The Myth of Normal 90

into a fight with anyone . . . She had no ego, she just blended in with the environment in an unassuming manner.” The phrase “no ego” should give us pause. Intended to lovingly convey an admirable lack of arrogance or conceit, those two little words reveal, to me, a deeper story. A healthy ego—not in the sense of superiority, but as in a stable identity, the ground of self-respect, self-regulation, capacity for good decision making, a working memory, and more—is a vital asset of a thriving human being. Unbeknownst to the grieving spouse, what he was describing was the same lifelong repression of one’s feelings—particularly healthy anger—which undermines the immune system and poses a risk for malignancy and other illness. Where does such forsaking of the self come from? “Type C,” Lydia Temoshok pointed out, “is not a personality, but rather a behavior pattern that can be modified.”[10] I completely agree with her view. Precisely because no one is born with such traits ingrained, we can unlearn them. That’s a pathway toward healing—not an easy road by any means, and one we will take up later in detail. But first, let’s see if we can trace the origins of these patterns. A recurring theme—maybe the core theme—in every talk or workshop I give is the inescapable tension, and for most of us an eventual clash, between two essential needs: attachment and authenticity. This clash is ground zero for the most widespread form of trauma in our society: namely, the “small-t” trauma expressed in a disconnection from the self even in the absence of abuse or overwhelming threat. Attachment, as defined by my colleague and previous co-author, the psychologist Dr. Gordon Neufeld, is the drive for closeness—proximity to others, in not only the physical but the emotional sense as well. Its primary purpose is to facilitate either caretaking or being taken care of. For mammals and even birds, it is indispensable for life. For the human infant especially— at birth among the most immature, dependent, and helpless animals, and remaining that way for by far the longest period of time—the need for attachment is mandatory. Without reliable adults moved to take care of us, and without our impulse to be close to these caregivers, we simply could not survive—not for a day. As we’ll see in the next chapter, we each arrive in the world “expecting” attachment, just as our lungs expect oxygen. Hardwired