If we can see the scientific viewpoint as one way of perceiving rather than as offering the only or superior truth, then we can learn from these discoveries without shifting into a more mechanical viewpoint ourselves.

When we consider our rich inner communities, we will find it is quite possible that more than one pattern of attachment can arise at the same time, sometimes in support of the others and sometimes in conflict.

Only if we are able to widen the lens to take in the bigger picture that includes both the outer challenges and the inner distress do we begin to sense that the protectors are in proportion to what is in need of shelter. It is our system's sense that moving the safeguard aside and allowing the implicit to emerge would be more harmful than whatever the protector is doing in this moment.

It can help us keep our balance to distinguish between the living people who were hurtful and the internalized ones who are now part of our neurobiology. Those who harmed us may never change, but once they become part of us, they seem to partake in our impulse towards healing.

We stayed with the one who felt dead inside, acknowledging his protective value, even though we had no cognitive awareness of who and what he was sheltering ... 'What is this depression, this one who is so still, wanting to tell us?