Attachment & “Philomena”

Attachment

Our earliest human experience occurs when an infant experiences consistent nurturing by people in the baby’s life. Being fed when hungry, changed when wet, being held and responded to when crying tells the infant that mother and father are there – or grandmother or nanny. The easiest way this occurs is when the mother nurses the baby – the physical contact, being held and fed relaxes the infant and reassures her/him that she is cared for. The same feeling occurs if the baby is held when fed but not when the bottle is propped!

Infants are not passive recipients in this process. They cry when hungry, uncomfortable, the milk not agreeing with him, producing gas and cramps, when no one responds to their cry.

Watch or ask any parents of newborns and you will see and hear this process. It is called attachment – the feeling of care and connection securely experienced by the infant. It is also love because the feelings that emerge in all of this are that someone cares.

Our first experience of the world thus reassures the baby that she/he is not alone – that people respond. This earliest experience lays a foundation for feeling loved and trusting – and influences how we connect or don’t with others. You can see this next step happening when people hold and smile at the infant – and soon the baby begins to smile in return.

But many infants do not have this experience of attachment. There are countless reasons and circumstances that interfere with attachment, leaving the baby uncertain that she will be responded to.

One powerful example is in the book and film, Philomena.

Philomena - based on a true story

As an unwed mother in 1950, in Ireland, Philomena is sent to Rosecrea Abbey, Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Her baby, Anthony, is born there and stays with her for his first three years. Even though the mothers are allowed only one hour a day with their baby, a strong attachment is there between Philomena and Anthony. And then he is taken away from Philomena for adoption in America – sold by the sisters.

50 years later on Anthony’s birthday, Philomena finally tells her story to her daughter who connects Philomena with journalist, Martin Sixsmith. Together they begin the journey to find Anthony. Philomena says, “There has never been a day I did not think of him.” It is not surprising that, as an adult, she remembered. But her three year old son, Anthony, remembered also, more fleetingly but he remembered. Both mother and son made many attempts to find each other, thwarted by the nuns.

Anthony, growing up as Michael A. Hess became a very successful attorney while hiding his gay life. But he finally found love and told his partner that he wanted to be buried at Rosecrea Abbey, “knowing that his mother would eventually find him there.” The film is very touching, teaching and surprising as Philomena finally discovers the life of Anthony.

The book has much more detail about the cost to Anthony, told that his mother gave him away – that she did not love him. His alternating times of love in gay relationships and times of self-hatred and engagement in unsafe sexual practices cost him his life due to Aids. The striking part is the explicit self-hatred he inflicts on himself in the (mistaken) belief his mother did not love him.


There are many ways the absence of attachment occurs – from benign neglect to overt abuse. If you have experienced this lack of attachment and suffer from the inability to find and sustain loving relationships, I hope you will call me. The process of healing is difficult but it is not too late to learn to nurture yourself. I am here to be with you.