Gabor Maté's 'The Myth of Normal'

Question 1

What are the two essential needs that often clash?

Answer 1

Attachment and authenticity

Question 2

What does ‘attachment’ mean?

Answer 2

Attachment is defined as the drive for closeness - in proximity to others, not only in the physical but emotional sense. For babies, it is mandatory for life, they simply could not survive without it, not even for a day. Attachment is hardwired into our brains, mediated by vast and complex neural circuits governing and promoting behaviors that keep us close to those without whom we could not survive.

Question 3

What does ‘authenticity’ mean?

Answer 3

The quality of being true to oneself and the capacity to shape one’s own life from a deep knowledge of that self. Like attachment, it is a drive rooted in survival instincts. It means simply this: knowing our gut feelings when they arise and honoring them

Question 4

What happens if a child experiences unsatisfactory attachment?

Answer 4

Early attachment to our caregivers is crucial and forms a template for how we approach all our significant relationships, long after we have grown out of the do-or-die phase. If a child’s attachment with it’s caregiver is unsatisfactory, it will develop coping skills to maintain it and will carry these (including other parts of the template formed from early attachments) into interactions with partners, employers, friends, colleagues, etc.

Question 5

Why do they often clash?

Answer 5

Often, children will suppress who they truly are and how they truly feel to maintain the attachments that are so crucial for survival in the early years of life. When children are not seen and accepted for who they truly are, when they are taught to suppress their feelings in order to ‘fit in’ or be ‘acceptable’, they suppress their authenticity. In early life, attachment always “wins” over authenticity and the patterns we develop (adaptations) get wired into our brains at a subconscious level, affecting our behaviors for the rest of our lives. The perceived need to be what the world demands becomes entangled with our sense of who we are and how to seek love. The issue is that such adaptations aren’t necessary for survival later on in life but have become such an integrated part of our personality (even though they weren’t traits we were born with) that we believe it is who we are, but in fact makes us inauthentic.

Question 6

What are a child’s 4 essential needs?

Answer 6

1. The attachment relationship (a child’s connections with its caregiver(s))
2. A sense of attachment security (where the child doesn’t need to strive for attachment or work to maintain the attachment, but can “rest” in the security that the attachment will always be there no matter what)
3. Permission to feel and express one’s emotions, especially grief, anger, sadness and pain.
4. The experience of free play (authentic pay, agenda-free, interactive, engaging joy and imagination, person-to-person)