Since the 1990’s significant changes from statistically normative wild African elephants have been observed which are being linked with stressors that have disrupted social processes (Bradshaw and Schore, 2007). These include culls, poaching, habitat fragmentation and translocation. Stressors that diminish parent-infant interactions or cause the energy of the parent to be directed away from infant care, foraging, mating and group participation (ecotourism, hunters etc.) are an example of this. Infant-caregiver interactions act as a primary regulatory mechanism that govern behaviour throughout the life span. Direct or indirect stress can create structural vulnerabilities for psychopathogenesis and early death. Altered sociality leads to altered patterns in core survival functions that determine coping and stress regulation.
The effects of stress become manifest within the organism as increased vulnerability to disease and interpersonally through asocial and atypical affiliative behaviours (Bradshaw and Schore, 2007). The authors report that historically, intraspecies and interspecies violence is uncommon but significant aggression manifests where elephants have undergone culling and confinement. Hyperaggressive cull orphans have experienced major attachment disruptions and relational trauma (loss of mothers and allomothers, premature weaning, herd dissolution, witnessing family deaths, translocation). Decreased maternal skills and infant neglect have been observed where older social strata have been lost. The traumatic loss of the mother’s psychobiological regulation during critical periods of brain growth alters the developmental trajectory for successive generations. This damages the heart of elephant culture where the female herd acts as the central organiser of behaviour. When the female matures, she is likely to demonstrate impaired maternal behaviour with her offspring and deficits in stress regulation. Conservation measures are seeking to curb these developmental disruptions where possible (Bradshaw and Schore, 2007). The social disruption in elephant cultures is mirrored by similar patterns in human cultures too.
A human ecology is the network of relationships in which we are embedded, including those relationships with nature and the environment that facilitate flourishing (Morgan, 2019). Community or ‘communion’ amongst people is the context for the development of the self. Psychosocial integration refers to the deep interconnectedness between the individual and their social world which grows and develops throughout the lifespan (Alexander, 2010). A lack of this type of integration leads to ‘dislocation’, an experience that is painful for the person and destructive for society. ‘Dislocation’ is psychological and social separation from one’s society and can occur in many ways like when a culture loses its traditions or when a child is abused. Chandler and Lalonde (2019) published the results of an epidemiological study showing that the highly variable rates of youth suicide among British Columbia first Nations communities were linked to markers of ‘cultural continuity’ – to what extent each group had preserved their cultural past and control their future civic lives.
A large array of social problems have their genesis in the ‘changing ecology of childhood’ (Schore, 2012). There is increased concern that the forces of globalisation, digital technologies, climate change and growing inequities are damaging the systems that protect and nurture offspring (Sparrow, 2016). Industrialisation, the division of labour and the reorganisation of work have led to restructuring of families and redistribution of child rearing roles. Additionally, socioeconomic forces and other factors have led to a reduction in the time and attention parents have to give to their children. Furthermore, cultural products created by commercial interests are disrupting local cultural practices, values and beliefs that evolved over time to support child rearing.
In modern societies, community life has broken down and these webs of connections are critical to our survival (Bloom, 2013), leading to a ‘crisis of connection’ (Way et al., 2018). Cultural practices evolved as mechanisms that buffered groups against distress, dysregulation and disconnection that can arise in response to adversity (Perry, 2013a). The loss of these practices therefore is disruptive to human health. Perry (2013b) argues that the relational environment has changed drastically in the last fifty years with increased mobility, loss of connection with extended families and smaller nuclear families. This has led to relational and somatosensory impoverishment in environments in which there is a lack of touch, holding, rocking and intergenerational contact. In the modern world children are raised and educated in environments that are complex and demanding yet ‘impoverished’ in terms of complex somatosensory-rich, relational interactions. In Hunter-gather small band (HGSB) groups of our ancestry the ratio of developmentally more mature people who could model, enrich, educate, nurture and protect a young child was 4:1. In modern societies an ‘enriched environment’ is one in which there is one caregiver for every four children in preschool, says Perry. This is one sixteenth of the relational ratio of HGSB. Perry writes: “This impoverishment of the relational milieu in the western world has created a poverty of relationships for millions of children – a form of poverty, I would argue, far more destructive than economic poverty” (Perry, 2013b, p.200). Relational health can contribute to resilience in the face of chaos and trauma; its absence in these same contexts leads to destructive effects. It has been suggested that three attentive adults are necessary for optimal child flourishing (Narvaez et al., 2013).
In the past sixty years there has been a gradual erosion of supports for families from the wider community (Lally, 2015). These informal supports were critical to everyday life. In the 1950’s a struggling parent was seen as being the larger family’s concern with solutions found through established relationships in extended family and community networks. Changes in family, work and women’s roles has led to babies losing something essential: early nurturance provided by trusted caregivers. Few formal structures were developed to take the place of dissolving informal ones. Berry Brazelton points out that for decades we have known that the demands of the workplace on families and the loss of ‘informal neighbourhood supports’ are incompatible with what babies need to flourish and thrive (in Lally, 2015).
There has been a shift towards ‘impersonal’, as opposed to emotionally nurturing caregiving (Brazelton and Greenspan, 2009). A new trend of ‘institutional care’ has emerged around the world. The vast majority of these environments have been found not to be delivering high quality care (Brazelton and Greenspan, 2009). Similar findings have emerged from family day care and other non-parental child care. In settings where caregivers are caring for four or more babies, or six or more toddlers, are paid minimal wage, given little training and little incentive to avoid staff turnover, it is questionable whether quality nurturance is possible in these contexts.
Early interactions build neural networks and establish biological set points that can endure for the lifespan (Cozolino, 2014). Reduced levels of nurturance and social interaction in infancy alters the developmental trajectory of the right brain producing deficits in affect regulation that are linked with developmental psychopathologies (Schore, 2012). Schore refers to a ‘developmental dogma’ that children can cope with deviations in the quality of early care without altering their developmental resilience in the face of adversity ignores the ‘ongoing dramatic’ increases in childhood psychopathology including bipolar disorder, ADHD and autism, which all demonstrate deficits in right brain functioning. The high prevalence of mental disorders in youth is accompanied by a child obesity epidemic and researchers are now seeing insecure attachment as a risk factor for obesity (Schore, 2012). There are signs that various aspects of the human condition are under severe stress and this is being expressed in this increase in emotional disorders in childhood and adulthood (Schore, 2012). It has become evident that traumatic experiences during childhood are far more common that is usually recognised (Felitti, 2010).
Throughout our lives we are connected to and regulated by those around us (Cozolino, 2014). The brain is a social organ of adaptation and so social animals like humans can only be understood as part of a matrix of relationships. Social animals regulate each other’s biochemistry, emotions and behaviours through communication that is both conscious and unconscious across the ‘social synapse’. Social behaviour is a neurobiological process with capabilities to support homeostasis that leads to optimised health, growth and restoration (Porges, 2021). Polyvagal theory emphasises sociality as the core process that underlies both mental and physical health. Porges defines ‘social connectedness’ as “the ability to mutually (synchronously and reciprocally) regulate physiologic and behavioural state” (Sanders and Thompson, 2021). What is the impact when social behaviour is altered as outlined above? From the perspectives of Porges (2021) and Cozolino (2014) the social relations that make up a society can be viewed as constituting a large co-regulatory system. Therefore, a healthy society is one that creates strong regulatory connections that support homeostasis in individuals, families and communities. Alterations in these social patterns is likely to have significant implications.
Schore (2012) quotes McGilChrist (2010) who describes how the right hemisphere ‘yields’ a world of ‘interconnected, implicit, incarnate, living beings within the context of a lived world…and to this world it exists in a relationship of care’ (p.398). Recent social trends suggest this ‘relationship of care’ and capacity for empathy is under threat which has significant consequences for societal health (Perry, 2013). Schore (2012) describes how ‘essential’ right brain relational capacities optimally evolve in “the interpersonal context of a secure relationship bond, ‘a relationships of care’” (p.398). A culture of care facilitates the development of a secure ‘relationship of care’; and a relationship of care in turn supports the development of this culture of care. Early emotional right brain development allows entry into the culture and in turn shapes the culture itself (Schore, 2013). In the next section we will begin to look at the needs of infants, particularly in the context of the early relationship of care – the attachment bond.
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