A Valuable Forum Meeting on Attachment

Dear Editor,

It was a great pleasure to attend the Ken Fuchsman Psychohistory Forum April 9^th presentation on “The Role of Attachment in the Human Condition.” Fuchsman has undertaken a long term project in an effort to define what it means to be human. The beginning of his paper emphasized the biologically-based bond between mother and infant and how this attachment establishes the template for all later relationships in adulthood. Fuchsman also introduced the Freudian-based theory of sexual pleasure and how this further amplifies and influences attachment in adult life.

The group of analysts in attendance soon embarked on a discussion of identity and how identification with winners, aggressors, political groups, gender, class, and victimhood all influence what it means to be human. After over two hours of the three-hour discussion, the topic inevitably drifted toward the impact that 21^st century technology and entertainment has had on our sense of being human and communal. One social psychologist described the times we now live in as a “twilight world” of images and electronic stimulation where even toddlers being pushed in strollers interact with a built-in iPad that they face. One participant described witnessing a family in a restaurant where they all ate in silence and interacted with their electronics without any conversation the entire meal. The Forum ended with a discussion of current research taking place at MIT, which is being used to create robotic nannies that are designed to be able to replace biological mothering.

This takes us back to where Fuchsman’s paper started, which was that the mother-infant interactions are the foundation of attachment. Perhaps it is not too much of a stretch to say that human attachment and what it means to be human has entered a twilight period where the basis of our lives will be more connected to electronics than to our parents, our peers, or our mates. A vast number of science fiction films have been predicting this for a long time, starting with 2001: A Space Odyssey through the Star Wars franchise, The Matrix films, and the Terminator movies.

I found the entire discussion of what’s happening to our humanity both interesting and chilling and I want to thank Ken Fuchsman for his paper and his formidable project exploring what it means to be a human in the 21^st century.

Sincerely yours,

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Tom Ferraro, PhD

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