Humans, primates, and mammals share common themes in the organization of brain functions:
central nervous system
limbic brain
memory (short and long term)
social animal interdependence
By exploring the function of the instinctive, or implicit, features of mammals we develop a deeper understanding of our own social and emotional needs and developing brain. In this blog, I want to focus on how the limbic brain and the structure of the family, school/work, and intimate peers have a profound impact on social development and mental health and provide a basis for exploring how our need for social connection and intimacy can influence symptoms of mental health and well-being.
A key concept to emotional well-being is social inclusion. This human experience of feeling seen, feeling felt, experiencing understanding, and belonging are very important for all mammalian species. If my child is feeling dysregulated, attuning to their emotional state, not with words of advice but rather an experience of understanding, allows them to experience safety, understanding, and belonging. This attuned experience allows their nervous system to down-regulate, and their endocrine system to produce oxytocin for connection and soothing the emotional pain of panic, dopamine to feel validation that they will not be excluded or shamed, and serotonin so their executive function can help them autonomously solve complex social problems.
My goal is not to give advice or tell people how to live, but rather validate one’s experience, help them resource and harness their strengths, regulate the nervous system, examine how the emotional pattern autonomically influences behavior patterns, then organize the desired change one is seeking. This process of attuned connection is influenced by understanding the instinctive needs of mammalian species. When one examines animals such as horses and dogs it’s easy to see how dependent their well-being is influenced by inclusion and social connection. This is because we all share a limbic brain that is modulating our behavior to ensure we remain socially included, and mammalian species who fail to modulate these functions struggle tremendously throughout their lives. Luckily for humans, our neocortex allows us to make substantial changes to our behavior patterns to correct and change our brains. However, neuroplasticity is experience dependent.
The limbic brain is like the command center of the brain that coordinates and decodes the nervous system’s energy arousal of the body, social engagement, and emotional response. The limbic brain quickly responds to environmental stimuli, gives the neocortex key information, and then we quickly organize our response. The limbic brain usually organizes in thematic patterns to increase efficiency. This amazing adaptation creates enormous problems for people who have been under sustained stress for long periods of time. When our brains are overly focused on survival, inclusion, avoiding punishment, and high stress arousal patterns this shortcut/adaption of our brain is hard to turn off. Sustained stress creates autonomic survival strategies which influence muscle reflexes, hormonal expression, breathing, oxygenation, and behavior.
Here’s an exercise to explore how your relational experiences shape your behavior patterns. Do a quick word association to describe emotional response from: Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, grandmother, grandfather, first teacher, coach, pastor, first close friend, first sexual experience, and support for the biggest struggle.
These key first social experiences shape so much of our development in terms of identity formation, intimacy, self-worth, felt sense of self, modulation of the nervous system in social interaction, capacity to cope with stress, and sense of connection to self.
These firsts are important because they influence memory patterns that shape adaptation to our social environment. Most important to trauma is the way that the limbic brain manages how the autonomic nervous system copes with threats. How humans respond to threats is organized in patterns of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. The response is autonomic and involuntary. So when your partner or child acts in an inappropriate manner and you say nothing even though somatically you don’t feel right, the misalignment between the soma/autonomic nervous system, limbic brain, and neocortex influences our relational patterns. When we can help others sync up their brain, body, and emotions this helps facilitate a connected experience; which mammalian species need.