The Golden Square: Attunment
A new series from The Way Through: Trauma Responsive Care for Intellectual and Developmental Disability Professionals (2021, NADD Press, Kingston NY. P. 73-75)
Attunement: the first side of the square
“Attuning means matching, or getting “in tune” with, someone else on a deep emotional level. There are some people who seem to have that magical knack for settling people down, just by talking quietly with them. Sometimes their simply being in the room brings the temperature down. These people probably don't have actual magic powers, or spells that only they know, to soothe that difficult person. The “magic” they have is, among other things, good attunement skills. I knew a man who worked in a facility for youth who had committed sexual offenses. He told me the staff there had a nickname for those magical people who could de-escalate situations with the often-volatile young people in their program: “solid objects.” The common wisdom there was that some staff people could maintain their composure no matter how upset a young person was, and this was deeply reassuring to the youth. They could attune—get on the young person's emotional wavelength and gently bring their own peaceful emotions into the young person's emotional range. Then the young person would gradually lower their emotional energy to match the emotional energy of the staff. This is such an unconscious process that the young people were probably unaware of what was happening; they just knew they felt reassured and heard.
“We learn attunement early. When a baby cries, our natural human instinct is to pick up that baby, smile at it, and talk to it to soothe it. Every time this happens that person is giving the baby signals with his or her facial expression, voice, body tension, and possibly even smell. The message is this: “Everything is OK. You are loved and safe.” This message is different from what's happening in the baby's brain and body. The baby's brain and body are agitated and upset, overwhelmed by the feelings that made the baby cry in the first place. Bessel van der Kolk describes it this way: “we start off being our wetness, hunger, satiation, and sleepiness … incomprehensible sounds and images press in on our pristine nervous systems.”* After a while, soothing tones and gentle movements help the baby gradually calm down until her brain and body activity match those of the person holding her.
“The baby goes through this process over and over: Baby feels upset; caregiver calms and soothes; baby feels calm and relaxed. This sequence “programs” the baby’s brain and nervous system, setting that internal thermostat as I mentioned earlier. This process of gradually matching brain states between baby and caregiver is attunement.
“For most of us, our caregivers are consistent and calm enough that our baby brain got used to what it feels like to go from upset too relaxed. Not only did our brain start to “wire in” the pattern (upset—calming down—calm), but we also learned something important: When we’re upset, we'll be helped and taken care of until we feel better. We learned that the world is, for the most part, a safe and welcoming place. Most caregivers learn how to keep themselves calm even when a baby is screaming and fussy. They have their own needs taken care of so they can pay attention to the needs of the baby. Their environment is healthy and predictable enough that there is routine and safety every day, so they will probably do what English pediatrician D. W. Winnicott famously described as a good-enough** job of caregiving. Here “good enough” doesn’t mean “Meh, okay, I guess.” It also doesn’t mean “perfect.” It means “sufficient.” Babies don't need perfection; if the caregiver can be present and calm most of the time, that'll do. This baby will get enough of what she needs. The caregivers will create that pattern over and over for her, and her brain and body will learn safety and self-soothing. If the caregivers have a hard time doing this because they have to pay constant attention to surviving, or the environment is so chaotic they spend most of their energy just trying to get through the day, or they are distracted by their own depression, anxiety, mental illness, addiction, or violence, it's hard to make things soothing and safe enough, often enough, to program that little baby brain for emotional equilibrium.
“What we learn to expect from caregivers becomes what we unconsciously expect from the world. It governs how much we allow ourselves to get close to others, and we call that pattern of interaction attachment.”
* van der Kolk, B. (2015). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Penguin Books.
** Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and Reality. Devon, UK: Tavistock publications.