Wired For Life An Infant’S Interaction With Its Mother Or Another Caregiver Sets The Stage For Mental Health Throughout Its Lifetime
A perceptive mother lets her baby lead a playful dance of loving gazes and wide grins that triggers the growth of empathy and emotional well-being in the child, says a leading psychiatric expert who will present his findings in Spokane this month.
Deceptively simple exchanges like these could be the key to explaining why some babies grow up secure and well-adjusted while others shoot up their classmates, as two teens did recently in Littleton, Colo.
Infants who lack warm, sensitive interactions with their primary caregivers, usually their mothers, risk becoming mentally ill, and even violent, as they grow older, according to Dr. Allan N. Schore, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral science at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine. He is a clinician and theorist who blends contemporary brain research with attachment theory.
Attachment theory was developed by British psychiatrist John Bowlby, who wrote in the 1950s. A decade later, Canadian psychologist Mary Ainsworth began studying infant attachment at Johns Hopkins University. This field of research has grown in the decades since, examining the links between early attachment experiences and the emotional health of children, teens and adults.
Researchers have found that children fall into one of four categories of attachment. The largest, estimated between 60 and 65 percent of all children, contains those who are securely attached. The remaining 30 to 35 percent fall into one of three groups of insecurely attached children. They may be anxious and preoccupied, avoidant and distancing, or, among the most severely troubled, disorganized and disoriented.
Those in this last category, which Schore calls the “Type Ds,” usually have experienced abuse or neglect. They grow up to have severe personality disorders which leave them unable to feel empathy for others.
“They are high-risk for post traumatic stress disorder or predisposed to violence,” Schore says.
“If you have this Type D attachment, it’s out of that you ultimately get the highest level of later psychopathology,” he says.
Attachment researchers pay close attention to the interaction between an infant and his primary caregiver.
They have noticed that healthy mothers instinctively know how to connect emotionally during quick but significant exchanges with their babies. These moments may appear playful but, researchers believe, they contain a child’s earliest lessons in emotional regulation.
Using high-speed film, researchers have recorded these moments. A baby begins to brighten. His mother gazes fondly into his eyes and mirrors his expression. As he breaks into a grin, so does she, and when he looks away, overwhelmed with excitement, she calms down, waiting to “play” again only when the baby signals he’s ready.
“If she’s attuned, the mother knows when to back off and when to reconnect,” Schore says.
In this way, researchers believe, healthy mothers help babies amplify and express positive emotions.
In this way, researchers believe, healthy mothers help babies amplify and express positive emotions.
“The key here is, it must be baby-lead, mother-follow,” Schore says.
“It can’t be the caregiver pushing the baby along.”
Schore links attachment theory with brain research, showing how early attachment experiences alter the growth and development of a baby’s brain.
According to Schore, a healthy mother’s brain activity matches her baby’s, enhancing the part of the brain that governs emotions and empathy.
“In these symbiotic interactions, their endocrine systems, central nervous systems and autonomic nervous systems are linked together,” he says.
It’s as though the mother’s cortex acts as an auxiliary to the baby’s, he says. In computer terminology, she “downloads programs” from her brain into her baby’s.
When mothers miss their baby’s cues, as they frequently do, they get a chance to teach their infants an even more important lesson.
The baby cries, the mother soothes and calms him, and these interactions form a pattern that eventually will teach the child to comfort himself.
This sounds like a fairly mundane skill until you examine what happens to a child-turned-grown-up who never acquires it.
Psychologists call this skill “affect regulation.” With it, adults reassure themselves by using comforting messages, memories or music.
Without it, people become locked in stages of pain, frustration, anxiety or rage, unable to soothe or calm themselves. They may constantly manipulate others to comfort them, causing serious difficulties in relationships, or they may turn to drugs or alcohol to artificially manage their emotions.
“Many adults have trouble soothing themselves when they’re upset,” says Bert Powell, a Spokane psychotherapist with Marycliff Institute, which is sponsoring Schore’s workshop.
The most extreme example: the enraged, violent criminal.
By examining brain research, it appears to Schore that these early attuned moments between a mother and an infant help a child expand his capacity for experiencing positive emotions and conquering negative ones.
A mutual, joyful gaze between a mother and an infant triggers high levels of endorphins in the infant’s brain, adding to the child’s experience of pleasure.
When a child frets and cries, a stress hormone called cortisol is released, Schore says. A mother’s comforting arms and tone of voice can reduce levels of this hormone.
If the baby remains stressed for long periods, with a mother who is deeply depressed, neglectful, abusive or absent, cortisol levels accumulate dangerously in the brain.
“There’s now evidence to show that very high levels of cortisol in the baby’s brain literally can destroy synapses,” Schore says.
Type D infants have the highest level of cortisol.
“These synapses will be bathed in toxic neurochemistry,” Schore says.
When the emotional attunement between mother and baby proceeds well, the orbital prefrontal cortex of the baby’s brain, which governs social-emotional activity, grows and develops. The child’s capacity for empathy grows, too.
When the relationship is troubled, however, this part of the brain may not develop properly.
Research with Romanian orphans, says Powell, has shown that the brains of children who lived in orphanages for a year or more developed differently than others.
While the effects can be severe, poor attachment does not necessarily result in permanently damaged lives.
Researchers are discovering that the social-emotional portions of the brain have a “plasticity” that can allow for repairs and further growth even in adulthood. Both psychotherapy and chemical anti-depressants appear to positively alter brain structures, Powell says.
The newest hope connected with this research, says Schore, lies in the growing field of parent-infant psychotherapy.
Troubled mothers can be helped to strengthen their relationships with their babies.
“That kind of work has tremendous impact,” Schore says.
“In terms of society, that’s where the money should go.”
This sidebar appeared with the story: COMING UP Workshop sold out Dr. Allan Schore’s workshop will be May 21 at Sacred Heart Medical Center’s Providence Auditorium. It is sold out. For more information, call (509) 455-7654, ext. 54 or 27.