The Madness That We Inhabit

It would, of course, be considered by most people to be unethical to repeat the kind of maternal deprivation experiments that Harlow performed on monkeys with human infants, even if it provided important information about the importance of strong early attachment. Two virtual experiments did, however, emerge that threw some light on this question. One such "experiment" took place in various foundling institutions in the United States in the late 1800s and into the second decade of the 20 ^th century. Most of the foundling institutions in which infants without parents were kept were quite clean, and the infants were well fed. However they had a death rate among the infants that approached 100% . The infants were dying from a disease called "marasmus." The term for this disease came from a Greek word meaning "wasting away" which is precisely what the infants were doing. Why did almost none of these infants survive? The obvious was finally discovered. The infants were not receiving a sufficient amount of holding and cuddling. When the homes began bringing in women to provide holding, cuddling, smiles, and cooing the survival rate improved dramatically and immediately. ¹⁶

An older experiment that was documented by the 13 ^th century historian Salimbene is quoted in Ashley Montagu's book, "Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin":

" It seems that Frederick the second, Emperor of Germany, "wanted to find out what kind of speech and what manner of speech children would have when they grew up if they spoke to no one beforehand. So he bade foster mothers and nurses to suckle the children, to bathe and wash them, but in no way to prattle with them, for he wanted to learn whether they would speak of the Hebrew language which was the oldest, or Greek, or Latin, or Arabic, or perhaps the language of their parents, of whom they had been born. But he labored in vain because the children all died. For they could not live without the petting and joyful faces and loving words of their foster mothers. And so the songs are called 'swaddling songs' which a woman sings while she is rocking the cradle, to put a child to sleep, and without them a child sleeps badly and has no rest." While Frederick the II's rather ill-conceived experiment provided us with no information with regard to the original language spoken by humanity, the historian, Salimbene, did not fail to notice that when children were forced to live 'without the petting and joyful faces and loving words of their foster mothers' they died." ¹⁷

How the self is born

Within the psychoanalytic tradition an important understanding was developed regarding how people as psychological beings come into existence. As I would formulate it, the idea was this:

Our self -- that is, who we are in the world -- emerges out of our becoming one with, and then differentiating ourselves from, the succession of people we love, and then integrating these internalized others into a coherent identity. This understanding was an overarching construct that was formulated by different theorists who focused on different aspects of the process and used somewhat different terminologies.

In this essay I can only touch on some of the contributions of a few of the key thinkers who helped develop this understanding.

In Freud we see this idea of the introjected other in his concept of the "superego" -- the internal representative of societies norms and laws -- which has its origin the internalization of the parenting figures, primarily the father, as a means of resolving the "Oedipus complex".

Margaret Mahler, a key thinker with regard to the emergence of the self, did not see the developmental process as beginning with a self that then internalizes others. She brought the focus of the developmental process back to the first year of life. She came to see the self in its very first stage as being already merged with the mother in a symbiotic oneness. It is only at about 5 months of age that the infant begins to experience a discontinuity between itself and the mother. At this point the infant begins the process of individuation -- of becoming a separate self. But the child continues to return to the oneness with the mother for sustenance. The self develops, in other words, in an ongoing dialectic process of oneness and individuation. We can see this process, for example, in a toddler who ventures out away from the mother to explore, but then periodically has to return of comfort and re-assurance. ¹⁸

As she developed her theory about the dialectic between symbiosis and separation/individuation, Mahler used the language of inner experience. She speculates about the kind of experience an infant might have that would lead it to behave as it does. Bowlby, who we touched on earlier, was skeptical of efforts to describe the subjective states of infants, or to build theories on such speculations. He wanted to ground his theory in the observation of behaviors that can be perceived from the outside. Yet despite their different vocabularies and points of view, the two theorists were actually quite close. Susan W. Coates clarifies this point:

"The casual observer might suppose that Mahler is saying that separation is necessary for individuation, while Bowlby is stressing, to the contrary, that individuation occurs optimally only within the framework of secure attachment. But even a moment ' s reflection will reveal that for Mahler separation from the object is an inner mental process that involves distinguishing oneself from an object who otherwise is libidinally available on a continuous basis. Put in Bowlby ' s terms, separation is a process that occurs within the envelope of attachment. There are differences between their two theories, to be sure, but they are in agreement on these essentials." ¹⁹

The agreement is that both attachment and individuation are essential aspects of a healthy development. To put it in my words, oneness and individuation are equally important aspects of the ongoing dialectic of growth.

Building on the work of theorists like Bowby, Ainsworth, and Mahler, my thesis is that as a society we have largely failed to develop the capacity for what I would call individuated oneness. What I intend to convey by this term is our capacity to experience our "oneness" with other people, with other creatures, and with the earth itself, while at the same time maintaining a clear sense of our own boundaries and individuality. The term "empathy" -- "feeling with" -- is perhaps the single word that comes closest to designating the capacity that we lack. The initial capacity for individuated oneness is formed in the symbiotic relationship with the primary parenting person, and expands from there in the context of loving relationships with others.

Lack of empathy is generally considered to be one of the defining characteristics of the "psychopath" the "sociopath," or, as it has been more recently labeled, the one who suffers from " antisocial personality disorder ". A second characteristic of the sociopath, as he or she is usually understood, is a willingness to disregard the norms of society. Lack of empathy and a willingness to violate the norms of society are two very different and often contradictory characteristics. Consider Thoreau in prison as he protested slavery, Bonhoffer when he opposed the Nazi establishment, Gandhi when he deliberately disobeyed the English tyrants, Rosa Parks when she refused to sit in the back of the bus, or Martin Luther King Jr. who promoted civil disobedience. Were they sociopaths? Ah, but those are special cases, some might protest. But consider the other side of the coin -- the support of, and participation in, projects of the larger society even when they create unspeakable suffering for a great many people. What about ordinary citizens who condone capital punishment, who fail to rise in protest and outrage against the torture of other human beings in Abu Ghraib and similar prisons, who are indifferent to the destruction of the ecosphere, or who condone the terrible suffering inflicted on the Iraqi people through the destruction of their infrastructure -- are they not exhibiting a remarkable degree of insensitivity to the suffering of others? I would suggest that very often obedience -- being a good citizen -- belies a profound lack of empathy for the suffering of others.

Perhaps the most vivid experimental evidence of what I am suggesting derives from the famous experiments of Milgram ²⁰ when he discovered that people would cause intense pain for helpless others simply because a person who was perceived to be an authority told them to. Also it is worth noting that firm orders by authorities is one of the regular techniques used in the military to force people to overcome their reluctance to kill.

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