Hello! I know I haven’t written a blog post in a long time, but I’ve been busier with research and treating my patients. But I haven’t been standing still. I continue to investigate and develop my understanding of the human condition and causes for human suffering, and how we can heal ourselves and each other. The results of my therapy continue to be resounding and revolutionary.
But today I want to talk about something else. Something that I think con be useful for the reader. Something that, I have come to discover, seems to be at the heart of our suffering, and that is little known or recognized, as it either goes unnoticed, or is considered secondary, or is not well articulated. And yet, I am convinced, it is at the heart of what makes us suffer internally, physically, emotionally and psychologically. And I not only want to explain what this factor is and how it works, but also explain what we can do to heal ourselves in this sense (I may not be able to say everything in one article!). I think it can be a tremendous asset, and if it can help even one person, it’s worth it.
Love
We all want to be loved, and enjoy being loved. I don’t care who you are (or were!): good or bad, a tough guy or a softie, man, woman or child, young or old, rich or poor, powerful or weak, beautiful or ugly. Everyone, absolutely everyone, likes to be loved. And we not only like it, but we need to feel that Love – if not from others, from ourselves or from any other Source. It is, in fact, necessary for our survival.
But how so? How can love be necessary for our survival? After all, it feels good to be loved, but it seems that we may be able to at least survive without it, right? Maybe we live a little worse lives, maybe a little sadder for example, but we survive… right? Why do I say that Love is crucial, not only for our well-being and quality of life, but for our mere survival as well – and that it is not properly recognized as such?
Attachment Theory (by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth) – or The Theory of Our Sense of Security
The brilliant British psychologist John Bowlby (now deceased) was, in my opinion, a great contributor to the field of Psychology. He was the first to recognize (and shed light on) what should have been obvious from the start, namely that babies and children NEED the affection of their mothers (or a figure who can be like a mother), and to feel safe in their their relationship with them, to grow up emotionally healthy and stronger and more resilient as adults. He understood that it was like this in social animals and also in the children he studied, and he saw it in his own life too. Until Bowlby shined a light on the subject, it was quite common for babies and children to be raised away from their parents, in institutions for example (how many children have trauma of being left in boarding schools from a very young age, for example…), and there were even theories, very popular and widely applied in society, that children even grow stronger and healthier if they were not spoiled, if they did not receive emotional affection or even “excessive” touch from their parents (by the way, the fundamental that is touch for the good development of animals and men is a fascinating topic by itself, but it will have to wait for another time…). How many clients have complained to me about the lack of affection from their father or mother…and we are talking about adults here, completely socially independent now, and who often no longer have their parents present…
Bowlby developed his Attachment Theory, which describes how a child needs a secure relationship with his mother – and in his family environment – to feel safe, and thus develop into happy, strong and healthy adults. Children who had this pattern appeared calmer, more confident in themselves, and therefore more affable, independent, and without fear of exploring the environment around them, creating bonds more easily with other adults or children.
On the other hand, children who grew up – since they were babies, as these patterns are commonly established before the age of two – with a feeling of insecurity, that they could not trust their parents, or that their needs were not being met (they felt not “seen”, so to speak, or at least not in a satisfactory way that calmed them down, and gave them security), they became insecure in their behaviors, for example they could show a lot of protest (they cried more easily and were more difficult to calm down) or they showed more fear or reluctance to explore the environment around them, or they were more “inward-looking”, “closed down”, less expansive in their relationships with the people around them, or apparently more “cold and independent”, etc.
Testing the Theory
Bowlby’s theory and ideas were later further developed and studied by his student Mary Ainsworth who, among other things, designed a way of seeing and testing these different forms of attachment – functional or dysfunctional – in the laboratory with babies and their mothers. She called this experiment the Strange Situation Experiment. In this test, babies around 1 year old and their mothers entered and remained in a comfortable but strange room for both of them, with toys for the child to interact with in the middle of the floor. A comfortable room, but somehow strange for the baby (it wasn’t his home).
In this experiment, after a few moments for the child to adapt to the new surroundings and feel comfortable in it (playing with the toys, etc.), the mother leaves the room for a few moments, leaving the baby behind. Of course, being a healthy baby, this child would start crying when the mother left and disappeared from sight, trying to go after her, trying to make her stay, etc. and then would remain crying until she returned. When she returned moments later, the researchers actually noticed interesting patterns, and were able to divide the children into two large groups: those who had a secure connection with their mother, and those who had an insecure connection. If a baby had a secure relationship, as soon as the mother returns and takes him in her arms, starting to comfort him, he quickly calms down and feels safe again, gradually returning to feeling comfortable in the surrounding environment, playing with the toys again, etc.
When a child has an insecure relationship with their mother, when she returns, the reunion doesn’t go the same way. Depending on the style of insecure relationship the child has wit the mother, they may continue to cry and protest to their mother for abandoning them, continuing to cry and resisting any attempt at comfort (these children are said to have an anxious attachment style, or anxious relationship with the protective figure), or they were apparently indifferent and cold with their mother’s departure and return, seemingly emotionally independent and unaffected, but in fact equally wounded and insecure in their relationship with the figure who is supposed to mean protection for them (these children are said to have an avoidant attachment style, or a distant or detached relationship with the mother figure) – see the video below to watch these different reactions:
As you can see in the video, the reactions are clear, visceral, strong and automatic (i.e. biological), in any of the cases (safe, anxious or apparently indifferent). As they happen in such young children, who do not yet have a developed sense of ego, and are pre-verbal, it is a clear sign that they are (strong) mechanisms that are born within us, and therefore automatic and related to our survival (as we will eventually explore, this makes sense and is also easy to understand, particularly given the fact that humans, in relation to other primates and mammals, are born extremely premature, and are therefore completely dependent on their parents to survive and grow until they become independent, and are able to stand by themselves, only years later).
Attachment Theory describes, in short, how important it is for the survival and well-being of humans (and other primates and mammals) the feeling of security towards their creators, and later, by extension, towards all the people who surround them in life, starting with their most intimate relationships (let us remember also how animals, such as ducks or geese, “imprint” as a maternal figure the first creature they see – such as a human – even though it is not clearly their mother, demonstrating the power of the need for attachment with a progenitor figure for survival for many animals to grow up healthy).
The Need for Security for Well-Being
My thesis in this article (informed by having treated inumerous people with these apparent – but clearly defined – “attachment wounds” from childhood, or inflicted later in life, and by my knowledge of other areas of biology and the origins of suffering) is that these patterns, which may seem “weak” or inconsequential, have profound repercussions on our health (yes, physical too), life choices, relationships, future emotional states, and quality of life and relationships with other people (particularly intimate ones) . What we will call our “attachment system”, present in our body (the same system that made the children have those spontaneous reactions – seen in the video -, and which is imprinted and active in all of us throughout our lives ) is responsible for the activation of emotions, ideas, dispositions and moods, and physical, emotional and psychological symptoms that make us suffer – every time we feel insecure, or “without a ground under our feet”.
Yes, I am precisely postulating that all the symptoms that we may be complaining about at this moment are very largely the result of the activation (generally subconscious) of this strong system of attachment or sense of security (an “alarm system” if you will), which is activated/inflamed by certain truggers, and thus “complaining” that it is feeling insecure. By healing this insecurity and calming down this system – something that, surprisingly, has been achieved extremely effectively and in a totally innovative way with my energetic therapy – the symptoms calm down naturally – the “fire” is calmed, and the symptoms, which are inflammations or reactions of insecurity, disappear naturally.
It’s fantastic, simple, and makes sense…so why is it not more accepted or put into practice in our society? Why don’t we start healing people’s symtpoms now effectively, definitively and profoundly, by calming their alarm systems and, while we’re at it, why don’t we create a society in which children virtually all grow up feeling safe, and thus strong and resilient for life?
Well, these (and other) questions are interesting, and I want to answer them, but I won’t be able to talk about everything in this first article. It remains for now an introduction to the theme that I hope to continue. It aims to make you start pondering: where do my pains actually come from? Why do I sleep poorly? Why do I worry and certain thoughts don’t seem to leave me? Why do I feel like this and how could I feel better? Etc., etc. From here we can then explore how this sense of insecurity – apparently so “insignificant” and inconsequential (often to the “rational” adult mind) – can have such a huge impact on our well-being and quality of life – physical, emotional and psychic. And we will explore also, of course, what we all really want to know (and which took me so many years to start to understand!): how we can, even by ourselves as a form of self-help or self-healing, heal these activations of our alarm systems so that we can have a fuller, more satisfying, more pleasant life, free, as much as possible, from symptoms. We will explore this in the next articles, as there is a lot to say about this.