The Psychological Foundations for Emotional Regulation
When building a house, the electrical wiring is installed early in the construction process. The same is true of our psychological wiring. Much of the cortex, a part of the brain that plays a major role in the regulation of emotion, is constructed during the first year of a child’s life. As its construction is actually taking place, the cortex is a beehive of neurological activity. Neurons—or nerve cells—have switches called synapses. In your home, when you flip a switch to turn on the lights, a piece of metal moves to connect the wires running to that switch. The lights stay on until you physically move the metal away from the wires when turning off the switch. In the brain, instead of using metal, these switches use chemicals. When a synapse “fires,” it uses chemicals to establish a connection. Unlike the switch on your wall that leaves the light on, the chemicals in the synapse wear out in a few seconds, and the connection goes away
Turning on one synapse doesn’t do much. But when thousands of interconnected synapses “fire,” significant things happen. Together, these synapses produce thoughts, ideas, feelings, and perceptions in your mind. How do synapses interconnect? When two or more synapse close to each other fire at the same moment, they form knobs that connect the two synaptic switches, perhaps permanently.
When a person feels a certain emotion, it is due to the firing of a large number of synapses. If the person is repeatedly caused to feel that emotion, the synapses involved physically wire together to form a cell assembly. Once the cell assembly has formed, the emotion can be triggered more easily, and in more ways. The firing of even one neuron in the cell assembly can cause all the neurons in the cell assembly to fire, and thus produce the emotion.
Establishing the Connections
The phenomenon described above is also involved in the physical construction of circuits that can produce a sequence of feelings. In a child’s relationship with its parents, a sequence of events can take place that causes the child to experience a specific sequence of emotions. If the sequence takes place repeatedly, it is transcribed into permanent wiring in the child’s brain. A physical connection is established in the brain between the first cell assembly and the second cell assembly, the second with the third, and so on. Ergo, the first emotion tends to produce the second emotion, which in turn produces the third, and on it goes.
Since a baby’s primary caregiver is, in most instances, its mother, the infant’s psychological wiring is the result of sequences of experiences that are repeated in the child’s relationship with her. Ideally, when the child is upset, the mother attunes herself to the child. She immerses herself in the child’s feelings so she can discover the child’s feelings and give the child a powerful sense that the child is not alone in its experience. If the mother is able to immerse herself in the child’s experience, and yet remain calm, she can demonstrate that the feeling—though perhaps intense—can be experienced without damage. The feeling can be “contained.” By the mother’s sharing and containing the feeling, she teaches the child to contain the feeling rather than be engulfed by it. She needs to make it clear that the feeling, though shared by her, belongs to the child. Clarity about the ownership of a feeling assures the child that, though shared, feelings are not contagious; the child’s feelings will not infect, nor cause damage to, the mother. The mother then presents an alternative experience—the relief the child can soon expect—by suggesting that the child imagine feeling better.
For example, the mother comes in to her crying son; his face is scrunched up in pain. She says, “Oh, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” He extends his arm. She takes it. She looks at the arm, the hand, and the fingers. She finds a small cut. The mother feels pulled in two directions. She is pulled toward her own reality; the injury is superficial and she knows that her son will be fine. But if she responds to him based solely on her reality and simply reassures him, he will not feel she has connected with his reality and his distress.
The other pull is toward his reality. This is his first injury. His distress is not unlike that of someone who has lost everything. It is as though he were being swallowed up in an ocean of emotion. Grim as his experience may seem, she enters this dark place with him. By joining him, is she following some primordial instinct? Or is she fortunate enough to have had a relationally gifted mother, simply giving to her child what her mother gave to her?
Just as musicians tune their instruments to each other, she tunes every faculty to her son. Her facial expression is tuned to match his; her body language takes on his. As she speaks, the rhythm and intonation of her speech matches his. By this attunement and matching, mirror neurons in her brain allow her to synthetically duplicate his experience.
Feeling what he feels, as she winces at the pain, their eyes meet in a way that the emotional part of her brain touches his. He, in an experience too profound to explain, knows he is not alone. She holds him, not only physically, but psychologically.
As he clings to her, some mothers would feel dragged down by the undertow of the child’s distress. If she is too fearful of drowning in this sea of emotion, she may never again allow herself to feel what her child is feeling. But, let’s assume this mother can. She has been there before, for when she was a child, her mother first joined her in her distress, and then accompanied her along a shared pathway to reach emotional safety together.
First, as if they were one, she attunes herself to his emotion. Then she is the mother. She reasserts her separate personhood and in so doing moves her son along a pathway that will soon be carved into his psyche. It is a neurological pathway that will keep him from drowning in a flood of emotion. It will operate implicitly—without his consciously knowing it is there—supporting him emotionally throughout his lifespan.
As she accompanies him to emotional safety, she is in no hurry. Emergency Medical Technicians rush to the site where they will aid a victim. They have been trained that once there, they are to walk—not to run—when about to reach the victim. Though time may indeed be critical, it calms the victim when they act as though there is no emergency. The few seconds taken to reassure the person can be more important in saving their life than to intervene medically a few seconds earlier.
Having joined him in his experience, the mother now can give her son a name for his experience. She says, “Yes, yes. You have a cut there.” Then, beginning to point out that she is a psychologically separate person, she adds, “I see. But don’t you worry. Mommy’s going to get something and we’re going to make it all better.”
Though she needs a washcloth and a bandage, she does not leave his side. She invites him to come with her. Or, she picks him up and carries him to where these supplies are. She knows that whether the wound is attended to in one minute or one hour, the wound will heal. It is more important that his emotional state be cared for. She cleans the cut and dresses it. “There! You see?” she says with a smile. Then, suggesting that he, too, is a separate person and perfectly capable of functioning independently, she says, “All better! Now you can go outside and play.” As he goes off to play, he looks very independent. But, and this is key, his independence is dependent upon something she has given him. Within his mind, he carries—and is powered by—a replica of his mother’s face and of the relationship he has with her.
The U-P-S-E-T Sequence
Examining that dialogue, you can see each step of the U-P-S-E-T sequence being played out.
Why is two-mindedness so important? Though the feeling is shared, it belongs to the child. By making it clear that the feeling belongs to the child, the mother helps the child understand that he has a mind, others have their own minds, and that, while minds are separate and contain different information, they can communicate.
Emotional strength depends on replicas built inside the mind. The child cannot build an adequate replica of himself unless his mother makes it clear that he is a separate individual, physically and mentally. More than anything else, inability to regulate feelings when flying results from inadequate replicas of one’s own self and of supportive other persons. Adequate replicas are built only when a child’s mother reflects back to the child that he is separate and individual.
Contrast a favorable U-P-S-E-T sequence with the following scene at a playground. An eight-year-old girl slipped and bumped her head. Though the fall was minor, she shrieked as though seriously injured. Her mother ran over. Instead of attuning herself to her daughter or comforting her, the mother shouted accusingly, “What have you done?” When the mother reached for the daughter, the daughter slammed her fists on the mother’s chest and shoved her away. The mother yelled, “You don’t hit your mother,” then turned and walked away in anger. The daughter ran after her. The mother quickened her pace. The daughter gave up and sat down on the grass, sobbing.
A few minutes later, the mother returned. She sat down behind her daughter and applied an ice pack to her head, perhaps in an attempt to repair the misattunement. As mentioned before, Emergency Medical Technicians, of course, carry ice packs and other first-aid items, but they are trained to first tend to the person’s psychological needs, then to the person’s physical needs.
In another situation, a ten-year-old boy was playing with a Fourth of July sparkler. After it burned out, his finger momentarily touched an area of the sparkler that was still warm. Surprised, he said, “Ow!” His mother reacted as if something terrible had happened. Her frantic reaction caused him to cry. Believing his crying proved he was seriously burned, she asked for directions to a hospital emergency room. When everyone assured her he did not need treatment, she reconsidered. But instead of calming her son, she went to a phone and called a doctor. Not only was she unable to calm her son, her reactions were emotionally destabilizing to him. Responses that destabilize the child are profoundly damaging. Research shows that a child whose mother overreacts has even greater difficulty learning to regulate emotion than a child who—having been orphaned—has no mother at all.
The mother’s characteristic response to the child becomes hardwired. Whether calming or destabilizing, how the mother responds becomes a neuronal pathway, one that is physically established in the child’s brain. When a mother consistently responds with a stabilizing U-P-S-E-T sequence, feelings of being upset flow toward feelings of calm. When these pathways are not established, the child has little or no way to regulate emotion.
Relationship Molds Capacity
Neuropsychologist Allan Schore has studied how children develop the ability to calm themselves. According to Schore’s findings, relationship with the mother (or other primary caregiver) determines not only how emotions flow at the moment, but for years to come. Schore writes, “The child’s first relationship, the relationship with the mother . . . permanently molds the individual’s capacities.” Because it is the period of most rapid brain growth, the emotional sequences a child experiences with its mother during the first year of life become the sequences that will regulate—or dysregulate—emotional states throughout the lifespan. By the mother’s sharing and containing emotion, the child gains the capacity to experience emotion fully without feeling threatened or overwhelmed. By attuned and empathic separateness, the mother supports the child’s individuality and its ability to reflect on its own mental processes.
Modes of Attachment
The emotional sequences that play out in the relationship between a child and its primary caregiver tend to produce identifiable modes of attachment. A child fortunate enough to have what legendary pediatrician and child psychotherapist Donald Winnicott called the “good enough mother” develops a sense of security in his relationship with her. This is called secure attachment. Other relational styles lead to the development of avoidant attachment or insecure attachment.
Secure Attachment
Initially, emotional security may be due to a sense of unity. When an infant cries, the mother intuitively senses or intellectually determines the cause of the discomfort. Her responsiveness may make it seem to the child that they are one. But at some point, the child realizes they are not one. The child recognizes its mother is a separate person and that she has her own mind. This comes as a shock. Separate mindedness is a threat, for if her mind is separate, she can focus her attention elsewhere. What can keep the child from being abandoned? What is to keep its needs from being unmet?
Unless it is bridged, separateness is traumatic. There are several ways separateness can be bridged: physical touch, intellectual agreement, a merging of identities, and empathic attunement. Of these, only empathic attunement can be represented in the mind in a way that promotes independent regulation of emotion.
If the mother and child share an abundance of face-to-face experiences, a replica of the mother’s attuned face is established in the child’s mind. Once a replica is established, she is psychologically available at times when she is not physically available. Two more steps are needed for security. One, if the child is to feel secure when she is not present, the child must sense that a replica of its own self resides in the mother’s mind. The child’s desire for her return is linked to the replica of her in his mind. Two, he needs to sense that the replica of himself in her mind is also linked to a desire to return to him. These replicas and linking feelings are basic to the child’s sense of security with regards to any person he is attached to.
Over time, through repeated moments of attunement, another replica is formed: As the child senses himself in the mother’s mind, he brings what he believes is his mother’s sense of him into his own awareness. This introjection—how he believes his mother regards him—becomes his replica of himself. This process is called “mirroring.”
Replicas of the empathic and attuned mother, and of the child’s relationship with her, result in what is called secure attachment. Equipped internally with these replicas, the secure child grows up to become a secure adult, one who does not need undue control to feel comfortable. Originally, his mother was his whole world. Security with her, as he discovers a larger world, extends to the larger world. Flying, for such a person, rarely poses a problem.
Avoidant Attachment
Avoidant attachment of a child to its parent develops when, instead of relating with the child through empathic attunement, the parent interacts with the child based on reason. The child’s needs are administered to according to the parent’s agenda, rather than in response to signals from the child. To an untrained observer, by being kept clean, given toys to play with (alone), and fed on schedule, the child may seem well taken care of. But a young child needs far more. A young child attempts to communicate through eye contact, facial expression, body language, crying, or other vocalization. When attempting to engage the parent, the child needs to find a willing—indeed an eager—partner. Unless the child finds itself mirrored as a gleam in the parent’s eyes, it has no place in which to psychologically grow up. Psychologist Harry Guntrip has referred to such circumstances as “the baby in the steel drawer.” It could also be the baby in the test tube, or the tiger mother’s child, who is to obey.
We adopt our identity. Our physical identity is adopted from what we see reflected in a glass mirror. Our psychological identity is adopted from what we see reflected in another person’s face. Just as mirrors at a carnival distort how we look, human mirrors—when warped—distort who we believe we are! Since parents are all-important to a young child, the mirroring a child gets from them is formed by the child into a replica of itself. Later, as an adult, we may realize some of the mirroring we received from parents was warped. A person’s replica of self, established by early mirroring, is not easily corrected. Now what? Almost everyone—friends, family, lovers, and enemies—has an agenda. The way they regard you and respond to you is inevitably warped by their own needs. Are there any unwarped mirrors out there? Noted psychiatrist James Masterson, M.D., has said psychotherapy is about finally getting accurate mirroring. He added, “Unfortunately, to get good mirroring, you have to pay for it.” In theory, at least, a therapist who has had the benefit of good mirroring when in therapy himself should be able to mirror you without his own agenda getting in the way.
But when a child is building his sense of self, if his primary caregiver—usually the mother—handles him based on her agenda, rather than in response to his signals, the child builds a replica of himself as something invisible. Later, when seeing others, their identity is clear to him, but when attempting to “see” himself, there is not much there; his own identity is vague. Others seem strong and fixed. He seems weak and amorphous. Relating to others is unnerving, for he is concerned that their influence could engulf the tentative sense of self he holds on to.
He desperately needs a substantial identity. As a drowning swimmer grasps any floating object, if his parents offer him a role model to emulate, he seizes it as an opportunity to be someone. Parents generally assign a role model exhibiting approved behavior and eschewing disapproved behavior. When the child’s performance is consistent with the role model, the parents reinforce the behavior with positive feedback. Other than approved behavior is either ignored or condemned.
Meanwhile, due to unshared self-awareness, an identity develops based on the child’s feelings and desires. This identity, though authentic, is kept private, for whenever the child has attempted to exhibit this authentic self, his parents acted as though it was invisible, or rejected it. Having not been afforded attunement, the child has developed no ability to regulate emotion, nor to contain emotion. Outbursts occur that are truly beyond the child’s control. The parents, believing the child can control his behavior, threaten or punish him. This is counterproductive; parental response—positive or negative—is a form of mirroring. Mirroring strengthens sense of identity. In this case, it strengthens an identity the parents wish to squelch! With the aid of negative mirroring, the identity built on feelings and desire grows stronger. Over time, the child develops a substantial identity; one that is oppositional and defiant!
What happens next is crucial. The child’s oppositional—but authentic—self may prevail. But if traumatized by threats, punishment, or abandonment, the child can be pushed into serious dissociative pathology. To end his out-of-control behavior and unacceptable emotional outbursts, the child engages in a two-step associative-dissociative process. He identifies with the assigned role model, as “me.” He dissociates from the offending authentic self, as “not-me.” By identifying with the role model and dissociating from his real self, the child establishes Guntrip’s classic master-slave-exile arrangement, with the parents as master, the “me” as their slave, and the “not-me” cast into exile. The “not-me,” together with its desires and memories, are hidden away in the child’s internal Pandora’s Box. This associative-dissociative process takes place consciously, around the age of five or slightly later. Though the decision is made consciously, remembering it undermines the dissociation needed to keep the disavowed “not-me” in exile. To maintain the dissociation, the arrangement is “forgotten.”
This arrangement, with “forgetting” as the linchpin holding it together, is fraught with anxiety. To keep the “not-me” identity “forgotten,” it and all its associated contents must remain shut away in Pandora’s Box, and never see the light of day. Though the child has “forgotten” what is in the box, the child knows what lurks there is something to be afraid of. In every situation, there could be an object, a word, or an emotion associated with something inside the box. Association could reawaken the memory of something that needs to stay “forgotten.”
Thus, any situation the child does not control or cannot instantly escape from causes anxiety. Remembering could cause the exiled “not-me” to return and, in a flood of emotion, overwhelm “me.” Out-of-control behavior could cause the parents to abandon “me.” No matter how hard he tries, the child is sure he will ultimately lose control. Something will render him an outcast. He will be imprisoned, or executed. Fear of losing control, of being arrested and imprisoned carries over consciously or unconsciously into adulthood. Here is an example:
I’m thirty-five and haven’t flown for fifteen years. The anxiety I felt was unbearable. My life, and that of my family, would be greatly enhanced if this fear/anxiety was gone. I know in my heart air travel is safer than most things that I do, but I’m still completely flipped out by it. My hands are sweating right now thinking about it. I don’t ever think it can be. I fear also that if I actually board a flight, I’ll lose it on the plane, or get arrested, and not be able to make the return flight. Just typing this makes me feel like running somewhere. It’s totally nuts and I feel pretty hopeless about ever being reasonable about it.
The child seeks mightily to control himself. He hopes that achievement and perfection will establish the “me” he claims he is. In fantasy, he aspires to be a hero, like the storied Dutch boy who saved his country by using his finger to plug the hole in a leaking dike. In reality, the dike holding back the emotion-filled “not-me” has eleven holes—and with only ten fingers, desire from the exiled “not-me” keeps seeping in, threatening to reveal “me” as the impostor.
Puberty confronts the dissociation-based personality with new threats of collapse. How can the “not-me”—now quickened by sexual desire—be kept sequestered? Panic attacks often begin at puberty when the teenager feels trapped in a body afflicted with feelings that cannot be controlled. Some take refuge in a role that serves as a suit of armor against the disavowed “not-me.” If the role is reinforced by “props” (such as a uniform, a book of scripture, tattoos, a wedding ring, ritual, protective gear, special equipment, weaponry, or vehicles), so much the better.
The person doesn’t understand why flying is a problem. Everywhere else, everything is under control. He, a self-described “very rational person,” is unaware that dissociation underpins his identity. The dissociation he unwittingly relies on holds up if the flight is smooth. But in turbulence, feelings arise that are too hot for dissociation to handle. He experiences what Anna Freud called “signal anxiety.” Something connects with its secret contents, and Pandora’s Box threatens to open. He must escape to avoid a disclosure that could destroy his adopted identity—the cool, calm, collected, always in control, highly rational “me”—in a tsunami of emotion.
Able to keep emotion at a distance, but otherwise unable to regulate it, relationships are problematic. Others find his facial expressions missing or difficult to read. He finds eye contact uncomfortable; the other person might glimpse the “not-me.” Though the “not-me” yearns for relationship, it fears disaster. Desire is approached cautiously, if at all. The fear that desire will lead to disaster is not new. In Greek mythology, Odysseus had himself tied to the mast of his ship to avoid losing control when nearing the seductive Sirens.
By remaining insular, the dissociation-based person can appear strong, independent, and self-reliant, like an Ayn Rand protagonist. With all the renunciation of desire and self-imposed isolation the avoidant personality suffers, one does have to admire the heroic fortitude to keep on going on.
One night, when my daughter was around six, she couldn’t sleep because of a panther in the closet. I first tried reassurance, telling her that there was no panther. I then tried reason: We went to the closet and thoroughly examined it, so she could see for herself that there was no panther. Nevertheless, when back in her bed, the panther was back in the closet. Finally, with a flash of intuition, I said, “How would you like to snuggle up with the panther?” She smiled. Together, we pretended she was holding the panther close; she was soon asleep.
Similarly, I have tried every rational approach with clients who are afraid of turbulence. In spite of all assurances that turbulence is not a problem for the plane, the panther remains in the closet. When something threatens us, we push it away. Each thing pushed away increases the force pushing back at us. When we retrieve and embrace what we as children pushed away, like the panther in the closet, we find we no longer need to fear it.
In one trajectory, insecure attachment develops when separateness is not bridged by empathic attunement. The mother is unable to recognize it when her child has a self that is unlike what she believes a child of hers would have. The place in the mother’s mind that might have been occupied by an accurate replica of the child is occupied instead by her concept of what her child should be. In public, the mother elevates herself by endorsing her child’s perfection. In private, she criticizes the child for failure to meet expectations. From the child’s point of view, security is possible only by achieving the impossible. When the child grows up, there is a gnawing need for greater affirmation, applause, or celebrity. When flying, there is anxiety that a public display of out-of-control behavior could shatter his or her self-concept and self-esteem.
In another trajectory, insecure attachment develops when the mother, unable to deal with separation, does not regard her child as separate. In the mother’s mind, instead of a replica of herself and a replica of her baby, there is a single replica, one in which she is inseparable with the child. With the child as part of herself, the mother conflates her feelings and her needs with those of the child.
When I was a kid I was the one that had to take my mother’s side and take care of her emotional well being. Now, I try to stay as far out of the family drama as I can. But, that makes me the bitch in my family.
If the mother is forced to be aware that she and the child are separate individuals, emotions may arise that she cannot tolerate. For example, at a time when the mother feels ebullient, if the baby becomes unmistakably distressed, the mother is forced to recognize that her child’s experience is not aligned with hers. This may make her feel that her child has abandoned her. Or, she may deny separateness by asserting that the child’s distress is not genuine, and tell the child to stop crying or she will give the child something to cry about. She may inflict pain on the child as revenge for having a separate experience, and to reunify their experience.
With needs, identities, and emotions entangled, the child cannot develop an identity of herself as a separate person. The mother’s facial expressions that show recognition of the child as separate are associated with aggression or withdrawal. Lacking mirroring as a separate person that is positive, the child does not learn to regulate emotion independently.
To avoid feelings of separateness, the mother maintains undue physical contact with the child. However, when a lover fills the mother’s needs, the child is cast aside. Things that go wrong cause a sense of separation; someone must be blamed. Often it is the child who is blamed, and made to pay a price, in some form or other.
Attachment, Replicas, and the Social Engagement System
Remember the job of the amygdalae: to release stress hormones any and every time they sense something non-routine or unexpected. When we are around other people, the amygdalae are almost constantly releasing stress hormones. Some of what they say may be unexpected. What they do is under their control, not ours. This means an almost constant release of stress hormones. If these stress hormones are not somehow counteracted, we would be constantly subjected to an elevated heart rate, increased breathing rate, sweatiness, and tension in the body. Fortunately, the Social Engagement System can prevent this.
It has long been known that stimulation of the vagus nerve slows the heart. This discovery was published in 1921 by Nobel Prize winner Otto Loewi. Neuroscientist Stephen Porges has found that when the Social Engagement System reads another person as trustworthy, it counterbalances the effect of stress hormones by stimulating the vagus nerve. This slows the heart and calms the person. Porges refers to this action as the “vagal brake.”When you arrive at a party where there are dozens of strangers, you may notice a wish to leave. In response to the strangers, your amygdalae release stress hormones, activate your Mobilization System, which produces an urge to escape. But your inner CEO, also activated by the stress hormones, overrides this urge. Your CEO starts doing its ABCs. Assessment? “Umm. I don’t know. I don’t see anyone familiar.” Stress hormone release continues.
The host sees you, comes over, and greets you with facial expressions, voice quality, and body language that indicate genuine delight. Your Social Engagement System (SES) sends a signal to the vagus nerve. In spite of the stress hormones, these signals slow your heart rate and provide a general calming influence.
The host introduces you to someone to talk to. As you talk, signals are being sent back and forth between the two of you. The SES, operating completely unconsciously, picks up these signals. Let’s assume your SES likes the signals it is receiving and provides even more calming. Meanwhile, your amygdalae continue to notice and react to goings-on in the room they regard as unexpected or as non-routine things. Yet, thanks to signals your SES is picking up from this new acquaintance, you do not feel the effect of the continued release of stress hormones. The desire to leave you felt when walking into the party has disappeared. You are in the midst of a number of people you do not know. Yet, you feel at home.
This is how the Social Engagement System makes it possible for us to interact with each other. Were it not for the ability of the SES to override the effect of stress hormones, we would bolt when seeing a stranger. We might not even go anyplace where we imagine a stranger might be encountered. But just as imagination can trigger the amygdalae, imagination can calm. When you walked into the party, if the host didn’t see you come in, your Executive Function might come up with a plan to find someone to talk to. When considering the plan, you would imagine a conversation with someone. What would that imagination be based on? Past encounters, stored in your Internal Replica System. If your past encounters were generally satisfying, imagination of a new encounter can calm you. Your Social Engagement System would respond to the imagined face, slow your heart rate, and produce general calming. If a person has generally benign replicas, the SES can stabilize a person emotionally. The SES, in concert with the IRS, can provide an ongoing calming based on replicas, even while the amygdalae are releasing stress hormones in response to non-routine situations arising in social interactions.
The most important person in a child’s life is its mother. The young child builds a replica in his mind of his mother and of their relationship. When the mother has been consistently emotionally available and empathically attuned, a replica of her can cause the SES to apply the vagal brake. As the child grows and interacts with others, the child’s SES uses the mother’s presence—or a replica of her—to provide calming when non-routine and unexpected things take place. This affords the child a secure environment in which to learn to read faces. When others display emotions, the child’s IRS learns the corresponding facial expressions.
But, the converse is also true. What if the child, in his experience with his mother, frequently gets no signals, or even frightening signals, from her? His IRS will store this relationship. When imagining what is likely to happen, the child’s replicas give no basis for feeling secure.
When an insecurely attached child becomes an adult, he will carry an Internal Replica System that contains—instead of replicas that stabilize him—replicas of the unpredictable mother-child relationships that destabilize him. As a result of the relationship with his mother, the child is not fluent in reading facial expressions. Or, the meaning of a facial expression can be distorted by an unstable parent-child relationship, and cause the person’s Social Engagement System to misread what others mean, and to misunderstand their intent. For example, to a child that is frequently threatened by the mother, eye contact that means relatedness to other children may signal impending aggression to this child. Eye contact that, if read accurately, could reassure and calm a person, causes him to react defensively or aggressively.
If the Social Engagement System is providing a calming effect, and a facial expression changes to absent or to threatening, the system withdraws the braking action; the heart accelerates to the higher rate. As the heart accelerates, the calming effect disappears, and the person’s emotional state changes, perhaps dramatically. The same instantaneous loss of calming takes place when a benign facial expression is misread, or when a person who has been providing calming looks away toward another person. Upon losing the braking action, a person can shift instantly from affection to aggression, or from engagement to withdrawal. The person has no way of knowing that his aggression or withdrawal was due to unconscious processes taking place in the SES. Nor does he know that the misreading (or the feeling of abandonment that came when the person looked away) is the result of early experiences, replicas of the relationship with his mother—and others—that have been carved into his psyche. Instead, he believes his response was appropriate; he believes the other person signaled aggression or abandonment. Meanwhile, the other person has no way to understand his inappropriate shift.
Lacking psychologically stabilizing replicas, a person remains dependent upon the physical presence of others for emotional regulation. But, his frequent misreading of facial expressions, tone of voice, body language, or the meaning of certain phraseology causes him to have emotional shifts that frustrate those who attempt to maintain a relationship with him. Relationships tend to break down and leave the person without physical comfort.
For example, a woman may become pregnant in the hope that a child will give her what others have failed to give, the end of aloneness and feelings of abandonment. If, as a mother, she calls on her child to regulate her, the parent-child relationship is turned on its head—just as it was for her when she was a child. This trajectory is passed on from generation to generation. To fly alone, with no one to regulate her, she fears panic. The idea of flying alone causes distress. To actually fly alone seems impossible.
Panic Attacks “Out of the Blue”
In some families, children have no place to express their inner experience. The parents may be mind-blind to inner experience, their own as well as that of their child’s. Research by Notre Dame psychology professor Kristin Valentino found that mothers who had experienced childhood trauma exhibit ongoing “traumatic avoidance symptoms” characterized by unwillingness to address their children’s thoughts and emotions.* If the parents are unable to tolerate awareness of their own inner experience, unacceptable feelings are triggered when children express feelings. When parents avoid inner experience, they react in a variety of ways. The net effect is that feelings a child should learn to contain, or to regard as informative, come to be thought of as dangerous.
* http://news.nd.edu/news/39767-traumatized-moms-avoid-tough-talks-with-kids-study-shows/
When the child’s inner experience is not mirrored, the child does not learn to regulate feelings. Nor does the child develop an accurate sense of identity. Some experts believe most psychological problems result from a lack of empathic attunement, emotional availability, and inaccurate mirroring. Why? Mirroring is the stuff children use to build a sense of self. The replicas produced by mirroring are the construction materials of identity. Without enough material, the child cannot build a sense of self that will stand up under stress.
It’s like the story of “The Three Little Pigs.” When parents provide accurate mirroring, a child has the materials needed to build a robust self-replica, one that will stand up to stress, like the brick house built by the third little pig. But when the necessary mirroring isn’t provided, the child does not have material that is strong enough to build a solid replica of himself. The child can only haphazardly throw together a self-concept that is like a house made of straw, or sticks. So when there is uncertainty, as in the story when the wolf huffs and puffs, the child’s “house” is unable to stand up under the stress.
Another unfortunate offshoot of a lack of mirroring is that the child doesn’t develop an ability to reflect on what is going on inside. This lack of self-awareness, one’s reflection function, means the person does not notice when stress builds up. Instead of finding a way to deal with stress, it builds up until it forces its way into the person’s awareness as a panic attack—which seems to have come from “out of the blue.”
Does panic brew for some time before it surfaces? Does lava heat up inside the volcano before it erupts? Of course. Research now proves what common sense suggests. In a study that monitored panic sufferers as they went about their daily routines, monitoring picked up signs of an impending attack at least sixty minutes before panic hit. Even as the panic was about to hit, the person was still clueless that it was coming. One of the researchers, Alicia E. Meuret of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, reported the results were “just amazing.” She said, “We found that in this hour preceding naturally occurring panic attacks, there was a lot of physiological instability. The changes don’t seem to enter the patient’s awareness.” When the panic finally erupted, the subjects reported “an out-of-the-blue panic attack with a lot of intense physical sensations.” The physical sensations reported included shortness of breath, heart racing, dizziness, chest pain, sweating, hot flashes, trembling, choking, nausea, and numbness. Psychologically, subjects reported feelings of unreality, fear of losing control, and fear of dying. Subjects believed something catastrophic was happening, such as having a heart attack, suffocating, or going crazy. Amazingly, the physiological data collected during panic attacks showed nothing catastrophic, or even significant. The physiological measurements taken during the attack were not very different from those taken in the sixty minutes prior to the attack.
What was going on? How could the person be so sure they were about to die or go crazy when all the physiological measurements showed the same heart rate and breathing rate as before the panic attack? The answer is psychic equivalence. In the case of an out-of-the-blue panic attack, although nothing remarkable is going on in the person’s body, psychic equivalence causes imagination to be regarded as reality. But what is really going on is this: The person’s sense of identity, like the house made of straw, cannot stand up under stress. When stress overwhelms the person, they begin to lose touch with their sense of their identity. When a person’s sense of identity falters, the experience registers in the person’s mind as almost losing their mind or as almost losing their life.
All this mental processing goes on outside of awareness because, after all, the person never learned how to see what was going on inside. When there is no place to develop an awareness of inner experience as a child, there is little awareness of inner experience as an adult. Thus, a person’s psychological self can be under great stress without any awareness of it. Then, when the psychological self collapses, the collapse is expressed in the person’s imagination as going crazy or dying. Psychic equivalence causes the person to believe it is true.
Whether built out of bricks or built out of straw, we all have a sense of identity. That is our psychological self. It is produced from the mirroring we took in during our formative years. It is made up out of the bits and pieces of communication we received from our parents about who—according to them—we are.
Panic during Flight
What we see in the SOAR program is this: Whether the client is aware of it or not, there is:
As a result, flying is difficult or impossible. The psychological self is weakened:
The solutions developed by SOAR help clients strengthen their sense of self by linking the challenges of flight to a moment in which there was real one-to-one connection between their inner world and another person’s inner world—exactly the thing that is missing in the early life of so many of us! With our methods, not only is the person’s sense of self being strengthened by reconnecting with something that there hasn’t been enough of, but in-flight stress is reduced by training the amygdalae not to release stress hormones. As a result, clients who use the Strengthening Exercise to establish links between each challenging moment of flight and a moment of connection in their lives do not come apart during the flight. They are able to fly free of panic.
Replicas and Panic
Good internal replicas can provide the emotional strength necessary to avoid high anxiety and panic when flying. The importance of replicas begins early. A replica of the mother keeps her real to the child when she is away. This first type of replica—a direct replica—is formed in the child’s mind by direct experience of its mother. A second type—an indirect replica—is the child’s concept of itself. It is formed indirectly as the child takes in the mother’s view of him or her. If the mother’s view is recognizable to the child as its real self, the indirect replica is a valuable asset that secures the connection between mother and child. The child’s sense of being held in the mother’s mind and heart means the child is never out of mind when out of sight. This secure relationship with the mother—initially the baby’s whole world—expands to become a secure orientation to the world in adulthood.
If the mother’s view of the child is not visible, or is not recognizable by the child as its real self, the child feels abandoned. Its emotional development is restricted or even crippled. When it cannot find a recognizable version of itself in residence in the mother’s mind, the child struggles to come up with an alternate version of itself, one the mother will take in and reflect back. If that does not work, the child may adopt the orphan version of itself that is in its mother’s mind. Or, the child, finding that nothing works, will simply give up.
Sources of Calming
Physical contact, an external source of calming, is not easily internalized. When physical contact ends, the calming it provides fades. After a time, instead of calming, memory of physical contact causes longing. Reliance on external sources leaves the person dependent and clinging.
Even in solitude, internal replicas can replace feelings of isolation with a sense of connection. The replica of an empathic and attuned relationship is a source of lasting, portable, and independent emotional stability. While a companion can offer invaluable comfort in response to distress, internal support can prevent distress. Once established by the Strengthening Exercise, internal links between specific flight situations and a memory of empathic attunement provide targeted calming.