How Love Affects Personality

When describing yourself to other people, what do you say? In other words, how do you define yourself? Upon answering such questions, you may mention your profession, hobbies, or character traits. Out of the three characteristics listed, the third is the most internally based. The collection of your character traits makes up your overall personality, which is simply the interface you use to relate to yourself, others, and the world at large. Everyone has this construct, even if it’d be described by most as “boring” or “dull.” 

For centuries, philosophers and psychologists have discussed the origin of a personality, mentioning the classic nature versus nurture debate. Nowadays, given the complexity of the topic, very few people will bat an eye upon hearing the statement that nature and nurture have an equal influence on a budding personality. This acceptance is reasonable. We all come from different walks of life. We also all have unique genetic predispositions. The environment is typically conceptualized as the household and community in which a child is reared. 

However, said psychologist Arthur Janov in The Biology of Love (2000), there exists a major determinant of personality that is commonly overlooked by laymen and health professionals alike – the womb. Indeed, the state of the mother during pregnancy will drastically alter the future personality of the embryo that rests inside her. The body responds to the mind and vice versa. The physiology of the body reflects the state of the mind. The growing embryo depends entirely on the mother for survival. Until the embryo is born, it is one with the mother. If the mother is soothed, the embryo is soothed; if stressed, the embryo is stressed.

As simply as the psychologist could have, Janov explained the emotional mother-embryo link using chemicals, such as dopamine, noradrenaline, cortisol, and the like. One of the neurotransmitters he mentioned the most in the book is serotonin. Serotonin is the chemical that assists in the inhibition of pain. People that have a low baseline for the production of serotonin are more sensitive to pain than those with a normal baseline of said production. Love wires the brain of an embryo to produce serotonin. The more a child is loved in the womb and in early childhood, the more serotonin his brain will generate in the future. 

“Love” is not abstract. It is biological. Love is showcased by fulfilling a child’s physical, mental, and emotional needs. The chemical of love is oxytocin. The brain of a loved child is structured dissimilarly to that of an unloved child. 

Before we hone in on the brains of healthy and unhealthy children, it ought to be noted that the brain has three parts that can be listed from most primitive to most advanced, developmentally and phylogenetically – the brain stem, the limbic system, and the frontal cortex. The brainstem, also known as the reptilian brain, is the most primitive part of the brain. It deals with instincts and survival functions. Next is the limbic system, which enables mammals to exhibit complex emotions. The part that handles the most sophisticated functions is the frontal cortex, which is also the seat of the intellect. 

The synaptic development of healthy children is unimpeded. Therefore, the bodies of such children move in a coordinated, elegant fashion, and the minds of said children navigate the surrounding environment effectively. These qualities are linked to the frontal cortex. Traumatized children, in comparison to healthy kids, are clumsy and have deficient spatial awareness. This is because trauma hampers the forming connections of the synapses. Trauma is simply psychological content that is unable to be integrated with the physiological system. Synapses are gaps through which neurons communicate with each other. Neurons are the most basic unit of the brain. 

Janov coined three following terms in relation to trauma – “first-line,” “second-line,” and “third-line.” First-line traumas involve the reptilian brain; second-line, the limbic system; third-line, neocortex. Out of the three types of trauma, first-line traumas are the most deep-seated. This type of trauma usually occurs in a child sometime between conception and six months of age. An event that can cause a first-line trauma is a war. A wife left alone, continually uncertain if she will live to see the next day, while her husband fights off invaders will be under grave stress. This degree of distress undoubtedly affects the embryo, conditioning its nervous system to acclimate to abject terror. Such an embryo will be more prone to chronic anxiety due to the sympathetic dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system. As an adult, this embryo will have shallow breathing, which indicates subliminal fright.

Unlike first-line traumas, second-line traumas involve emotions such as sadness and melancholy. Like first-line traumas, second-line traumas occur at a level of consciousness below the intellect and language. Take a three-year-old child that is dropped off to daycare, for instance. At first, this child will sob uncontrollably for its mother if said child is healthy. After continually being left without its mother, the child will stop crying, not because the pain is gone, but because it has learned to tolerate the pain at the expense of its psychological health. The child will be in a state of chronic suffering and develop an inclination towards depression. This all happens independently of the child’s will, no differently than the fear that strikes a bystander as he spots a grizzly bear nearby.

Mammals have evolved to be close to their mothers at all times while they are young. Such offspring need to emotionally bond with their mothers during their most tender years so that they remain psychologically healthy. Hugs, kisses, eye contact, pats, licks, sniffs, rubs, and smiles are ways that mother and offspring demonstrate their love to each other. The brains of rat pups that are extensively groomed form a plethora of brain receptors for a class of substances called benzodiazepines. This group of substances reduce anxiety and kill pain. Rats are mammals. Humans are mammals as well. Can observations of rats teach us everything there is to know about humans? No. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to believe that human babies are not designed to be away from their mothers for extended periods of time. 

Third-line traumas are influenced by the other two types of trauma. The existence of the latter two induces an incoherence between the brainstem, limbic system, and frontal cortex. This disunity causes the frontal lobe to concoct justifications for a person’s behavior, display distorted perception, and generate obsessions. That, say, a gambling addict knows his habit is reckless won’t absolve his lack of financial control if his disrupted instincts and disturbed feelings misaligns with his clear head. The pathologies that are carried out by the cortex are the result of repression.

Throughout The Biology of Love, Janov uses the word “repression,” sometimes as if the mechanism is beneficial and other times as if it is detrimental. The reader must be able to distinguish between “healthy repression” and “pathological repression.” The former occurs during an acute bout of distress, such as one taking place during a natural disaster or a flee from a predator. The latter is chronic, holding down conceptions of intolerable previous situations. The former is associated with the present; the latter, the past. A healthy person is one whose brain can inhibit distress enough to allow him to effectively hold himself together during a dangerous dilemma, but not so much that the friction cannot be later assuaged. 

Individuals can be categorized roughly based on how they repress. The healthy person was serene and blissful as an embryo and fetus, slid out of the birth canal as smoothly as a salamander swims through a lake, and was hugged, kissed, played with, and doted on with ample abundance as a baby and toddler. As a child, he was attentive, sharp, creative, affectionate, physically advanced compared to average children, and not whiny nor bratty. As an adult, he represses only temporarily. The calibration of his intellect, mammalian brain, and reptilian brain precludes any habit of constructing self-deceptive delusions. Healthy people have the innate fortitude to live truthfully in accordance to their innermost being and bring forth their unique gifts and talents into the world. Leading intentionally or by example, they improve society in a prosocial manner.

Some people, in contrast to healthy people, experienced pre-births and births that were, in short, lackluster. Yet, their postnatal developmental needs were fulfilled adequately enough to foster a steel-like encapsulation of the original traumas. Such people function well enough in society to reach the appropriate milestones – landing a respectable career, getting married and remaining satisfied in said union, having children of their own, etc. – in a timely manner without showcasing any major manifestation like anxiety or depression. These people were called “normal” by Sigmund Freud and Otto Fenichel. The sturdy encapsulation of the archaic traumas negates the in-depth self-examination process. Therefore, at the expense of sincere living, normal people tend to follow the status quo of their respective societies. For better or worse, like lemmings, normal people go along with conventional social scripts and propagandistic prescriptions. 

Other people had pre-births, births, and early childhoods that were emotionally defective. For them, the barriers that serve to encase the original traumas are like a pile of charred wood with toxic fumes leaking out to pollute the air. Such leakages cause all sorts of issues that prevent them from functioning as well-adjusted members of a social order – anxiety, depression, sloth, gluttony, volatility, withdrawal, obliviousness, paranoia, passivity, impulsivity, and abuse, to name some. Think of the drug addict who jumps to and from abusive relationships, the involuntary celibate who releases himself in front of a machine instead of approaching mates in the social arena, the workaholic that avoids his spouse and children, and the gambler that dismantles his livelihood for quick money. These types of people were labeled as “neurotic” by Freud, Fenichel, and the like.

The ideal, healthy person is rare, being perhaps one out of tens or hundreds of thousands of people. This rarity can be attributed to the failure of most mothers to optimize their internal ecosystems. Many pregnant mothers drink and smoke; some allow themselves to be overcome by stress at their jobs; many don’t eat nutrient-dense foods; some elect to be administered with anesthesia while in labor; and so on and so forth. A massive amount of people are either normal or neurotic; in other words, psychologically unwhole. 

Is it possible to resolve trauma? Yes. How so? Janov suggests a methodology he developed himself called Primal Experiencing, in which the patient is to experience what the late psychologist called a “primal.” What is a primal? Simply put, it’s the physiological re-experiencing of a past event. From Janov’s perspective, talk therapy is an ineffective way to remedy psychological problems, along with “crying about it,” throwing pity parties, venting, and feeling sorry for oneself. All of these methods involve the intellect, which is too superficial to purge the turmoil steeped in the abyss. 

In order for one to properly re-experience a traumatic event, one must be in the identical physiological state as he was during the event. If one’s heart rate was 210 beats per minute (bpm) and blood pressure was 245/120 during the time he, as a small child, saw his father smash a glass bottle of alcohol on his mother’s head, then that bodily state will have to be replicated during a session. One cannot think his way out of trauma. The way out is through. Whining and complaining about one’s history is the perfect recipe for integrating no content, as those ramblings are overly cerebral. Sidestepping an inferno denies the galvanization of the spirit. 

The primals bring back memories from childhood to allow said memories to be dealt with properly. However, the memories aren’t discussed verbally during the primal. Instead, the dormant physiological responses are reawakened. If the hypothetical person mentioned above wanted to beat his drunk father to defend his mother, then his body will start beating an object, akin to how one’s body spontaneously jumps when he spots a venomous spider at close range. The beating of the object – say, a pillow – cannot be willed, otherwise the primal would be inauthentic. A real primal engages the portions of the brain that were active during the original traumatic situation. 

Can trauma be prevented from occurring in the first place? Yes, it can. If a child is allowed to discharge the energy that his body produces during any unpleasant experience, then said child will not experience trauma from the experience. Unpleasurable experiences are a part of life, just like pleasurable experiences; day can not exist without night; up, without down; fast, without slow; etc. Bubble-wrapping a child is to no benefit, but being able to act as a bedrock for the child helps the child integrate experiences.

There exists plenty of child-rearing techniques one can look up on a search engine or book that could potentially steer the child in a healthy direction. However, the late Alexander Lowen, another psychologist that worked with the mind-soma connection, believed that children respond much more to who the parents are as people than the decisions they make to raise said children. If true, then an unhealthy set of parents “doing the right things” will still contaminate their children with pathological splits. Children are like sponges. They absorb everything around them, unbeknownst to themselves, picking up on the apparently veiled moods of the adults in their lives. They must, for that is how they, as mammals and social animals, survive.

The best parents are simply those that are themselves psychologically healthy. Healthy people are naturally loving and are attracted to other healthy people. Like attracts like. People are intuitively attracted to and attract those who are at a similar level of health. Since healthy people gravitate towards truth, it follows that they would be cognizant of the effects they have on their children, both blatant and subtle. 

On the flip side, as stated above, vast swathes of people are unwhole. Unlike healthy people, these people are comfortable snoozing through life. This slumber is a compensatory attempt to crawl back into the womb to partake in an experience they never had – a cozy preparation for life. An embryo must be loved in order to grow into a healthy adult, just like a seed must be nourished to grow into a healthy tree.

The greatest lesson that the unhealthy instill in their children is to hibernate in a den like a bear in a coma. If such people happen to stumble upon a truth, then it’s only incidental. They are like the groundhogs that discover a field of fruit not due to being in touch with their senses, but because they followed their brethren that were. Instincts are a part of truth. A healthy mother need not read any book written by a self-proclaimed expert on child rearing. She simply syncs her being with that of her baby, allowing the baby to guide her to fulfill its needs. Instinctual knowledge is bodily knowledge. Since the intellect of a healthy person works with – not against – his limbic system and brain stem, such a person has the ability to refine his intuition without muddling it with prejudices.

During his life, Janov observed the effectiveness of primal therapy. Though, he warned any potential client to go to only the therapy center located in Venice, California, since the other centers are led by quacks with little to no proper training. One must be trained to perform psychological surgery on the unhealthy, akin to how a surgeon needs to be trained to operate on patients. 

Assuming that you select the correct center to attend, you should understand the process of bodywork – work on the body. This is not some weekend get-away on a tropical island where some native massages your back and all of your life problems suddenly disappear. This procedure requires work. One must be dedicated to being mentally spliced and put back together, which is painful; imagine being awake while a medical doctor is cutting your body. This process will also not lead to groundbreaking insights. The client will simply learn what comes naturally to the healthy. For example, upon physiologically releasing some emotional baggage from the past, a client may begin to behave more confidently; but to someone who was never not healthy, being self-assured is as natural as blinking.

The benefit of this type of therapy is the acquisition of self-knowledge one gains from it. The client begins to understand how his actions in the present are influenced by the currents swirling underneath his mind. Once he can viscerally overcome his past, it will no longer have control over him. Thus, the quality of his willpower increases. His will will be freer. His personality will become more conducive for living a fulfilling life. 

Perhaps one’s childhood environment has a greater influence on his personality than genetics. If so, this means that we have more control over how kids will grow up than we thought. The act of loving a child ensures that he will grow up to be a self-actualized adult. Parents show that they love their children by anticipating the needs of the latter. If a child’s needs are met starting from conception, then the sense of security that is etched into his soul will shield his mind from developing any pathology. 

True love is healthy.