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I’ve written here before about emotional

constipation, a kind of unfinished business

left over from childhood which makes it

difficult for us to feel and function like

grownups.*

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For recovering people, though, there’s

another kind of unfinished business —

another unhealed emotional wound —

that is important to understand.

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And this wound is not one we’re likely

to discover on our own.

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It is rooted in how our mothers responded

to us when we were infants.

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Mark Epstein describes it in his book

The Trauma of Everyday Life, drawing

on the seminal work of British child

analyst D.W. Winnicott.

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Here’s a simplified version of how Epstein

explains it:

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One of a mother’s most important jobs is

to teach her child how to identify and

handle feelings. 

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She does this by modeling a combination

of empathy (Oh, you’re having a feeling) 

and reassurance (Everything will be fine).

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Anyone who spends any time observing

mothers with their children sees this happen

over and over.

.

Oh, you’re wet?

Here, let’s get you changed. 

Oh, you’re hungry? 

Let’s warm up your bottle. 

Oh, you hurt yourself? 

Here, let mama kiss it.  

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And so on.  This ability to pay attention

to and respond appropriately to the

infant’s experience is called attunement. 

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When attuned to the infant, Winnicott

writes,

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mothers become able to put

themselves into the infant’s shoes,

so to speak. That is to say,

they develop an amazing capacity

for identification with the baby,

and this makes them able

to meet the basic needs of the

infant in a way that no machine

can imitate, and no teaching

can reach.**   

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Mom’s attunement is essential to the

infant’s emotional development,

because it models for the child how

to attune to itself. 

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She is teaching her child Here’s what

you do with a feeling: You notice it.

You respect it. You pay it attention.

You decide what it’s trying to tell you,

and you respond accordingly.

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An attuned mother provides a kind of

emotional container — an experience

of holding, attention and safety —

which the infant absorbs and learns to

provide for themself.  

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But what if the mother can’t attune to

her infant? 

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What if something else is occupying

her attention or draining her energy? 

What if she is sick, or exhausted, or

depressed, or frightened, or angry, or

being abused, or self-medicating with

some substance?

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“An infant who is held well enough

is quite a different thing from one

who has not been held well enough,”

writes Winnicott.

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You see two infants: one has been

held…well enough, and there is

nothing to prevent a rapid emotional

growth, according to inborn tendencies. 

The other has not had the experience

of being held well and growth has

had to be distorted and delayed,

and some degree of primitive agony

has to be carried on into

life and living.**

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What Winnicott calls primitive agony is

the experience of being left all alone to

deal with incomprehensible and

uncontrollable feelings.

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This is not an agony that simply fades

away over time.

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Instead those afflicted carry it into

adulthood, where can take in two forms.

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The first form is a chronic background

anxiety, which occasionally erupts as a

fear of breaking down, “losing it,” or

going crazy.

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The other form is a damaged ability to

deal in healthy ways with their adult

emotional life.

.

(To be continued.)

________________________

*”The psychology of shit”

**All Winnicott quotes from The Trauma of Every Life by Mark Epstein (Bantam, 2014).

* * *

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