11. The Plot Thickens: Resonance & Potential Space
As an attachment researcher I've come to recognize that infants and young children, as they are forming their view of how AND manifests in their lives, require two central themes from their presence-givers:
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Predictable, steady, and tender availability.
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Support for an ever-changing experience of fresh possibility.
Babies are hardwired for what we call resonance: presence that has both stability (steady predictability) and flow (non-formulaic attunement to the moment-to-moment shifts in a child's emotional state.)
Donald Winnicott also had a name for this other aspect of a child's need. We already know half of Winnicott's equation; here is the second half. Children need an underlying holding environment that simultaneously offers, in each new moment, what he described as potential space.
Presence must be both unchanging/unconditional and always-new. See how this works with baby Oliver:
[Click image to view]
Baby Oliver wakes up with every emotion via YouTube
Resonance is the opposite of static, rigid, robotic formulas. Resonance has no agenda or manual. It is attuned to the flow of another's ever-changing experience.
A Zen student enters his teacher’s room. The teacher offers a cup of tea. “I don’t need tea Master, I need to be shown Original Reality.” The Master’s instant reply: “It just moved.”
Comedy Central
Attachment research keeps returning to the same conclusion: healthy, secure relationships always include room for the uniqueness of each individual and the richness of the AND that connects them. (Interestingly, a significant characteristic of many insecure adults is the habitual denial and devaluation of the connection they most need. "I don’t really have needs. It's all up to me. I'm alone, I know we’ll all die alone and I'm courageous to admit it.")
In every culture thus far studied, genuine security in children (and adults) always includes the capacity to trust in AND. Me. You. Us.
Sadly, trust in AND isn't as common as we'd like to believe.
Our first relationships don’t have to be terribly bad in order for us to eventually feel both terrible and bad. Momentary cues for being-with from an infant that go unrecognized by the caregiver ("I want you here with me, and I need you to slow down to my pace and my rhythm"), are not experiences that most of us would consider dangerous or severe.