ABSTRACT
The self and its brain do not operate in isolation from the body and environment. The brain is connected to the body, receiving multiple intero- and proprioceptive inputs, as well as to the environment, with its exteroceptive inputs. Moreover, the world as a whole exhibits a similar temporal dynamic as the brain, namely scale-freeness with long-range temporal correlation. Given such spatial connection and temporal similarity, we suppose that spatial topography and temporal dynamic intrinsically connect world, body, and brain, which, psychologically, forms the basis of attachment. Attachment is then understood in a most basic biological way, that is, as neuro-ecological/social and scale free, which provides the basis for its affective and cognitive features as highlighted in psychology and psychoanalysis. Such neuro-ecologically/socially based attachment provides optimal capacities for the flexible adaptation of the self to others and their environment. At the same time, though, the neuro-ecological/social attachment renders the self vulnerable to external life events, that is, trauma. Converging Shore/Mucci’s three-layer view of trauma with the three-layer topography of self (Chapter 1), we suppose three layers of trauma of the self. These concern disruptions of (i) the interoceptive self due to early relational trauma with lack of mother-child attunement; (ii) the exteroceptive self impaired by active maltreatment, abuse, or incest; and (iii) the mental/cognitive self as related to massive trauma and/or intergenerational trauma. We conclude that the sharing of spatial topography and temporal dynamic as “common currency” by brain, body, and world is key in constituting attachment, which, at the same time, renders the self vulnerable to different forms of trauma.
