The Invisible Influence of Early Learning
As a general rule, the evolutionary older neural systems which we share with the more primitive creatures from which we evolved, develop during gestation and the early years of life. Later evolving structures involved with higher level functioning continue to develop, mature, and weave together throughout life, as we adapt to ever-changing environmental, social, and emotional demands. The ancient structures of the basal forebrain (amygdala, orbital and medial prefrontal cortices, insula, and anterior cingulate) begin to shape our attachment schema, sense of our worlds as safe or dangerous, and lay down the infrastructure of our self-esteem from the first days of life.
Interactions with our caretakers – our first environment – trigger the brain’s adaptive functions to shape in response to their behaviors and emotions. Much of our most important learning occurs during our first few years when our primitive brains are in control. These memories are stored in systems of emotional and procedural memory which are expressed in our reactions to others, the physical world, and in relation to our experience of ourselves. They are not stored as conscious autobiographical memories because the maturity of those memory systems are still a few years off.
“In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important as remembering.”
As we mature into self-awareness, somewhere around 8 or 9 years old, we have already been programmed by these early experiences for which we may have only the vaguest of instincts. It is similar in many ways from waking up from an emotionally salient dream, we may be left with the emotions and bodily sensations, but unable to remember the plot or the characters. Having no conscious memory for our early learning, we generally accept this foundational learning as a given – a set of truths we seldom think to question. This artifact of evolution, expressed in the sequential nature of our neural and psychological development, turn the accidents of birth and the ups and downs of our early lives into the core of our experiences and identities. Thus, a great deal of early learning unknowingly influences our day-to-day experience throughout our lives (Casey et al., 2005).
In shaping the vital spheres of attachment, emotional regulation, and self-esteem, the early shaping of our systems of implicit memory establishes the baseline of our abilities to connect with others, cope with stress, and feel we are worthwhile and loveable. Research in epigenetics is showing us that the way our brains are shaped early in life impacts our ability to learn, regulate our emotions, and nurture our future children. Given how little control we have over our early experience and that anyone can have children regardless of their competence or sanity, an incredible amount of human brain building is left to chance. (The random combination of so many variables may be an aspect of biodiversity which supports the success of natural selection.)
It is obvious that our dependency on early caretakers can influence us in perfectly terrible ways. We see this in abused and neglected children who often enter adolescence and adulthood expressing explosive anger, eating disorders, drug and alcohol problems, and other forms of destructive behavior. They also have identity disturbances and a poor self-image, exacerbated by angry feelings and antisocial behaviors. Like a veteran with PTSD, the brains of these children become shaped to survive the combat of their day-to-day lives, but are ill-equipped to navigate peace when they eventually move out of the home.
In psychotherapy, we have tools that allow us to explore early experiences with the possibility of coming to understand our symptoms as forms of sensory, motor, and emotional memory. Projection, transference, self-esteem, and internal self-talk are most often expressions of early implicit memories of intensive early interactions. Making the unconscious conscious is, in part, coming to an awareness and understanding of the impact of early experience. Once these forms of memory can be consciously thought about and placed into a narrative, we can reintegrate dissociated neural networks of affect, cognition, abstract thinking, and bodily awareness. This process opens the door to decreasing shame, increasing self-compassion, and creating the possibility for healing.