Spine and Voice in Oxford: Neglect Informing, Interdependence, Repair

I woke up with a start after my unheard-of, third-in-a-row, almost eight-hour night of sleep. Amazing. I am not sure if it is sheer and total exhaustion from all the excitement, stimulation and phenomenal energy output, or relief and joy that enabled me to truly rest. No need to question, I am infinitely grateful and awesomely refreshed.

I wake up at 5:19AM in London, realizing it is Tuesday. I realize I have a blog to write. And I have invited so many new people to join our mailing list and promised them a weekly blog or perhaps video sent to their inbox. What on earth to write about?

Well in spite of all the half-baked blogs and blog ideas floating around in my hippocampus, I figure the only real place to be, and the place to write from, is this living moment. I have never liked people’s often group-threaded, usually way too long (for me) missives from their vacations, recounting all their wonderful experiences and high points. I will do my utmost to make this more than that, but rather of use to my readers.

Spine and Voice

Stephen Johnson was a little-known attachment researcher coming out of the Bioenergetics movement. I sadly only now learned that he passed away this past year, at the age of 69 (my age…) Bioenergetics was one of the early body psychotherapy approaches stemming back to Wilhelm Reich, another rarely talked about giant upon whose shoulders we all stand, who wrote the quirky and brilliant, also largely forgotten Function of the Orgasm (1975.) I love that book and find it fascinating and compelling, and not only because I am fascinated and compelled by all things sexual. But because Reich tied sexuality not only to psychology and body psychotherapy but also to larger social justice themes, which landed him in prison and ultimately, to die in a draconian mental hospital. Johnson taught me way back in the early 1980’s about Spine and Voice. I never forgot it, and it has become a backbone of my work on neglect.

Johnson taught that the ultimate recovery tasks of what he called the “schizoid” character style, which although I am not fond of the pathological sounding term, most closely correlates to my child of neglect attachment style. Johnson wrote, (and frequently I echo his words, using my own) that the neglected infant ceases to cry, because nobody comes, ceases to reach, because there is no one there, and collapses with exhaustion from the futile effort. The result is silence and a crumpled spine, which coagulate into a character style where that child is unable to stand up for themselves and speak out on their own behalf. As I ceaselessly preach, some of the main tasks of healing from neglect, are getting a spine and getting a voice! Admittedly a tall order!

Fast forward to Oxford, 2024. I had the privilege of standing up on the podium and voicing the message of spine and voice while also continuing to discover my own! Hard to believe. In my effort to Neglect Inform a larger world I continue to heal myself, and indeed our own healing is endless, and our work requires it!

Interdependence

Anyone who knows my work, knows that the most common default from the collapse of neglect, is the often ferocious defense: self-reliance. The child of neglect disavows interpersonal need, because it is simply not to be trusted. The experience that no one can be relied upon, makes our natural order, dependency, simply way too dangerous. Yes, interdependence is nature’s design. But add to that the way self-reliance is highly regarded and esteemed certainly in Western cultures, it is hard to want to learn something different or to even believe that something different could be better. Perhaps the most challenging task of neglect healing is slowly and gently first puncturing and then carefully relinquishing the lonely safety of self-reliance and have the humility to accept and receive help. Ironically there is a kind of grandiosity (even if I feel like nothing!) in believing I can do it better myself.

For me Oxford was another whole jump in my learning to receive and utilize help. And much as I fight and deny my age, there is no question that a little help from my friends, many of whom are young enough to be my kids or even grandkids, is a worthy and rewarding lesson. With the help of my amazing team, and my amazing husband, I could achieve so much more, and admittedly much better, quicker and more gracefully. If not for them, none of this could have been possible. Without all that I gain by learning (and continuing to learn) this lesson, my mission of Neglect Informing this sorry world, would not reach further and further which I think we are, and which has become a true meaning and purpose for me, since I emerged from my terrible breakdown of “nothing matters.”

I also had the privilege of discovering an incredible resonance with my new twin, Aimie Apigian. Although I had previously met and was fond of Aimie, only now did I learn that her work fits hand in glove with my own. Aimie, a brilliant and skilled physician, has the biology that explains the somatics of neglect. Everything that I am trying to teach and learn, Aimie teaches in the world of science. Including not only how to understand some of the ever-challenging autoimmune dysregulations and symptoms suffered by trauma and neglect clients, but how to target them with specific somatic approaches. Amazing!

Even more amazing for me, is the very idea of a collaboration, which I do hope to be able to do! But even the very idea of a collaboration, without terror or without that gnawing sense of competition, actually working interdependently together, is a breakthrough (Another interesting idea that I learned this week from speaker Michael Ellison, is that competition is essentially fear. I never thought about it that way! And he works with high performance competitive athletes!).

I might add, again to those who are new to my work, that being a therapist is the “ideal” calling for the child of neglect. It offers the possibility to be both invisible and to feel needed, i.e. that we “matter,” to be some semblance without (hopefully!) dependency, in the shadows, to “exist” and with purpose. Many therapists discover, often with shock and surprise, sometimes that they (you?) themselves are survivors of this unseen “big T” trauma. If that is you, and sometimes the discovery brings with it not only relief, but activation (“triggering”) please, you know what to do: get the necessary support for yourself! Do what you need to do to regulate and titrate what may come up for you! Know you are not alone! And believe it or not, you don’t have to do it all yourself!

Repair

The theme of this year’s conference was rupture and repair. To me, the concept of repair is profoundly important both personally and professionally. So many of us, and all our client survivors of trauma and neglect, never learned or experienced repair. Understanding that repair is right in there as a survival need, as part of regulation, both of the nervous system and capacity for relationship. How many of us have ever experienced, or been the recipient of authentic repair/apology, from a parent, perpetrator, partner, anyone really? Blessedly few I am afraid. To hold the value of repair, and the cycle, the dance of rupture and repair, in high enough esteem, as to make it the theme – that in itself has healing value to me.

Years ago, I first learned from Peter Levine about the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi. It is a ritual whereby the pottery is broken, and the cracks and ruptures are cemented with powdered gold. The healed and repaired piece is then more beautiful and precious than before it was broken. I love that idea, because it makes it not only safe but beneficial, to make the inevitable mistakes and missteps that are endemic to being human. Having the humility and heart to truly apologize, advances not only the recipient, but even more the forgiver. All of us are better and the world is safer for it! Frank Anderson beautifully also makes this point.

And the worried parents who come to me, fearful about what kinds of unspeakable damage they have done to their own kids, I am quick to remind them that the attachment research tells us that the best of the best accurately attuned parents, the gold standard of secure attachment, get it “right” 30% of the time. 30% percent, which is less than a third!! The rest of the time is an endless dance of rupture and repair! We must indeed make of it a rhythmic and graceful dance!

On the order of repair, which I think of as “updating my files,” meaning becoming humbly more realistic and learning from experience, I had the opportunity to meet – not with idolatry or hero-worship, not with self-effacement, but with dignity and spine – and thank some of the icons, luminaries in our field, for the immense contribution they have made to all of us and to me! John Gottman, Daniel Siegel, Terry Real, Sue Carter, and of course Janina and Bessel… people who have been big in my life for decades, real people who are getting older, much like me. I could with humility and voice say thank you!

And I also had the opportunity to share and interact with the up and coming, the younger and growing generation. Like the amazing staff at Khiron House in Oxfordshire whom I had the privilege to meet and spend time with. They have the courage, the tenacity and the patience to work with the most complex and challenging of trauma and neglect clients. Many, as I said, could be my grandkids, and who like I did, need reassurance and confidence that it is a day at a time. I never dreamed I would be up here, but most importantly, I could never have done it alone, and that is for sure! Thank you all!

This week’s song:

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