Annual Meeting Papers

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Making/Breaking Connections: 
Implications Of Cognitive Social Neuroscience And Attachment Theory
For Religion, Ritual And Human Bonding

David Hogue, Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary

Draft only: please do not cite without permission.

Introduction

Social neuroscience is a burgeoning sub-discipline which has emerged in the last twenty years as an exploration of brain structures and functions as well as cognitive and affective processes critical to navigating in an interpersonal environment. Human capacities for learning, perspective-taking, empathy, attachment and self-regulation of affect are areas of particular interest in much of this research.  Social neuroscience incorporates significant findings in both cognitive and affective neuroscience and attempts to describe the ways experience shapes the brain as well as the ways the brain contributes to, and interferes with, human social interactions and bonding. The capacity to represent and evaluate the emotional status of significant others is receiving increased attention, along with the ability to develop and maintain an experience of self.  In addition to understanding strong human attachments, this research also sheds light on neural mechanisms of empathic failures and subsequent relational repair.

The plan of this paper is first to offer a brief review of some current discussions in the cognitive neuroscience of empathy, followed by a sketch of the recent discovery of mirror neurons, including attention to the promise and perils that have emerged following their introduction. Of particular interest will be their debated role in comprehending the emotional states of others. Following that discussion we will consider two contemporary authors from distinctive fields who demonstrate distinctive ways cognitive neuroscience is moving into areas of critical importance to both psychotherapy and the life of religious communities.  The paper will conclude by indicating some areas of both agreement and contention that will hopefully point to promising conversations in the future.

Empathy

Empathy is a central focus for many of these studies, though the research is frequently confounded by conflicting or at least competing definitions (Decety, 2010, Preston and de Waal, 2002). Empathy involves a constellation of several discrete abilities; selecting cues, focusing attention, perspective-taking, introspection, a sense of self as separate from others, and a repertoire of helping skills are some of the elements that contribute to the mature healthy adult’s ability to comprehend and enter into the experience of others and offer help. Preston and de Waal define empathy broadly as “any process where the attended perception of the object’s state generates a state in the subject that is more applicable to the object’s state or situation than to the subject’s own prior state or situation.”  (Preston and de Waal, 2002, p. 4) They helpfully distinguish a range of dimensions explored in empathy research, including emotional contagion, in which differentiation between self and others is lost; sympathy, or feeling sorry for another’s circumstance without matching the emotional or cognitive state of the other; empathy, as described above; cognitive empathy, or perspective-taking; and prosocial behaviors, or helping acts.

The linking of empathy with helping behaviors raises at least two intriguing questions. The first concerns the perceived goals of the helping acts; are they undertaken in order to relieve the distress of another, or to remove one’s own distress?  These are questions often raised in the training of psychotherapists and clergy in relation to processes of transference and countertransference.  Whose experience or suffering is being attended to here?  And the dangers of identification with the other (emotional contagion) are undoubtedly as real as those of disengagement.   Yet for scholars looking at the evolutionary roots of empathy, the difference is generally treated as inconsequential.  “It is mistaken to argue whether help is given for the benefit of the object or to terminate the object’s aversive distress signal or the subject’s personal distress. Aversive signals evolved because, by definition, others want them terminated.” (Preston & de Waal, 2002, p. 9)

A second question comes closer to the definition of empathy itself.  Much research in the cognitive neurosciences either assumes that prosocial behaviors follow naturally from cognitive and affective attunement with the other or defines empathy in such a way that it necessarily includes helping. One could argue, however, that understanding a victim’s or captive’s experience might in fact make one more adept at causing pain, more skillful in extracting information.  It is likely that perspective-taking in fact is a critical skill in warfare, where survival and success often depend on anticipating an enemy or predator’s actions.   Neuroscientist Michael Spezio for instance, acknowledges the critical role of empathy in human healing, but also observes that its original definition “still does denote only the duplication of another person’s experience within oneself, without any movement to care for that person.” (2006, p. 210).  From the movie The Fog of War he quotes then Secretary of State Robert McNamara who claimed that one of his most significant missteps was “a lack of empathy” with the Vietnamese; by that he did not express regret for a lack of concern for them or desire to help, but rather an understanding of their “mindset, experiences, and goals” in order to defeat them. 

In order to overcome this confusion about the nature of empathy, and speaking particularly to the setting of spiritual transformation, Spezio interestingly argues that a “sympathic relation” more fully captures the recognition of intersubjectivity, or otherness, and involves a stance of helpful care toward the seeker.  Such encounters become opportunities for spiritual healing on the part of both seeker and healer. (2006, p. 11.) 

In spite of the confusing array of definitions and the legitimate debates about whether empathy is in any sense a homogenous dimension of brain function or human experience itself, we will use the term here in order to maintain continuity with the broader use of the word empathy in the current literature.  Acknowledging that perspective-taking is an important cognitive contributor to empathy, and can be used for purposes other than care for another, we will view such perspective-taking as only one dimension of empathy which is generally presumed to serve more benign functions.

Empathy therefore involves both cognitive and affective components.  Infants arrive in the world with basic minimal capacities for emotional communication, so an extended time period is required for an individual to achieve the capacity for a mature level of emotional empathy. Recent research is highlighting processes in the brain such as those that mimic observed actions by others (“mirror neurons”) which provide promising new ways to think about how human beings relate to each other and informs our understanding of the child’s emerging Theory of Mind.

Mirror neurons

The story of the discovery of mirror neurons today is virtually legendary among those with even a passing interest in the neurosciences, and has prompted a great deal of interest and theory-building ever since.  Nonetheless a brief review is in order. (For a somewhat fuller description, see Hogue, 2010, in press.)  In the 1990s neurophysiologist Giacomo Rizzolatti and colleagues at the University of Parma (Italy) were studying the motor neurons of Macaque monkeys. (Rizzolatti and Craighero, 2004).   They had implanted a single cell sensor in the monkey’s motor cortex in order to record its impulses when it reached for peanuts placed in front of it.  Between tests, but while the sensor was still attached to the same neuron, an assistant reached for a peanut in full view of the monkey, and to the amazement of researchers, the neuron fired even though the monkey was motionless.  Further investigation confirmed that approximately one-fourth of the neurons in the F5 cortical areas of the monkey brain have mirror properties.  The F5 cortical area of the monkey brain is roughly homologous to the motor cortex in humans.  Neurons in the upper sector reflect mostly hand actions.  Those in the lateral or lower sector are related to mouth actions.  In addition, scientists have discovered that there are two distinct types of neurons that reflect different mouth actions – eating and communication.  80% of these neurons relate to ingesting food, while only 20% support communicating – in monkeys at least. 

Comparisons to human brains have been more problematic, given both their greater complexity and the technical and ethical considerations in research design.  But clear evidence is mounting for mirror-like properties there, too, especially in the wake of the excitement about their possible role in imitation, learning, and language development.   Several studies have demonstrated that mirror neurons fire more strongly when the action being observed is visibly linked to intentions.  That is, watching the same hand movement of grasping without an observable goal in view (e.g., the peanut to be consumed) will not trigger the mirror neurons that are triggered when the peanut is in view.  There is a difference here between mirror neurons in monkeys and their homologues in humans.  In monkeys, the neurons fire only when a visible goal of the activity is presented, either during the measurement or just before, and then concealed.  Pantomimed actions, or actions without a context that signals its purpose, produce little or no response. That is, only transitive actions produce neuronal responses in monkeys. In humans, on the other hand, pantomiming purposeful actions will cause similar levels of firing.  In addition, two classes of mirror neurons have been detected, differentiated according to the specificity of actions mirrored.  “Strictly congruent” mirror neurons fire only when a very specific action is observed; “broadly congruent” neurons fire in response to a wider variety of actions (Rizzolatti & Sinigaglia, 2006).  These differentially specialized functions of mirror neurons parallel to a degree the specialization of neurons in the occipital, or visual cortex that detect discrete properties of objects – edges, vertical or horizontal lines, movement, etc.

The research trajectory following this initial finding has been nothing short of remarkable. In addition to mirroring observable hand and mouth actions, mirror-like properties have been observed when human subjects hear the sound of a recognizable action, like opening or closing a zipper (Gazzola et al, 2006), and even action verbs trigger a subset of neurons in the listener’s motor cortex, though only when they are describing a literal rather than a metaphoric action.

Probably of even greater interest to scholars in clinically and religiously oriented disciplines is the role of mirror neurons in facial recognition, and particularly the ability to interpret the feelings, thoughts, and intentions of others.  Here again we return to a core dimension of empathy.  Briefly, the argument goes like this.  The mirror neuron system, located immediately in front of the brain’s central sulcus, is triggered to simulate the movements necessary to create a facial expression that mimics the expression of the person being observed.  Those neuronal signals are then fed to the mid-brain limbic system, responsible for registering and recording emotion.  These signals return then to the somatosensory cortex, located behind the central sulcus, which then interprets what that facial expression “feels like.”  It is a matter of “trying on” the face, and then determining its felt affects and intentions.  The model is sometimes referred to as simulation theory, since the brain is believed to partially reconstruct within itself neural configurations presumably similar to those in the observed actor (Spezio, 2006).  These models stand over against models depending more heavily on cognitive and imaginative processes, or theory of mind approaches.

Support for such a model comes from research like one frequently quoted study which examined 108 patients in whom the somatosensory cortex had been damaged. (Adolphs et al., 2000)  Showing these patients pictures representing basic expressions of happiness, surprise, fear, anger, disgust, and sadness, they correlated locations of patients’ brain damage with the ability of patients to determine the emotions each face represented.  They found that the more the brain had lost the ability to monitor its own internal condition, the less accurately those patients were able to assess the emotional status represented in the picture.  Recent studies of autistic children suggest that deficits in the mirror neuron systems, and likely resulting deficits in their ability to assess their own internal responses to others, play a measurable role in undermining the autistic patient’s ability to relate to others (Bernier & Dawson, 2009.)

The basic outline then goes like this:  we understand others by instantly, automatically, and unconsciously rehearsing the physical appearance and behavior of a person we need to understand, of personal significance to us, and then monitor our own internal signals in order to interpret that emotion.  Loss of the ability to monitor our own internal experience entails loss of the ability to comprehend the experiences of others.  In consequence, we lose the ability to connect. 

Mirror neuron research has been exciting, wide-ranging and generally well done.  And yet, as with so many other discoveries in the neurosciences, their role in human emotional processing probably can be overstated.  Even comments like the following can appear to reduce the workings of the human mind to automatically functioning, behavioral substrates unless read in context:  “That rigid divide between perceptive, motor, and cognitive processes is to a great extent artificial; not only does perception appear to be embedded in the dynamics of action, becoming much more composite than used to be thought in the past, but the acting brain is also and above all a brain that understands.” (Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia, 2006, p. xi)

Psychologist Jean Decety of the University of Chicago, for instance, recently reviewed the neurophysiological evidence for shared neural circuits which some have argued serve as the underlying structures for empathy. (Decety, 2010) Acknowledging the role of mirror neurons in motor resonance, he argues against claims that they play a significant role in emotion recognition, and therefore in empathy and sympathy. Damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex regions are more highly correlated with deficits in empathy and sympathy than the mirror neuron system. The right insula and, as noted above, the somatosensory cortices also play critical roles. (Adolphs et al., 2000)

To be fair, Rizzolati and Sinigaglia draw a marked distinction between the functioning of mirror neurons and mature empathy.  They too acknowledge that the human brain is also capable of reflexive processing of sensory stimuli, but argue still that that processing “without the support of a visceromotor mirroring, will remain that ‘colourless’ perception that was without any genuine ‘emotional warmth’ for James.” (p. 190.)

As was the case with Roger Sperry’s split-brain research in the 1970s, it is likely that some mirror neuron enthusiasts oversimplify very complex processes, far beyond what even the primary researchers would claim.  The existence of mirror neurons is widely accepted, but more generally understood as participants in larger neural networks that that involve perception, emotional attunement, and consciously imagining what another might be experiencing.  Preston and de Waal suggest that “empathy processes likely contain fast reflexive sub-cortical processes (directly from sensory cortices to thalamus to amygdala to response) and slower cortical processes (from thalamus to cortex to amygdala to response). These roughly map onto contagious and cognitive forms of empathy, respectively.” (2002, p. 12) That is, the neural processes that provide unconscious and immediate affective responses to another in distress are “quick and dirty” because they bypass the higher-level appraisal functions located in the neocortex.  But more mature empathic responses also incorporate the imaginative cognitive structures which are necessary not only to accurate empathy, but to the planning of appropriate helping strategies.  Readers who are familiar with the work of Joseph LeDoux on the two complementary neural circuits involved in fear processing will recognize this description, as do Preston and de Waal.  LeDoux sketches a model of emotional processing in which the faster pathway (sensory neurons to thalamus to the amygdala) gives an immediate but imprecise picture of threat and the slower pathway through the cortex gives a more precise and nuanced picture.  Such a connection underscores the roles of both affect and cognition in social appraisal.

In spite of the ongoing nature of all neuroscientific research and unanswered questions, including definitions of empathy and whether it is even legitimate to designate “empathy systems” in the brain, it is clear that the human brain has evolved deeply embodied neural circuits that respond distinctively to social stimuli.  It is also becoming clearer that the social environment plays a major role in shaping the developing brain.

Narrative

Jeremy Rifkin’s recent book The Empathic Civilization (2009) draws heavily on cognitive neuroscience to argue that evolving neural structures that support empathic relationships correspond to major advances in communication among human beings. Sketching the development of Western civilization from a pre-modern era (The Age of Faith) through modernism (The Age of Reason), he argues that we have now reached The Age of Empathy, a penultimate step to an Age of Global Consciousness.  While the book suffers in my opinion from using too broad a brush in painting the ethos of each era (especially religion in the Age of Faith), and it is undoubtedly impossible ever to document confidently the shifts in brain structure and empathic awareness he posits, the book is intriguing in its necessarily speculative claims of human progress that will lead either to global consciousness or destruction of the environment.  Countering the apparent triumphalism in human evolution in Rifkin’s work is the ever-present reminder that our increased communication with more and more of the world’s population comes inevitably at a cost.  His claims that an incrementally increasing empathic capacity in human beings may ultimately overturn global entropy and environmental decay will be too optimistic for many to accept.

Nevertheless, Rifkin’s grasp of such a wide range of knowledge domains and his ability to paint a plausible picture of neuropsychological development and cultural shifts in history is remarkable, in part due, no doubt, to the number of research interns he thanks in his acknowledgements. He utilizes psychological and cognitive neuroscience in ways that will warm the hearts of clinicians even as he alarms political and environmental realists.  For example, in recounting the increasing importance of story-telling in the early stages of the Age of Faith he notes the likelihood that humans would detect the distinctions between individuals’ reconstruction of recent events.  “This is an essential learning experience on the way to developing self-consciousness – the ability to experience others as unique individuals, with their own feelings, perspectives, and stories, and to find some emotional common ground.  Narrative is critical to transforming empathic distress to empathic engagement.” (p. 186)

Elsewhere, I and others have argued for the central role of story-telling in the practices of psychotherapy (Cozolino, 2002), spiritual healing (Spezio, 2006) and religious communities. (Hogue, 2006) All three sets of practices involve the sharing of stories and ritual practices of care that provide meta-narratives within which individuals can re-imagine their own personal narratives and experience the bi-modal forces of belonging and differentiating.  Listening to sacred texts (particularly stories) engages the empathic networks of the brain.   Gallagher and colleagues studied functional magnetic resonance images of people who read stories and observed cartoons that required them to understand the mental processes of one or more characters in the story.  Whether subjects read verbal stories or studied captionless pictures, they used basically the same areas of the brain to comprehend the intentions and mental state of the central characters of the story. 

Attachment

Attachment theory, building on the early work of John Bowlby, is concurrently attracting renewed attention as a promising framework for integrating developmental perspectives on human bonding with emerging neuroscientific discoveries. The impact of early attachments on the capacity for later intimate relationships is informing both developmental psychology and psychotherapy research.   That same research is also demonstrating the impact of both healthy and destructive intimate relationships on the work and structure of individual brains, particularly the ways in which early attachments support or hinder the development of cortical-limbic connections in the prefrontal lobes. These studies highlight the highly reciprocal and interdependent relationships between the developing brain and the emotional environment.

Psychologist Alan Schore’s descriptions of parental care during the first 18 months of life are helpful here (1996).  Since the newborn lacks formal language, all significant communication is non-verbal, relying on touch and vision.  That is, it relies primarily on the brain’s right hemisphere.  He suggests that the parent and child’s right hemispheres are constantly communicating with each other, but that even more importantly, the parent’s brain is taking into itself the chaotic and unformed feelings of the infant, ordering them, and then offering them back to the child.  She is “loaning” the child the use of her more mature right hemisphere as the infant struggles to organize her experience of a new world.  This description underscores the inherently interpersonal nature of the development of the human self.

Central to Schore’s argument is his careful documentation of the impact of attachment behaviors on the development of the right pre-frontal orbital cortex (PFOC).  In exquisite detail he sketches the measurable empirical correlation between secure attachment and adequate growth of this brain area which is critical in bridging neocortical structures of the brain that are responsible for executive control, and limbic structures which support affective responses and memories.  Over the first eighteen months of life the PFOC emerges to achieve “affect regulation”, i.e., integration of thinking and feeling, so that the child is able increasingly to manage previously disordered internal affects.  Insecure or chaotic attachments are shown to limit growth of the pre-frontal orbital cortex. 

His two later volumes broaden and deepen his description of the neurobiological correlates of disorders of the self (“affective dysregulation”) (2003a) and of repair of the self. (2003b) Among the several clinical syndromes he addresses, for instance, are posttraumatic stress disorders, borderline and antisocial personality, and predisposition to violence.

Since the breadth of these discussions effectively rules out any full treatment of them, we will note here one central theme that occurs throughout these works and that will serve to illustrate the richness of his work for religion and psychotherapy.  Describing intimately the mother-child bond during infancy, Schore emphasizes two complementary processes in the infant’s developing sense of self through emerging regulation of affect:  first the parental right hemisphere amplifies unarticulated feeling, particularly during the first twelve months of life, but she also later increasingly assists the child’s capacity to inhibit affect as well.  “…affect regulation is not just the reduction of affective intensity, them dampening of negative emotion; it also involves amplification, an intensification of positive emotion, a condition necessary for more complex self-organization.” (2003a, p. 143)  He also notes that the “promotion of affect regulation is now seen as a common mechanism in all forms of psychotherapy.” (p. 231)

Finally, noting that empathy is an outcome of attachment, he rightly, I think, notes that empathy is a moral emotion, and so it follows that that “attachment experiences thus directly impact the neurobiological substrate of moral development.” (p. 280) It is likely of course that empathy is a necessary rather than sufficient condition for moral decision-making.

Some reflections and implications

The brief span of this paper dictates that conclusions be limited to a few informed speculations about the impact of these emerging cognitive neuroscience forays into areas of particular interest both to the psychotherapeutic community and, I would argue, to practicing religious communities as well.

1. First, it is clear that empathy has become a central concern for both the scientific and popular cultures of the day, at least in Western civilization.  Whether or not Rifkin is right in predicting continuing evolutionary trends toward a universal human global consciousness, it is plausible that the capacities of the human brain to comprehend the behaviors, affects and cognitions of other human beings is indeed subject to evolutionary pressure and has contributed to important advancements in our ability to imagine and respond to both the plight and flourishing of other human beings.
2. It is also apparent that the cognitive neurosciences are informing an increasing range of domains of human experience, from economics and ethics, to parenting, education, psychotherapy and religious practices.  Though these studies may threaten scholars and practitioners in some fields with a reductive materialism, they can rather be perceived as revealing the deep ways our intellectual, psychological and spiritual capacities are dependent on our brains and bodies.
3. It is increasingly clear that the human brain can no longer be understood as a highly organized mass of neuronal tissue isolated from the world around it by a bony skull.  The brain is being revealed as perhaps the most relational organ in the human body, shaping and shaped by the vital social relationships around it. Brains require other brains.  As the cognitive neurosciences continue to mature, it is likely that we will encounter new ways to think about the deeply personal, intimate experiences that ground much of our emotional life. 
4. Expanding neurobiological understandings of relationality are likely to challenge and perhaps reshape our psychologies and understandings of human experience and intersubjectivity.  Rather than looking for brain structures and processes that “explain” categories we bring to them (e.g., trust, empathy, deceit, love), we may be forced in some cases to reconsider the discreteness or homogeneity of those concepts.  Defining human experience “from the bottom up” may press us to rethink basic human categories of relationship.
5. Since affect regulation is a central concern of parental care during the first two years of life, and most forms psychotherapy share this concern, as Schore posits, it is likely that other relational dimensions of human experience also depend on and reshape affect regulation in human beings.  Of particular interest here are the ways religious communities, through narrative and ritual experience, may also serve either the integration or disintegration of affect regulation in participants.

It is safe to say that emerging conversations between the cognitive neurosciences and our religious and psychotherapeutic communities are in their infancy.  It is encouraging that a growing number of scientists as well as scholars and practitioners of religion and psychotherapy are engaging in interdisciplinary dialogue about critical matters of human flourishing such as empathy and bonding, compassion and violence.  While the constraints of financial resources, interest and political ideology may set limits to an aggressive research agenda, the matters at hand are too important to ignore.  The neurosciences give every indication of putting forth new models of wellness and disorder, constructing or modifying cultural images of personhood, shaped both by the positivism of scientific method and by the Enlightenment traditions and values from which they sprang.  It is a critical time for representatives of religious communities to be full participants in those questions of human destiny.

 

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