Feeling Secure; Adventuring Out by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD.
When I
was a little child I got fed up with being in my family and thought I’d run
away. I scooped up a few essentials and scampered off down the road, without
saying goodbye. The further away from the house I got, the less sure about my
decision I became, until I got to the point of thinking, “Now what? Where do I
go?” After all, where can a kid go, really? So I went back. Nobody knew that
I’d left and nobody questioned me when I returned home; such was the nature of
life as a kid in a safe
neighbourhood in the 50s. Whatever my own somewhat ambivalent difficulties with
my mother were, I still felt safe at home in the family house with her, my
brother and father.
Security
is a primary human need and so it is that in order to feel secure we form
attachments to one another. From this place of security, we find safety and freedom to explore
the regions beyond this point.
Attachment is
that psychological
connectedness that occurs between humans and lasts for a lengthy period of time.
The level of this connectedness generally waxes and wanes and waxes, in a
continuous circle of renewal and disintegration and renewal again. It is a
thick space, with a richness that holds and releases and welcomes again. This
looping is what a group of family therapists around the world call, “the circle
of security”. The circle of
security allows a child, and later grown up, to venture out and explore the
world, and return knowing they will be received by those that care for them
with trust, respect, and in an attitude of freely given love.
I meet a large range
of people in my clinical practice and many of them are explorers of the greater
world. Some, though, are very fearful of change, of different environments, and
of people. Even coming to see me is felt to be a big risk. A very small number
have never left this country town I now call home, and which I moved to seven
years ago. This always sort of surprises me. I am a traveler from a family of
travelers and enjoy going where I have never been before. I do, however, like
to feel some sense of security wherever I am, and with this security comes a
sense of being home wherever I am.
Feeling safe is a key
for all people. As infants, we reach out to our caregiver (usually our mother,
but not always) and other close people and it is their level of sensitivity and
responsivity that helps us develop a secure sense within ourselves. It is also
in this space that empathy is born. Empathy is like going out to meet another
person and walking with them awhile, without ever changing places with them.
Part of the being
present with another and sensitively receiving them is the sharing of eye
contact. Indeed the sharing of eye
contact is one of the identifiers of healthy human development and more
generally, a balanced psychology.
Not all can participate
in such a sharing. People on the autism disorder spectrum are some who cannot
hold such contact; others are avoidant because of certain learned behaviors
dating back to infancy. Current research and therapies are finding ways to
shift this pattern to a more fulsome contact. Such therapies introduce the
person to incremental exposure to shared eye contact and the results are coming
through that indicate there is an improvement in interpersonal relationships
and a greater capacity for empathy. This work is exciting as it shows that the
human brain is flexible and conditions that we previously thought could not be
changed have some capacity for quite fundamental shifts. Furthermore, this work
is suggesting that the principle of feeling secure and adventuring out isn’t
just what happened in infancy shaping how we are the world, but is in continual
negotiation throughout life. This is why psychotherapy works and this is why I
work in the field. What we were once isn’t necessarily what we are now. We can
and do change.
