There has been a great deal of interesting research that shows the necessity of love—one of the primary inner resources. Rene Spitz, a French pediatrician, made an important observation when he was called to consult at an orphanage in France at the end of World War II where children were dying in the first year of life. The orphanage wanted Dr. Spitz to find the infectious agent that was causing the deaths, but he could not find one. In fact, the hygiene of the infants was good. However, Dr. Spitz did notice that none of the children were being held and played with by any of the caretakers. Everything was task- oriented. When Dr. Spitz asked the caretakers to express love and play with the infants, the deaths stopped occurring.

Harry Harlow, a psychologist in the United States, did an experiment which confirmed Rene Spitz’s observations. He raised monkeys with either real mothers or cloth mothers. The cloth mothers were designed to be exactly the size of monkeys. They had wire bodies with cloth covering them, and bottles where the breasts would be so that the infant monkeys could be fed as they were from their mother. The monkeys “raised” by cloth mothers couldn’t socialize, and they exhibited many behavioral problems. The monkeys raised by real mothers socialized normally. Recently, at the National Institutes of Health, a study was conducted with Rhesus monkeys showing that anxious mothers produced anxious children who did not integrate well into the monkey tribe. In order to discover whether this was caused by genetics or nurturing, the researchers removed some of the young monkeys and gave them to mothers who were not anxious. They grew up to be non anxious adults. Animal rights activists have protested these studies, asserting that the findings were obvious. Norman Cousins described in Anatomy of an Illness the great potential of another inner resource, humor. Faced with a life threatening illness, he watched hilarious movies, laughing raucously throughout the day. Remarkably, with this and other natural treatments, he recovered from the illness and was asked to be an Adjunct Professor of Medical Humanities at UCLA Medical School to teach about his experience.

When you think about the different nervous systems, it makes a lot of sense that when children grow up with a great deal of stress— particularly with abusive violence, anger, emotional distance, or neglect—the more primitive parts of their brains will dominate their responses. When children grow up in loving, laughing, and nurturing environments, there is a much better chance for their nervous systems to develop in a healthier way. There are four things children need for healthy nervous systems: basic physical care and protection, to be enjoyed and appreciated, genuine love, and to be understood as unique beings. Wouldn’t there be a lot less crime, substance abuse, and mental illness if each child received these four basic needs from the adults and cultures who care for them?