The death of 12 week-old Camryn Wilson, as a result of shaken baby syndrome, made national news only because he was the first baby of 2008 born in Summit County, Ohio. Otherwise the tragic death of this child would be just another instance of America's deepest shame - our failure to protect our children. (Child abuse statistics)
The psychological dynamics of shaken baby syndrome reflects how the formation of emotional bonds sustains the survival of the species. The distress cry of the infant sets off an internal distress alarm in all adults in proximity, especially in those who have formed an emotional bond with the infant. The only way the adults can relieve their internal distress is to relieve the distress of the infant. (If they try to run away from it, they must fight a powerful guilt designed to pull them back.) The mechanism usually works well to protect the most vulnerable members of a species whose young are helpless much longer than those of other animals.
But this species-preserving mechanism can be short-circuited when the adult interprets his/her internal distress alarm as a signal of failure and inadequacy. In that case, the rising anxiety in the adult caregiver spikes the distress in the child, who cries more intensely, making the adult feel more inadequate. The child is no longer a precious loved one in need, but an anxiety-provoking alarm clock that can't be silenced. What do you do with an alarm clock you can't turn off? You shake it or throw it or smash it.
All parents experience feelings of inadequacy when their infants let out distress cries. For the vast majority, the distress of the infant overrides the feelings of inadequacy - the pain of the child is more important than feelings about the self -- and trips us into a gut-level compassion. This gut-level compassion breaks the prison of self by sensitizing us to the needs of the child, which allows the child to teach us how to comfort him or her.
But some people become frozen in their feelings of inadequacy and are unable to make the transition into gut-level compassion. For them, shame is not perceived as a motivation to escape the disorganized and painful self by focusing on the needs of the distressed loved one; it is perceived as a punishment inflicted on the self by the loved one. At the instant of the abuse, they feel entitled to "defend themselves." Such gross misinterpretation of internal motivation is a predictable byproduct of the age of entitlement.
This tragic dynamic is at the heart of all attachment abuse, from harming children to the emotional and physical abuse of intimate partners and parents. The classic power and control tactics of batterers, for instance, is really a warning:
"Don't make me feel something I can't handle."
"Don't let your needs set off the alarm system in me that will make me feel inadequate."
Abuse of loved ones is a struggle for the soul of individuals and for the soul of the society that fails to protect its most vulnerable members. It violates our basic humanity and our capacity to form emotional bonds. It is an assault on the human spirit more fundamental than any other.
But we cannot respond to this assault on the human spirit by becoming less humane. Most abusers can be trained to act on shame as a motivation to become more compassionate and sensitive to the needs of others. The shame we feel as a society for allowing abuse to continue is not telling us to punish abusers any more than the shame abusers feel is telling them to punish their loved ones. It is telling us to work as hard as we can to train them in the power of compassion.
