Column by Nicholas Wilkens, Ph.D.
When one thinks of the great philosophers of our time, the name Haddaway generally doesn’t come to mind. The early 1990’s Eurodance crooner’s most popular (and likely only popularly known) song, “What is Love?” was pervasive throughout the decade. It was an earworm that became embedded in the collective consciousness through the notable Saturday Night Live skit and subsequent movie “A Night at the Roxbury.” While Haddaway is not so prevalent in today’s discourse, the question he brought up has been one that has been thought about for generations. What IS love?
About as good an answer as any to this question comes from the psychological and human relationship scholarly fields, and falls under the heading of attachment. As originally expressed by the mid-20th century psychologist John Bowlby: the greatest need of the human being is to reach out to touch and to be touched back, physically and emotionally, from the womb to the tomb. This is attachment, and attachment is an innate human need.
A striking example of this need is illustrated in the Tom Hanks movie “Castaway.” When Tom’s character, Chuck Noland, finds himself isolated alone on the literal and proverbial desert island, he soon creates the only substitute he can for a human to love and be loved by through a detailed picture of his girlfriend that he draws on the wall of the cave that he uses as shelter, and proceeds to interact with this drawing until he finds a more interactive substitute in Wilson. Wilson is the volleyball that is shown to be Chuck’s sole companion for years and his eventual partner in the great escape from the island (spoiler ahead – but come on, who hasn’t watched this movie?). Those of us in the audience watching Wilson fall off the raft and float away held our breath as Chuck awoke to realize that his best friend was moving away from him.
And we were anguished as we saw Chuck’s desperate attempt to rescue his friend and his excruciating decision to stay tethered to his raft, his only lifeline, instead. Those who may have just entered the movie theater at this point would have found it decidedly ridiculous that such a demonstrative display of emotion would have been dedicated to a flat, torn up, bloodstained, discount volleyball. But the rest of us who experienced the larger story knew EXACTLY why Chuck had the heartbreaking reaction he did. And our hearts broke as well. We knew this because this was a representation of attachment panic, the potential loss of a significant “other.” And we know that feeling well.
Ultimately, the ensuing work of John Bowlby and his theoretical descendants has kept alive the belief that attachment is a, if not the primary human need and predictor of whether or not a given individual thrives or struggles. When attachment needs are not met (attachment figures are distant and/or rejecting), people predictably experience insecurity, defensiveness, over-dependence, relationship and existential distress, and psychopathology. When attachment needs are met (attention and emotional responsiveness are in place), people are happier, more secure, more outgoing, have greater tolerance for distress, and have greater tolerance for ambiguous or negative relationship events.
The research builds on the isolating effects that the pandemic has had on each and all of us, with soaring levels of depression, substance abuse, couple distress, and significant increases in child and adolescent anxiety. There is a reason that solitary confinement has come to be understood as a cruel and unusual punishment for those in the prison system. Isolation is the enemy of attachment, and attachment is an innate human need.
So, hopefully, the case has been made here for critical attention needing to be paid to attachment as an adequate understanding of love and a needed regular experience for optimal human functioning. Then the question emerges, what can I do with this knowledge? How can I grow from it? Of course, fostering one’s support network is key.
And being a secure person for others should be an ongoing pursuit for all of us, while also recognizing our limits. Also important is embracing a possibly different understanding of human relationships:
Being able to depend on others makes one stronger, not weaker. Bowlby and his contemporaries have concluded that psychological theory and practice that has historically viewed particularly close relationships as pathological (i.e., codependent, enmeshed, or fused) has been misguided.
It is in fact, these relationships that can make one healthier and happier, as long as they are made secure (versus various versions of insecure, such as those relationships taking place between narcissists and their compliant partners, children, or friends – this is NOT love though is often confused as such). When attachments become threatened or unsecured, this is when pathology develops.
A final word from Dr. Bowlby:
Intimate attachments to other human beings are the hub around which a person’s life revolves, not only when he is an infant or a toddler or a schoolchild but throughout adolescence and his years of maturity and into old age. A person draws his strength and enjoyment of life from these intimate attachments. (Bowlby 1980, Loss, sadness, and depression. Vol. III of Attachment and Loss).
As I was asked to compose this article for this February issue where the specific type of love of focus is that of the romantic variety, I offer to those in couple relationships a “must read” from Dr. Sue Johnson, researcher and developer of attachment theory as applied to committed relationships. It is a work that I have recommended to most of the couples I have seen since the book’s initial publication. I would offer that it is a book to be read by all couples as a possible preventative for the types of issues that bring couples into couples therapy, as it guides partners toward experiencing their mates as their primary source of safety and support versus a source of distress and disdain:
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love. Dr. Sue Johnson, 2014. •