledge.

Emotional life is more about coordinating our actions with those of others by paying attention to each other's moods and making assumptions about what people will say and how they will act. When we pay close attention to someone, the same neurons in our brains fire as they do; children who observe happy people showed increased brain activity in the left frontal area of the brain; those who were in an atmosphere of sadness were in the right (Davidson and Fox, 1982). This mechanism allows us to share the state of each other to a certain extent. We can respond to each other's feelings. All this triggers the mechanisms of constant mutual influence, all the time transmitted from one person to another. Beatrice Beebe, an infancy researcher and psychotherapist, described it this way: “You open up and I change you while I open up and you change me” (Beeb, 2002). In the next chapter, I will describe in detail how the brain itself becomes the object of these influences.

Creation of the brain

Form arises in successful interaction.

Susan Oyama

primary brain

A beautiful spring morning. My cat lounged on a stone bench in the sun after breakfast, stretching with obvious pleasure. This is a picture of how wonderful it is to simply live, a moment when the awareness of the fact of existence and the sensual pleasure of the sun, air and a full stomach is enough. But if a big dog suddenly appears nearby, the cat will defend its “well-being” by jumping off the bench and hiding, or if the dog suddenly touches him, arches his back and hisses, lifting his hair on the back of his neck to scare the dog. Likewise, if the pangs of hunger force him to seek food, he will seek to restore his "well-being" by catching a mouse or a vole. He may not have a sophisticated self-awareness or means of verbal communication, but he does have a range of basic feelings and reactions that govern his behavior and ensure his survival.

This is the level from which human beings also begin. We have the same structure as other mammals in the part of the brain that is responsible for survival. The newborn has a basic version of this system: a functioning nervous system that allows breathing, a visual system that allows you to track movements around him and see faces if they are close enough, an initial primitive consciousness that is concentrated in the brainstem and allows you to respond to sensations and evaluate them. in terms of survival. The infant also has several basic reflexes, such as searching to find the breast, sucking to feed on milk, the ability to cry angrily or sadly to attract maternal attention, and to freeze defensively in case of danger. As Jaak Panksep (1998) wrote, "the emotional systems found in animals are quite consistent with what is considered to be the basic human emotional system." But there is something that distinguishes newborn humans from other newborn mammals. It is their ability to respond to relationships with other people. Humans are the most social of all animals, and from birth you can observe these differences from other animals - in how an infant imitates the facial expressions of its parent, and in how it follows the eyes of other people's faces.

The primary brain that we are born with, first of all, tries to make sure that the body is “working”. The most evolutionarily "oldest" structures, such as the brainstem and sensorimotor cortex, show the highest metabolic rate in infants. The first task of the infant organism is to establish control over internal systems; adaptation to external conditions, which is largely controlled by emotional responses, follows later. An active infant seeks interaction with other people, turns away when he is overwhelmed by impressions, freezes when he feels danger; he already has the rudiments of emotion and self-regulation. Emotions are our first and foremost stimulus to action: they let us know whether to head towards certain things or to avoid contact with them.

Avoiding danger is perhaps the most significant response in terms of survival, and it is not surprising that the fear and self-protection system, located in the brain's amygdala, begins to mature first in the emotional brain. This is how Joseph LeDoux, an amygdala expert, describes the process: when you see a stick that looks like a snake, you jump away in fear or freeze in place - that is, first you act, and then you think (LeDoux, 1998). Although these responses are automatic and hardwired, LeDou believes that they can also change over the course of learning and memory. We adapt to local characteristics by noticing and unconsciously remembering specific instances of fear in the earliest periods of our lives, using them as signals that become unconscious and "indelible", primary patterns in the fear response. If you had a bad experience with a screechy babysitter as a baby, you may, without knowing why, cringe at screeching voices all your life. These basic emotional systems determine the general state of the organism and endow various situations with basic meanings. Approach or avoid, live or die.

However, Jonathan Turner believes that these basic feelings of fear and anger are too negative to underlie social life (Turner, 2000). They may work for cats that interact more to protect their own territory, but are definitely not suitable for individuals that come together to live in groups. The social life of humans implies a certain level of sensitivity and ability to respond to others that other animals do not need at all. Also, it takes a lot more than fear and anger for human beings to co-exist effectively.

Turner suggests that it is for this reason that anger and fear have been processed into more complex states such as sadness, shame, and guilt, all of which help us control our own behavior in order to achieve social goals. At the same time, the basic sense of contentment expanded into more intense feelings—love, pleasure, happiness—feelings that connect people to each other. So, layer by layer, these more complex feelings were formed in the process of human interaction and physiologically took shape in the very structure of the brain. Ever since Paul McLean suggested in 1970 a "triune" brain, or in other words, three different levels of the brain, there has been a general understanding that the structuring of the brain occurred in the course of evolution, starting with the reptile brain, on top of which the emotional brain of mammals was formed. and, finally, the human neocortex. As Reg Morrison vividly described it, the human brain resembles “an old farmhouse, like a patchwork of sheds and outbuildings, completely hiding an ancient amphibian barn in its core” (Morrison, 1999). The most basic life functions are located in this ancient "barn" that underlies the brain, on top of which the system of emotional reactions develops. Outside and around these systems lie the prefrontal and cingulate cortex, which are thought to be the thought part of the emotional brain, the structures in which emotional experience is held and alternative modes of action are developed (see Figure 2.1).

social brain

Turner suggested that our rationality and ability to speak grew out of "our ability to be very emotional" (Turner, 2000:60). With the development of the emotional brain, we became more and more emotionally complex, more and more alternatives arose in the course of interaction with other people. Which in turn required the development of the ability to recognize and think about their own emotions, which led to the development of the cerebral cortex, in particular its prefrontal zone. The role of the prefrontal cortex is unique. It connects the sensory areas of the cortex with the emotional and survival structures of the subcortex.

In the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for a meaningful response to emotions, the orbito-frontal region (located behind the eye sockets, next to the amygdala and cingulate gyrus, see Fig. 2.1) matures first. The orbito-frontal cortex is a major contributor to our entire history because it plays a key role in emotional life. By examining what happens when this zone is damaged, neurologists collect a general picture of its functions. If the orbito-frontal cortex is affected, then social life is impossible. People with brain lesions that affect this area are not able to be sensitive to others. They become insensitive to social and emotional cues, they may even become sociopaths. They may be prone to personality breakdown if their orbito-frontal cortex is unable to correlate information from the environment with their internal states. Thus, the orbitofrontal cortex, together with other areas of the cerebral cortex, as well as the cingulate gyrus, are probably the areas most responsible for what David Goleman calls "emotional intelligence" (Goleman, 1996).

Figure 2.1

The ability to empathize, to put oneself in the place of another to a certain extent and understand his condition, requires a developed orbito-frontal cortex. This structure is closely connected with the right hemisphere of the brain, responsible for the perception of the general feeling of events, the vision of the big picture. Also, the right hemisphere is directly involved in the formation of visual, spatial and emotional images. In fact, according to Allan Shore, the orbito-frontal area is the controller of the entire right hemisphere, which in turn is dominant during infancy (Shor, 2003). It is larger and located on the right side of the brain. This is most likely the area where our emotional vocabulary and ability to recognize feelings and sensations is created, including the processing of aesthetic experience, such as the ability to enjoy the taste of food, enjoy touch, contemplation of beauty, etc. (Rolls, 1999). This area of the cortex is where most opioids circulate, and it is also involved in reward processes and any positive experiences. But at the same time, the orbito-frontal cortex is involved in the control of emotional behavior and is involved in the formation of a response to the emotional signals of other people and, in general, in relationships with other people. This controlling role is formed as a result of building close neural connections with basic subcortical emotional systems. This is important in understanding the emotional response management system.

This role is especially important when a person is faced with painful social experiences, such as the pain of parting with a loved one or an unpleasant feeling of shame. While strong social emotions spontaneously arise in the deep layers of the brain - in the amygdala and hypothalamus, the prefrontal cortex acts as a control center that activates or depresses the activity of certain parts of the brain. When a person experiences intense anger, fear, or sexual desire, it is the oculofrontal cortex that notes whether the expression of these feelings is currently socially acceptable and can use its ability to suppress the impulse (O'Doherty et al., 2003). It delays what LeDou calls "quick and dirty" emotional impulses, activating more conscious and complex motivations. Through its connection with more primitive underlying structures, it can suppress anger, turn off fear, and generally inhibit feelings that arise in the subcortical regions.

This ability to delay and delay sudden impulses and desires is the foundation of our willpower and self-control, as well as our capacity for empathy. But the orbito-frontal zone only works as an attachment to emotional impulses. It can apply "fine tuning" to the responses of deeper areas of the brain when they are active. It doesn't work on its own. In the past, this part of the brain may have gone completely unnoticed due to what Don Tucker called "cortical chauvinism" (Tucker, 1992), extolling the "higher" cortex and forgetting about this zone that connects the cortex and subcortex.

How the social brain develops

I was surprised to find that the described abilities are not available to us from birth. There are parents who beat their children in the hope that they will stop crying or eat the carrot puree that the parents have been trying to stuff into the child for the last half hour. But there is nothing good in trying to establish such “discipline” for a child or force him to control his own behavior, since such an ability in the brain simply does not exist yet. The child cannot consciously recognize the mother's disorder and start eating to make her happy. His social abilities are still in their infancy, in potential, they have not yet been activated at birth. This needs to be written down in huge luminous letters - the orbital-frontal cortex, responsible for much of what allows a person to be called a person, begins to develop almost from scratch after birth. This part of the brain develops after birth and matures by the time a child walks, usually after one year.

But this does not mean that one should simply wait patiently for the orbito-frontal cortex to form. It won't happen automatically. On the contrary, the formation of the brain depends on what kind of experience the infant will receive in the course of interaction with other people. Researchers call this process “experience-driven.” This means that the construction of the brain occurs in the process of gaining experience, which can be very significant from an evolutionary point of view: each person can adapt to the ecological niche in which he finds himself. It is precisely because in infancy that we are so dependent on others and our brains are so plastic at this stage that we can fit into any cultural environment and any circumstances in which we find ourselves. It seems to me that, in essence, the infant brain is socially programmed by the older members of our community in order for us to adapt to the conditions of life in a particular family and social group in which we will live in the future.

So, the first "higher" structures of the brain are social, and they develop in response to social experience. Instead of showing the child pictures of objects and animals, at this stage of development it is better to just be with him, carry him in your arms and enjoy communication. Without the proper experience of one-on-one communication with a caring adult, the orbito-frontal cortex is unlikely to be sufficiently developed. The timing of this experience is also crucial. Although no exact “sensitivity period” has been defined for humans, there is reason to believe that there is a window for the development of this part of the social brain. In one of his early experiments, primate researcher Henry Harlow found that if monkeys are isolated from other group members during their first year of life, they definitely become autistic and lose the ability to make contact with other monkeys (Bloom, 2003). In a recent study of orphans in Romania, it was found that those children who were left alone in the cradle for the whole day and were not given the opportunity to form a close bond with an adult were later unable to build relationships with other people and in the place of the orbit. in the frontal cortex they had a virtual black hole (Chugani et al. 2001). If social relations are forbidden or impossible during the period when this area of the brain should have been developing (before the age of three), there is little hope that the unformed social abilities will ever be able to fully recover.

The infant cannot develop the orbito-frontal cortex on its own. It depends on the relationship with those adults who are available for communication. It is difficult to imagine how a child can become a part of society in the event of social isolation. The case of Jeanie, a little girl whose parents kept her locked up in the same room for almost 13 years, shows how difficult it is to recover when the beginning is so tragic. Jeanie has been almost completely neglected since birth. Her older sister was left in the garage by her parents so as not to hear her cry, and she died of cold and neglect at the age of 2 months. From the age of 20 months, Gini was kept alone in the back bedroom, tied to a toilet seat. She couldn't move or look out the window. When she voiced her needs, her father would go up to her and beat her with a wooden stick. These incredible hardships continued until she was 13 years old. Her rescuers discovered that she was incontinent, able to move about like a two-year-old child, obsessed with objects and taught to contain any emotions with fear. When she was angry, she took the aggression on herself by scratching her face, blowing snot and urinating. She yearned for love, but according to the latest documents describing her condition at the end of her second decade of life, she was never able to maintain any relationship with anyone.

In a certain sense, the human cub must be introduced into human culture. The first step in this process is to get the baby interested by making the social interaction very enjoyable. In my work with mothers and babies, this has become a kind of starting point - if a mother finds pleasure in the relationship with her own child, then there is no reason to worry, even if some problems remain. When pleasure dominates the relationship, parent and child, without realizing it, are building the infant prefrontal cortex and developing its capacity for self-regulation and complex social interactions. In most families, children are a source of joy. But the mother-child system is extremely delicate and can go astray if there is a lack of external and internal resources. Fortunately, it is easy enough to return it to a favorable state, providing assistance at the right time.

One of the mothers I have worked with, Sarah, who is extremely successful in her professional life, came to me in a state of great anxiety and excitement when her first child was born. She had serious difficulties with breastfeeding. She became a late mother, and she wanted everything to be right, but the tension between mother and baby was just in the air. The expression on the child's face was bleak and absent, and the child turned away whenever the mother approached him. Sarah admitted that she was so offended that every time she passed the window on the second floor of the house, she could not get rid of the desire to throw the child out the window. The situation improved rather quickly when Sarah learned to follow her child's wishes and allow her child to communicate her needs. Soon she began to relax, the baby began to relax after her, and soon both began to get so much pleasure from communication that somehow Sarah came to visit me with the baby, glowing with love, adoring her baby, and the child smiled back at her. Welfare has been restored.

The very first sources of pleasure are smell, touch and sound. Babies recognize the voices of their parents from birth and prefer them to all others. The loving embrace of parents can only be compared with breastfeeding in terms of the strength of its stimulating effect. It is no coincidence that the image of the Madonna and Child has become an icon in human culture. In the loving arms of mom or dad, where it is warm and safe, muscles can relax, breathing becomes deeper, all tensions are relieved by gentle rocking or gentle stroking. It has been found that the baby's heart rate synchronizes with the parent's, so if the parent is relaxed and calm, so will the baby. The mother's nervous system, in fact, communicates with the child's nervous system, calming it through touch. When we physically feel touched and hugged by other people, we feel psychological support. There is a scene in Ashley Mantague's movie Touches that illustrates this phenomenon: a confused and highly upset mental patient during a conversation with a psychiatrist seems more able to focus on the doctor's face and answer questions intelligibly after the psychiatrist approaches him and takes his hand to convince him of your sympathy and care. This deep satisfaction from touch continues into our adult lives: for example, bereaved people find solace in hugs, lovers exchange sexual touches, and many people get rid of the stresses of everyday life with massage sessions.

The power of a smile

As soon as the world ceases to blur before the eyes, vision begins to play an increasingly important role in relationships. Eye-to-eye contact is now becoming the main source of information about other people's feelings and intentions: feelings are now visible on the face. This habit of relying on facial expressions may be a legacy from the African savannah, when our primate ancestors had to communicate in silence to avoid attracting the attention of predators. This was achieved through visual media, developing a wide range of facial expressions and body language to convey information (Turner, 2000). Of course, attention to faces is hardwired into humans, and this is evident even in newborns.

By the time it starts walking, a human cub has learned to use the faces of its father and mother as a direct guide to action in the current environment. Is it safe to crawl out the door? Does dad like the visitor? This phenomenon is known as "social correlation", the infant uses visual communication at a distance to understand what to do and what not to do, what to feel and what not to feel, using the parent's face as a source of information (Feynman, 1992).

Figure 2.2

But according to Allan Shore, looking in the face plays a much more significant role in a person's life. Especially in infancy, those looks and smiles help the brain grow. How it works? Shore suggests that positive, encouraging views are the most important stimuli for the growth of the social, emotional brain (see Figure 2.2.)

When a child looks at his mother (or father), he recognizes pupillary dilation as information that her sympathetic nervous system is active and she is experiencing pleasant arousal. In response to this, his nervous system also goes into a pleasant excitement, and the heartbeat quickens. These processes trigger a biochemical reaction. First, the pleasure neuropeptide, beta-endorphin, is released, especially in the orbital-frontal cortex. "Endogenous" or self-produced opioids such as beta-endorphin are known for their ability to stimulate neuronal growth by regulating the supply of glucose and insulin (Shor, 1994). Being natural opioids, they also make us feel good. At the same time, another neurotransmitter called “dopamine” is released in the brainstem and again directed to the prefrontal cortex. It also improves glucose uptake in this area, helping new tissue grow in the prefrontal area. Dopamine may also make you feel good, as it has an energizing and stimulating effect; he is involved in the process of enjoying the reward. So, using this technical and roundabout way, we have understood how the gazes of blindly loving parents trigger the pleasurable biochemistry that leads to the growth of the social brain (Shor, 1994).

The baby's brain grows especially rapidly during the first year of life - it more than doubles in weight. The incredibly active glucose metabolism that exists in the first two years of life is triggered by the biochemical responses of the child to the actions of his mother and facilitates the process of gene expression. Like so much else in human development, the process of gene activation and expression often depends on the social environment. The hippocampus, temporal cortex, prefrontal and anterior cingulate gyrus are all immature at birth. But the success of their growth and genetic development depends on the amount of positive experience that a person will receive. More positive experiences at an early age lead to the development of a brain with more neural connections - a brain in which the network of connections is richly ramified. The number of neurons is already set at birth, and it doesn't matter anymore, but what is required is to connect them to each other and make them work. The more connections, the more opportunities to use different areas of the brain.

In particular, between 6 and 12 months there is an explosive growth of synaptic connections in the prefrontal cortex. They reach their maximum density precisely when the development of the pleasurable relationship between parent and child is most intense, when a close attachment is formed. This growth spurt in the prefrontal cortex reaches its final high at the very beginning of the walking period, when the joy of being able to move independently excites the child, and also generates pride and joy in the parents. In general, the child becomes a social being with the development of his social brain. But almost the entire first year of life takes to get to this starting point.

By the end of the first year of life, the preparatory part of infancy comes to an end. We can say that the child at this point reaches a level of development that other animals reach in the womb. But, going through this process outside the womb, the process of building the human brain is more subject to social influence. This continuation of human dependency outside the womb allows for the formation of a strong social bond between the child and the caregiver adult. This process sets off biochemical mechanisms that create a large number of neural connections and allow the brain to develop at a pace that will never be achieved in the future. Be that as it may, neural connections continue to be created throughout life. An illustrative example is the study of Einstein's brain, carried out several years ago by researchers from Canada. They compared Einstein's brain with the brains of other men who died at the same age and found that Einstein's brain was 15% wider in the parietal region than the brains of other people. The parietal zone is involved in the processes of mathematical reasoning and spatial thinking. The main idea: the more you use this or that zone, the more it develops. And the opposite is true - if you don't use it, you lose it: lack of activity leads to neural atrophy, as well as to muscle atrophy.

baby navigator

The first year of life is spent building these mental "muscles". Connections of neurons build up at high speed, creating a dense network, the raw material from which consciousness arises. The experience then "condemns the cells to their only possible role" (Gren and Black, 1992) as they take their place in the system and begin to die if not used. This process is known as "stepping", the removal of extra branches. The brain retains what it needs and allows those superfluous connections to die off that will not be needed in the later life of a particular individual. The chaotic construction of connections is replaced by the construction of schemes and combinations. The most frequent and repetitive experiences begin to take hold and form beaten paths, while unused connections are cut off. The brain begins to take shape and structure.

This happens through the unconscious fixation of circuits that are formed when a whole group of neurons simultaneously goes into an active state. (Individual neurons cannot create circuits.) Circuits are formed by a cluster of neurons as they become active, reacting to each other and to external stimuli, and then calming down, creating “party noise” in the brain (Varela et al., 1996). This is the time when regions of the brain become metabolically active, contributing to the individual's behavioral repertoire (Chugani et al. 2001), with our social intelligence most sensitive to experiences between 6 and 18 months. Once neurons are grouped into circuits, they can be used to organize experiences, making interactions with others more predictable. Daniel Siegel says that the brain is a "prediction machine" (Siegel, 1999). It is designed to help us find our way by providing options for the most likely outcomes and keeping us aware of our surroundings.

In fact, the brain begins to structure the experience that the child receives when communicating with other people, noting unconsciously common signs, things that are repeated over and over again. If a father breaks into the house every evening, slams the door and kisses his daughter on the nose, then she will begin to believe that this is what fathers do. If her mother always wrinkles her nose in disgust and grumbles when changing her diaper, pulling it off roughly, then the girl may begin to believe that changing a diaper is an extremely unpleasant process and, moreover, her bodily functions can become a source of displeasure for others. It is the repetitive and typical experience that structures the brain—creating basic sensory categories like “table” and “dog,” but in a specifically sensory form. The internal picture will be a snapshot of the situation: what other people's faces looked like, what my body felt when they performed this action. If the experience most likely will not be repeated, then it is not worth remembering it, since it cannot be used for forecasting.

Unless the experience is highly traumatic, the single incident leaves little mark. The exception to this rule is explosive and extremely exciting situations, which are registered by the amygdala of the brain, which is responsible for instantaneous reactions in dangerous situations. Faces expressing fear and anger will be recorded on it and will trigger an automatic response. These situations can be life-threatening and require an extremely quick response. However, in the case of a chronic lack of positive social interactions with other people, the ability to overcome such primitive reactions may not develop. The connections formed after birth between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala can be interrupted because they fail to become strong. In this case, they become too weak to suppress the fear caused by the amygdala, or to correct the previously formed expectation of fear in case it is no longer relevant.

Formed conducting paths and internal images are the guide for interaction. We rely on them when some event or feature calls them to mind. They do not find expression in words, because this is not required. We simply, without realizing it, use them as a foundation for our behavior and expectations of others. It turns out that we prefer in most cases to have our expectations confirmed, even if they are unpleasant (Swann, 1987).

However, people have developed a way to revise these internal images in the changing environment. This is a function of conscious introspection, which is possible due to the abilities of the prefrontal zone and the anterior cingulate gyrus of the cerebral cortex. These parts of the brain allow an emotion to be extended in time, allowing the individual to become aware of the experience and form alternatives before taking action. For example, the internal image and feeling of disgust and rejection formed at a diaper change can also occur in adult life in situations that involve the same group of neurons, such as when giving an enema in a hospital. But instead of automatically reacting to this situation, the prefrontal zone can pause it and decide whether it is really so embarrassing and disgusting in the case when the procedure is necessary for maintaining health.

The location of the prefrontal zone is unique in that it gives it access to the general state of the body and an understanding of its needs. It is strongly associated with internal subcortical emotional systems, as well as with sensory information about the outside world. She also has connections with the centers of motor and chemical reactions of the brain. As Damasio (1994) wrote, she has the ability to "eavesdrop" on the activity of the whole organism. With its help, the individual can become aware of both his own state and the state of others and stop his own behavior if it is socially unapproved. This is due to the connection of the prefrontal cortex with subcortical areas - in particular, with the hypothalamus and amygdala. This connection allows you to stop arousal and suppress spontaneous emotional behavior, such as aggression. In our hypothetical situation, it is also able to suppress the disgust that the individual experiences in the hospital, and allow him to be more comfortable with the enema.

The power of the visual

As I already wrote, the first of the vital social tools to develop is the orbital-frontal zone of the prefrontal cortex. It begins to mature by 10 months of age, when the baby begins to learn to walk and the orbitofrontal zone begins to build connections with other areas, despite the fact that this process will not be fully completed until 18 months.

This developmental process occurs at a key moment when the brain develops the ability to store visual images. There are specialized neurons in the orbito-frontal area that are responsible for recognizing faces, while another part of the brain (the temporal lobe), which begins to mature at the same time, begins to process the visual side of faces. At first, these images are similar to "flashes", but when repeating situations involving other people over and over again, they become voluminous visual images loaded with emotions, images of themselves next to others, not fixed in some time and space, but simply engraved in memory . This is an important moment in the emotional life of a person, as it becomes the first outline of the inner life - an internal library of images that can be referred to again and again, the complexity and fullness of associations and thoughts will increase as the child grows. These emotionally loaded images seem to be close enough to the psychoanalytic idea of the "internal object" or internalized mother.

Internal images also become an important source of emotional self-regulation. In future situations with a similar type of emotional arousal, they can be used as a guide to this or that behavior in the absence of a caregiver. But without effectively learned parenting strategies to soothe and calm the intense right brain arousal, the individual is easily susceptible to stress, which can easily escalate into overwhelming suffering. At the same time, this ability to retain emotional images of people and their facial expressions, as well as to mentally return to these images, lays the foundation for building a complex human world of meanings that go beyond purely situational response.

Negative facial expression

However, this special focus on faces also has a downside. Negative views and interactions are also stored in the memory. A negative look can trigger a biochemical reaction in the same way as a positive one. A disapproving expression on the mother's face can trigger the release of a stress hormone such as cortisol, which blocks the neuronal uptake of endorphins and dopamine and stops the pleasurable sensations they produce. Such looks and facial expressions also have a powerful effect on the growing child. Their enormous influence in infancy is explained by the fact that the child is extremely dependent on the parent in regulating his states - both psychological and physiological. Anything that threatens this regulation causes great stress, as it puts survival at risk. And it does not matter what caused this lack of regulation - the emotional unavailability of the educator or his physical absence. All an infant needs is an adult who is emotionally on the same wavelength with him enough to help regulate his condition. The best-documented evidence of the harmful effects of isolation, I believe, is precisely that the child is emotionally cut off from others and has no way to regulate his states. In one study in a nursery, children demonstrated that it was not the absence of a mother alone that caused an increase in stress hormones such as cortisol, but the absence of an adult figure who would be responsible and attentive to their conditions at any moment. If one of the nursery staff took on this responsibility, cortisol levels did not rise. Without such a figure, the child is under stress (Dettling et al., 2000).

However, the toddler's brain needs a certain amount of cortisol to complete the developmental stage it needs to go through (Shor, 1994). Elevated levels of cortisol facilitate the growth of noradrenaline nerve processes from the spinal cord to the prefrontal cortex. This norepinephrine delivery channel aids further maturation of the prefrontal cortex between 1 and 3 years of age by increasing blood circulation in this area and forming its connections (via the hypothalamus) to the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic system is vital to the growing infant because it is the inhibiting system that allows the child to stop doing something and learn that the behavior may be unacceptable or dangerous. As the toddler explores the home environment, the parent now issues "No! Do not do that!" on average every 9 minutes (Shor, 1994). It has a debilitating effect on the child. The world is no longer his personal shell. Danger lurks around every corner, and there are limits to his joyful exploration of the world. He discovers that the parents who interacted positively with him 90% of the time in his infancy, doing their best to tune into his wavelength, can now be terribly out of step with him. They convey this to him by speaking sternly to him and looking negatively. His parents give him a cold welcome. They strongly refuse positive perception of his actions and make it clear that he needs to conform to group norms or he will be socially isolated. For such a social being as man, such an attitude is a real punishment.

These disapproving or negative looks cause a sudden shift from sympathetic arousal to parasympathetic arousal, creating the effect we experience as shame—a sudden drop in blood pressure and shallow breathing. I remember very well my feelings at the age of seven, when I was called to the office of the principal of the school. I admired and loved the headmaster and came into the office with positive expectations. But his face looked sullen when I walked in - and what is my mom doing here in the middle of a school day? She probably decided to come to him after listening to my usual complaints when she came to say good night to me the previous evening. I was not chosen for the school relay, although, as it seemed to me, they should have been. I remember the shock and humiliation when I was called to account for my dissatisfied whining. I remember how the blood drained from my face, how suddenly I felt nauseous and dizzy, and my eyes suddenly darkened. Now I understand that what was happening to me was a sharp decline in my sympathetic arousal, which fell due to the connection between the prefrontal cortex and the vagus nerve (via the hypothalamus), activated by my shame.

Shame is an important parameter of socialization. But it is also important that shame passes. It is important that the body receives a "dose" of cortisol, but an overdose is extremely harmful, which I will write about in the next chapter. Since the child produces cortisol in response to the expression of the parent's face, its output also depends on the changed face of the parent. A young child cannot do this on his own, so if a parent does not help him in restoring a well-to-do and settled state, he may get stuck in this state of arousal. The benefits of cortisol, which allows you to slow down emotional arousal, will be lost.

Verbal personality

The final stage of the early emotional development of the brain is the stage of formation of the verbal personality. We can observe how the infant's means of communication with others become more and more complex: starting with touch, then moving through the dominance of visual images, between the ages of two and three, verbal communication finally kicks in. Each new way of communication is added to the previous one, and no funds are lost. People acquire new skills by building on existing ones, adding new ones to the previous stage of development, and not excluding it.

The orbito-frontal cortex has taken shape and is well “rooted”, its ability to control feelings is growing, and now connections between the right and left zones of the orbito-frontal cortex are beginning to form, linking the expression of feelings and their management. There is a shift from the dominance of the right hemisphere to the development of the left hemisphere of the brain. The left hemisphere is responsible for different ways of functioning than the right and specializes in speech and sequencing - one signal after another, in turn, in contrast to the right hemisphere, which tries to build a whole picture and intuitively grasp all the possibilities. Once this shift occurs, the brain becomes more stable and less capable of change. The left hemisphere creates higher-level operations based on the achievements of the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere studies the organized personality created by the activities of the right hemisphere, strengthens it and learns to convey the expression of this personality to others.

New key areas of the brain begin to develop. The anterior cingulate gyrus matures first, surrounding the amygdala and hypothalamus (see Figure 2.1), which is involved in paying attention to feelings (Rothbart et al., 2000). This development brings a better awareness of inner states such as pain or pleasure. It probably also promotes listening to one's own feelings, as well as to the feelings of others, and is involved in the formation of emotional arousal, but can also take part in the control of suffering, through switching attention to other events and objects.

Shortly thereafter, another important part of the prefrontal cortex, the dorsolateral cortex, begins to develop. This is the place where we process our thoughts and feelings and play them out. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is the main part of what is called "working memory". By keeping the neurons active for some time, it can hold memories and compare them. This ability to keep things in mind is a key aspect of our ability to plan, evaluate options, and make choices. It gives us great flexibility and the ability to adjust our thinking in relation to the current situation. (People with damage to the dorsolateral cortex have trouble adapting; they tend to be rigid in their behavior and stick to their old ideas.) The talents of the dorsolateral cortex lie primarily in evaluating information, rather than direct control of the subcortical emotional systems, as the orbital cortex does. frontal cortex. Their tasks are different.

The second year of life is marked by a growing ability in the field of language acquisition, which originates in the left hemisphere. Both the dorsolateral cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex, which are interconnected, are involved in the process of speaking and fluency. (According to Panksepp, if the anterior cingulate gyrus is damaged, the need to speak and the motivation to discuss feelings, such as in a state of grief, is lost.) As these parts of the brain develop, words begin to play as important a role as views. Emotions can be expressed verbally, as well as through touch and body language. This conscious attention to emotion opens up a wider range of possible responses. Instead of relying on automatic habits and expectations generated by images of past experience, there is now some wiggle room. Ways of doing things and ways of thinking can now be tested. Less obvious or more complex solutions can be found, usually in discussion with other people. Parents can now explain the rules of life in society in more detail: "We do not take other people's things" or "If you eat fish fingers, you will get your favorite yogurt."

This is a major change in the fixation of experience - moving away from "warning images" formed on the basis of repeated situations with other people. Of course, the earlier, preverbal forms of imagery, based primarily on the evaluation of people's faces and body language, continue to provide us with information for the formation of emotional reactions. But now you need to manage the verbal part of other people's answers. And the quality of those answers, that feedback matters. If caregivers have a good understanding of the child, they will be able to recognize his current emotional state and name him correctly. This will allow the child to build an emotional vocabulary that will help them understand the feeling they are experiencing and to distinguish between different internal states - for example, to understand that feeling tired is not the same as feeling sad. But if caregivers (parents) do not talk about feelings or misrepresent them, it will be much more difficult for a child to express feelings and discuss them with other people. And if feelings remain unnamed, then emotional arousal is much more difficult to manage in a more conscious, verbal way, such as, for example, speaking out when you are in a bad mood. Instead, the control of feelings will occur through the old, pre-verbal ways, and it - control - cannot be developed through new opinions and deliberations. This means that the child's idea of his own personality will remain rather undifferentiated, unstructured.

Self-awareness also depends heavily on another part of the brain, the hippocampus, which develops in the third year of life. While short-term memory retains the current experience, the hippocampus acts more selectively and retains those events that need to be stored in long-term memory. They then become a resource for the prefrontal cortex, which can trigger those specific memories at any moment. The hippocampus is closely related to both the anterior cingulate gyrus and the dorsolateral cortex. Like the latter, it is a place where sensory paths converge, a place of synthesis of information and ideas about place and time. This means that now there is an ability to remember the sequence of events that happen directly to you: first this happened to me, and then that. Appears "before", "during" and "after". This allows the child to create an internal "personal storyteller" and have a past and a future - to be able to build the narrative aspect of the personality, and not just the personality that exists in the present moment. Parents can now talk to their child about the future: “Cheer up! We'll go see the ducks in the park a little later this morning," and they may allude to the past: "Remember when you got naked at Uncle Bob's wedding!"

Perhaps the reason we don't remember our earliest infancy is because the dorsolateral cortex and its connection to the hippocampus is not yet fully developed during this period. Perhaps the individual events in this period are as unimportant as the gradual emergence of patterns and patterns that grow out of the noise and hubbub of ordinary life. The strongest emotional memories of infancy are stored instead in the amygdala, or perhaps in other parts of the brain that are not consciously accessible. They form the basis, the foundation of our life. But as we grow, we may need more detailed information to make decisions. And it is precisely before the hippocap that the task of remembering how, where and when significant events took place - context and place - and storing them in such a state when their conscious call is possible.

These completely left-brain formations - the hippocampus, dorsolateral cortex, and cingulate gyrus - together play a major role in the formation of a social personality that has its own history and communicates with other people to maintain self-awareness. Surprisingly, the formation of this verbal, history-based personality is in itself critical to emotional stability in adulthood. A serious researcher in the field of attachment theory, Mary Maine has worked on the study of attachment patterns and has developed a method for measuring the reliability of attachment in adults. What she discovered was quite unexpected. She found that when adults talked about their emotional lives and important relationships while growing up, it didn't matter if their childhood was "happy" or not. Their current emotional security depended more on whether they could form a coherent and coherent story about themselves, about their period of growing up. People who experienced emotional difficulties in adulthood could not talk about their feelings or talked a lot, but incoherently and jumped from one to another. For example, if an adult said that his relationship with his mother was wonderful, but could not remember a single pleasant event when he was with her, his story was seen as internally inconsistent (Failing type). On the other hand, if an adult could not make up a coherent account of his or her past without constantly revisiting painful and difficult memories and feelings, his emotional state was also not safe (The Concerned Type) (Main and Goldwyn, 1985). It is not very clear to me whether history itself plays a decisive role in creating a secure self-awareness, or whether it is a by-product of mindful relationships with others and getting the right feedback from them that has generated a secure self-image. Of course, when emotions are blocked from consciousness or out of control, a person has less opportunity to comprehend them using the resources of the left hemisphere.

End of introductory segment.

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The following excerpt from the book How does love shape a child's brain? (Sue Gerhardt, 2004) provided by our book partner -

An English psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, Sue Gerhardt, based on her own long-term observations and practice, as well as research by other scientists, wrote a book in which she explained how a person's earliest experience affects the development of his brain. It shows how a child's relationship with their parents affects the development of their ability to cope with stress, their emotional well-being and relationships with other people. Provides evidence that dysfunctional relationships in childhood can lead to conditions such as anorexia, addictions of various kinds and mental disorders, antisocial behavior.

How does love shape a child's brain?

Sue Gerhardt writes that the foundations of a person's emotional life begin to be laid during pregnancy and during the first two years of a child's life. It is during infancy that the process of development of the physiological and spiritual systems of a person takes place most intensively, when we first experience feelings and learn what to do with them, develop mechanisms for responding to stress and ways of relating to people. The key point is that the infant develops in interaction with other people, usually parents or other caregivers.

Sue Gerhardt also talks about the importance of secure attachment for the successful development of a child, that before you feel independent and capable of self-regulation, a person needs to get enough experience of dependence. A child whose needs are not met in a timely manner by a caring parent develops an insecure attachment that does not allow him to develop harmoniously.

The parent is the regulator for the immature psyche of the baby.

The baby needs the attention of an adult who adequately responds to the feelings of the baby and helps him return to a comfortable state. It is vital for young children that there is always an emotionally accessible adult nearby who notices the feelings of the child and is ready to help regulate them. With early help, your child will eventually learn to successfully manage their feelings on their own. If the infant has not received enough help in regulation, he becomes a person who finds it difficult to cope with his conditions.

You can not leave the baby to cry and cope with his condition alone, this has a detrimental effect on his developing brain (for more information on how to behave to parents if the baby is crying, read here).

The ability of parents to correctly recognize the emotional state of the child and name it is very important. This will help the child learn to understand their feelings and express them with words, relieving emotional stress.

If the parents did not accept the "negative" feelings of the child, such as anger, anger, sadness, then the person will suppress these feelings, he will lack the skills to manage such emotions, he may strive to always look "pleasant", and will also ignore the feelings of others as well. how ignored his feelings in early childhood.

Relationships with parents affect mental abilities!

Infant experience plays a decisive role in the development of initially immature physiological systems. In the case of a problematic early experience, the mechanisms of responding to stress and other processes of managing emotions can be damaged, even the growth of the brain itself (brain growth rates are highest in the first year and a half of life) can be disrupted, which will affect the further behavior of a person and his mental abilities. Positive experiences at an early age contribute to the development of a brain with more neural connections, and the more connections, the more opportunities to use different areas of the brain.

Separation from the mother is the strongest stress for the baby!

Children are extremely dependent on adults who satisfy their needs for food, protection, warmth and comfort. For a baby, the closeness of an adult is a guarantee of survival, so he experiences the strongest feelings if his mother or the person who takes care of him leaves him.

Quote from the book:

"The greatest stress for a child from birth to three years old is separation from his mother or the adult who cares for him and helps him survive in this world."

Inattention is even worse than bad treatment!

The author of the book pays special attention to the fact that a traumatic situation for the child's psyche can arise not only from extreme or long-term difficult experiences, but also from periodic cases of ignoring and violent actions, due to a lack of responsiveness at a time when the baby is especially in need of it. .

Quote from the book:

“For a child, the most painful sensation is the inability to achieve maternal attention. Children protest the most when their mother's attention is turned off, it's a more unbearable state than mistreatment."

If a child does not have a parent who would be attuned to the child, interested in him and reacting positively to him, then the baby will not be able to develop important areas of the brain in the right way.

The baby needs the sensitivity of the parent, and this does not mean that it is necessary to immediately fulfill the slightest desires of the child, but it is also impossible to ignore the baby for too long. Sue Gerhard talks about the “relaxed sensitivity that confident parents have” when parents respond to their child’s current needs, observing his mood and desires, thinking about how the child perceives or experiences this or that situation.

The basis of easy upbringing is good relationships.

Between the ages of one and three years, the child goes through important stages of socialization, he is taught what behavior is acceptable and what is not, through the deprivation of positive parental attention. If the child does something undesirable, the parents express their disapproval, which is stressful for the child.

Stress and conflict are inevitable in any relationship, but a child needs a basic reassurance that positive relationships can be restored. The task of a parent is to help survive and neutralize negative experiences, as well as stress hormones, return to a normal state, and ensure a quick recovery of interrupted relationships.

Excessive criticism is detrimental to self-esteem.

If a child is heavily criticized or constantly ignored, he may become insecure about his own worth. And the child's ideas about his own low value or even inferiority give a certain direction to his behavior, which confirms the negative expectations of others.

Quote from the book:

“If the other person constantly treats you like a fool, you will feel stupid. (And you will develop the ability to treat others as fools.) If your parents show no interest in the state of your soul, you will feel that these states are of no interest to others (and, perhaps, that the states of mind of other people and you will not interesting)."

Early childhood affects the ability to be a happy adult!

The lack of positive relationships in early childhood has a negative effect on brain biochemistry, which can lead to the fact that in adulthood a person will receive less pleasure from life. On the contrary, a person in infancy who received a large number of positive impressions and rewards, and in the future does not experience difficulties with emotions, and also forms a positive attitude towards life.

In addition, relationships with parents, forming certain patterns of interaction, also affect relationships with other people in later life. Securely attached children expect responsiveness and sensitivity from others, and they themselves are capable of this. If they encounter an unresponsive person, they tend to turn to someone else for support. In contrast, insecurely attached children engage in defensive behaviors to interact with an unresponsive partner, such behaviors can lead to severe difficulties in establishing open trusting relationships.

Quote from the book:

“Properties of good parenting (and any close relationship in general)…: the ability to listen, the ability to notice, the ability to correct behavior and restore pleasant feelings through all sorts of physical, emotional and intellectual contact - through touch, smile, different ways of putting feelings into words and thoughts . … It takes time to be able to notice and respond to other people's feelings. It requires that some mental space is given to feelings, there is both a desire and an attitude to bring relationships to the fore.

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