There are signs that various aspects of the human condition are under severe stress and this is being expressed in an increase in emotional disorders in childhood and adulthood (Schore, 2012). The roots of psychopathology lie in traumatic attachment experiences. There is a need to focus psychotherapeutically on the precursors to disorders in childhood, not just their manifestations in adulthood. Dysregulated affect (particularly unconscious affect) plays a primary role in not just psychopathogensis but all illness and disease. The beginnings of living systems set the stage for every aspect of an organism’s functioning throughout the lifespan. Research in developmental biology and physiology give strong support to the idea of the ‘developmental’ origins of health and disease. Prenatal and postanal environments play a critical role in this trajectory. ‘Disease’ refers to the failure of regulatory systems to adapt to stressors and sustain homeostasis. There is a ‘growing consensus’ that disease involves the dysregulation in the psychobiology of the stress coping systems of the organism. During early critical periods when the infant is dependant on external regulation, growth-inhibiting environments can create epigenetic changes in the developmental trajectory of those coping systems.
Schore (2012) 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 in mental disorders in youth is accompanied by a child obesity epidemic and researchers are now seeing insecure attachment as a risk factor for obesity. It is being proposed that obesity is the result of a dysfunction in the right prefrontal cortex. The emotional bond between infant and caregiver and its impact on the developing right brain impacts socioemotional and physical health over the lifespan. Attachment is more than just the provision of safety and security but brain development itself is being impacted by attachment transactions in the first two years. Schore concludes that the earliest stages of human life are critical because they contain our possible futures.
Schore (2012) quotes Leckman and March saying that “A scientific consensus is emerging that the origins of adult disease are often found among developmental and biological disruptions occurring during the early years of life” (p.341). Approaches integrating paediatrics and neuroscience focus on reducing stress and adversity during the early years of life. Jack Shonkhoff notes that interventions which improve the mental health, self-regulation and executive function skills of vulnerable mothers are likely to be effective ways of protecting the developing brains of their children.
A large array of social problems have their genesis in the ‘changing ecology of childhood’ according to UNICEF (Schore, 2012). The ‘decrement’ in what Bowlby called the ‘environment of evolutionary adaptedness’ is demonstrated by less than optimal early development of the right brain. The long-term impact of this is an increase in the number of people with a neurobiological predisposition for psychiatric disorders.
Inadequate social bonds are the main source of negative affect in people’s lives (Panksepp, 2012). One of the most highly replicable rediscoveries in the last few decades is the ‘remarkably powerful influences’ of early childhood experiences on future mental health. Like rats, abundant loving maternal attention increases resilience and regulated stress response systems as children grow into adults.
References
Panksepp, J., & Biven, L. (2012). The archaeology of mind: Neuroevolutionary origins of human emotions. W. W. Norton & Company.
Schore, A. N. (2012). The science of the art of psychotherapy (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). W. W. Norton & Company.