This chapter explain to us how our need for touch and love
are necessary for our survival. It showed us exactly what could potentially
happen if we go skin hungry, and the serious and often fatal developmental
ramifications if we are withheld from such dire physical needs. This chapter
took me on an emotion roller coaster for many different reasons and it invited
a very personal reflection through my own experiences. This is a fragmented conglomeration
of some of those reflections.
When I used
to teach sexual health, about 6 years ago, I was introduced to the 5 Circles of
Sexuality created by the original work of Dennis M. Dailey, Professor Emeritus,
University of Kansas. He labeled 5 capacities within the realm of our sexual
selves that encompasses what it means to be a sensory being that is beyond
merely sexual intercourse. They are sensuality, sexual intimacy, sexual
identity, reproduction and sexual health, and sexualization. I bring this up
because skin hunger is a sub category of sensuality. Our relationships with our
first caregivers initiate the relationship of who we are as sensory beings,
through taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. What the authors in the book
explained is that caregivers touch and affectionate is needed throughout the
lifespan of an adolescent, starting with infants and toddlers. However, adolescents
also need this type of developmentally appropriate touch because that need for
healthy, safe, loving touch is still essential to their brain development.
Thinking about this example makes me reflect back on my Peace Corps service in
Guatemala where I would often tell my cohort that when I hugged them it wasn’t
just purely for affection and care, but also, it was serving a higher
primordial purpose of quenching the need for touch and affection where that
would normally be fulfilled by loved ones or friends back home. Many of them
laughed or looked at me with strange eyes, however, once we had been in the
country for about 6 months, they understood quite clearly their desire for comfort
and consolation from receiving and giving hugs from other Peace Corps
volunteers.
Another
deep reflection and sense of satisfaction and comfort that I encountered in
this chapter was scientifically supported evidence of what my Mexican culture and
family have shown me and passed down to me for generations… that family is
everything. Family is the central part of my culture not only because it is a
cultural value but because we are a community centered. The act of being around
people that look like me, think like me, pray like me, believe what I believe, are
healing because of the fact that I feel less stressed when I am around them.
That medicine that they bring me and that I bring them; our interconnectedness
is in it of itself, healing. Our elders already knew all of this information, however,
doctors had to reaffirm this for us to make sense and believe it. The act of
being around loved ones and family is stress reducing. My family is one of the
most important parts of who I am, mostly because our childhood experiences are
very unique. We find comfort and solace in each other’s company, but I can also
now prove that it is stress reducing!
Lastly, I wanted
to reflect back on Laura’s journey and label her attachment style based on the information
given in this chapter. Based on the Siegel’s classifications, I would identify
Laura as having an insecure ambivalent attachment style. Her mother was mostly
present for Laura, however, there were many times that she didn’t know how to
connect with Laura on an emotional level and would often harshly punish her or
ignore her because of her unfamiliarity of what her daughter needed physically
and emotionally. Since Virginia experienced difficulty in expressing emotion with
Laura, she was often detached and cold towards her. What we were expressed in
concluding the chapter were the lasting effects of this attachment style by the
aloofness and disconnectedness that
Laura portrayed in her interactions and connections with other people.
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