Let us now turn to possible solutions. For this final installment, I’ll use a bullet point format. Let’s start with a couple of the solutions Galloway introduces in his TED Talk, which was talked about in the first part of this series.
• Age-gate Social Media—As mentioned earlier, Galloway suggests that access to social media should be age-gated, that is to say, put electronic protections in place that will keep children and young adults off the Internet and away from social media until the age of sixteen. I would raise that age to eighteen based on the fact that the upper brain does not start coming online (to use a computer metaphor) until about age eighteen. As we will see below, this age is rising.
• Ban Phones In School – Simply, phones in school encourage a dissociation between the middle and upper brains. Throughout his book The Social Neuroscience of Education, Cozolino advocates for attachment-informed educational practices as a way of getting middle brain attached to upper brain. Here we have two diametrically opposed approaches to education. This is not sustainable.
• Universal Pre-K—I agree with Galloway here, however, with one huge caveat that I will address below.
• Breakup Big Tech—Interestingly since the time of Galloway’s TED Talk (April, 2024) efforts have started to breakup Google.
•Reinstate the Expanded Child Tax Credit—This was a big campaign issue for the Harris team who pushed for $6,000 per child. Apparently the child tax credit in 2025 will be $2,000. It is scheduled to drop to $1,000 after 2025.
• Expand College Enrollment and Vocational Programs—In his TED Talk, Galloway suggests that we return to the days of colleges and universities in the 1980s when, at least for public institutions, tuition was low and affordable. “Higher education should be about taking unremarkable kids and giving them a shot at being remarkable,” states Galloway. By his own admission, Galloway was an unremarkable kid who was raised by a single immigrant mother. Galloway told his TED Talk audience that the California public university system took a chance on him. In addition, he was helped along by Pell Grants. Speaking to his fellow college professors on the topic of outrageous tuition levels, we hear Galloway admonish, “We’re public servants, not f-ing Chanel bags.” Continuing on with his tear we hear, “Harvard is no longer in education; they’re a hedge fund offering classes.”
Again, I agree with Galloway. I received my master’s in geology in 1983 from UT Dallas. My tuition was low. And when I was a TA (teaching assistant) my tuition was comped and I received a stipend as well as free healthcare. Back then every dollar of tuition was covered by forty cents from federal and state government. In 2012 the then president of UTD, Dr. David E. Daniel, sent out a newsletter that indicated that that forty cents was down to … wait for it … four cents. How did this happen?
In his book entitled The Hidden History of the American Dream, Thom Hartmann writes, “Before Reagan became governor of California, the entire University of California system was free. Reagan did away with that as governor and then, as president [elected in 1980] began the methodical process of eliminating federal and state support for tuition, saying he didn’t want to ‘subsidize the intellectual curiosity’ of ‘brats’ who protested his policies.” Although beyond the scope of this post, Reagan’s response to “protesting brats” is what we would expect from a Strict Father leader whose leadership you do not question. Looked at from a neurological perspective, Reagan wished to keep youth imprisoned in their unquestioning middle brains. And, yes, making education exceedingly expensive (Chanel bags as Galloway puts it) is an effective way of imprisoning youth in their middle, rule-following brains. Don’t get me wrong; society needs rule-following. The key is to have the middle brain cooperating with the upper brain as part of a well functioning organic system. More on this below.
• Spend More On Childcare—Galloway put up a slide during his TED Talk that showed how much per child developed countries spend on childcare. The top country (no surprise) Norway who spends about $30,000 on each child per year on childcare. At the bottom of the list (again, no surprise) the U.S. who spends about $1,000 on childcare. I’ll have more to say on this below.
• Spend More On Mental Health—I recently went through the one-day training offered by the group Mental Health First Aid.[1] I was shocked by the statistics the instructors gave us as far as the number of youth who have elevated anxiety levels and suffer from frequent panic attacks. Yes, mental health among youth is a crisis as Galloway’s graphs show. Here are a few of these statistics and their source:
- 42% of teens experience persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness (Centers for Disease Control)
- 22% of teens have seriously considered attempting suicide (American Psychological Association)
- 1 in 7 teenagers will experience a mental disorder (World Health Organization)
- 3 in 5 teen girls reported feeling sadness every day for at least two weeks (New York Times)
- 31% of teens are estimated to have an anxiety disorder (National Institute for Mental Health)
• Increase Minimum Wage to $25/hour—Galloway suggests that one way to measure how much a country values its youth is to look at the growth of the minimum wage over time. Galloway suggests that if the U.S minimum wage kept up with inflation and the cost of living, it should be at about $25.00/hour. It currently hovers near $7.00/hour.
Those are a few of Galloway’s solutions. He provides others and I’ll leave you to discover them by watching his TED Talk. Now for a few of my own. I’ll also expand on Galloway’s solutions along the way.
• Read More Books—I’ve blogged about people not reading books in an earlier post. However, since that time I’ve noticed several more YouTube videos on this topic. One in particular caught my attention. It’s from the David Pakman Show and is entitled Americans Basically Don’t Read, and It’s Embarrassing.[2] Pakman mentions a survey that was conducted in 2023 that shows that 54% of Americans read at least one book in 2023 (only 10% read more than 20 books in 2023). This suggests that 46% of Americans did not read a single book in 2023. Pakman calls this a serious issue with cultural, political, educational, and economic consequences. I would add that it’s a neurological issue as well. And, in truth, Pakman gets this when he suggests that reading whole books,
- exposes the reader to a wide range of knowledge (as opposed to snippets of information)
- enhances imaginative capacity (true for both fiction and non-fiction reading) EF
- increases hypothetical (i.e., what if, or as if) thinking EF
- boosts brain function
- reduces stress (i.e., enhances emotional regulation) EF
- improves empathy EF
Four of the improvements brought about by reading whole books are improvements in Executive Function (EF) of the upper brain. In essence, reading whole books encourages one to take up life in the upper brain. Again, this is Cozolino’s message as well with respect to attachment-informed education. On a sociological level, Pakman suggests that “reading promotes literacy in general, which is crucial for societal progress.” Actually, Russell Barkley, autism and ADHD expert, in his book entitled Executive Functions suggests that it was the flourishing of EF skills that allowed for the building of complex societies with rules of law, and moral codes such as Do Unto Others as They Should Do Unto You. This is an example of middle brain (e.g., rules) working with upper brain (e.g., empathy). Pakman points out that book reading preserves culture because we can “learn so much about culture past and present” (mental time travel being an EF skill) and use what we learn to “encourage social change by getting people to think critically” (critical thinking yet another EF skill).
Now, unfortunately, according to Nicholas Carr and his book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, progressive educators—starting in the 1980s—embraced hypertext and snippets of information because they saw it as a way of freeing young minds from the tyranny and imprisonment of the single, white male author who plays a large role in upholding the s0-called patriarchy. In what can only be called a negative feedback loop (one I mentioned earlier), rather than freeing minds, progressive educators have imprisoned minds by keeping them away from the upper brain and such EF skills as enhancing imagination, increasing hypothetical thinking, reducing stress, and improving empathy. You can write books on attachment-informed education up one side and down the other, however, if educators and government leaders cannot get almost half of our society off of a steady diet of information snippets, then that half will remain in the middle brain and away from EF skills. President Reagan wanted to keep “brats” away from developing their upper brains. He got his wish aided in large part by an unlikely ally: progressive educators and their embrace of emancipatory psychology, which, ironically, only resulted in greater amounts of imprisonment. With respect to emancipation, it is always prudent to ask, Emancipation toward what?
• Spend More On Childcare and Mental Health—There’s a reason why Norway spends $30 per child on childcare to every $1 spent here in the U.S.: institutionalized childcare is incredibly expensive!
I’ve written about British Childminders Programs before, so let me be brief. I learned about Childminders Programs in Britain from a lecture I heard by Sir Richard Bowlby, John’s son. Sir Richard, at that time (2005), sat on the board of a Childminders Program in Britain. He told us that childminders (also known as nannies) are highly paid (around $80,000 dollars a year in today’s dollars), have only three or four children to take care of, and tend to stay with the same children for several years in an attempt to preserve the secondary attachment relationship they form with their charges. In essence, childminders act as secondary attachment figures providing attachment-informed care. Sir Richard told us that it is critical that childminders always maintain a role as a secondary attachment figure. Parents are expected to maintain their roles as primary attachment figures.
Childminder clinics are supervised by licensed clinical psychologists who meet regularly with parents and track the progress of children at the clinic. Parents are expected to participate in classes in attachment functioning and parenting at the clinic. There is a limit as to the number of hours per week children are able to stay at the clinic, typically fifteen to twenty hours. This is the type of therapeutic environment required if secondary attachment figures are to provide attachment-informed care. I’m guessing but I would imagine that the salary for a clinical psychologist would be in the neighborhood of $150,000 per year. My “back of napkin” calculation suggests that the annual budget for a small Childminders Program would be well north of half a million dollars. And such a clinic would only be able to provide services for about twenty four children.
So, it is exceedingly easy to talk in terms of providing attachment-informed care, schooling, university studies, coaching, etc., and not consider the cost. In my days as a psychotherapist, I counseled parents who were providing treatment foster care. Treatment foster care parents take on the responsibility of caring for children with known psychological issues. These parents have to go through extra training, are certified by the state, and are paid more than parents providing normal foster care. By suggesting that a daycare provider or teacher or professor should provide attachment-informed care or education, you are talking about treatment care or treatment education. Caregivers and teachers and professors should be properly trained and supervised, and, most importantly, paid. This simply is not taking place here in the U.S. However, according to a “fireside chat” I heard by senator Bernie Sanders a few days back (December, 28th, 2024), “the three wealthiest men, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, own more wealth than the bottom half of our society.”[3] Not only can an average family not afford a Childminders Program, but such programs are just not a priority here in the U.S. Similarly, mental health is not a priority here as well. I think this is why Galloway asks the question Do we love our children?
• Recognize Anti-Attachment Forces—I’ll end by drawing attention to the many forces within our society that act against attachment, and, by extension, act against achieving the upper brain and EF skills.
- Postmodernism, Posthumanism, and Emancipation—All of these ideological trends have as their core a desire to separate body from mind, to disembody information and allow it to just float in the ether. The more posthuman we become, the less need we will have for such evolutionary and biological systems like attachment. And it’s not for lack of information on posthumanism that we continue this march. There’s Hayles’ book mentioned earlier. Francis Fukuyama wrote Our Posthuman Future in 2003. Also in 2003, Finn Bowring wrote Science, Seeds, and Cyborgs: Biotechnology and the Appropriation of Life. Any agenda focused on attachment—whether Bowlbian or modern—will have to consider the march toward being posthuman and a time when the body is viewed as being expendable and in need of being jettisoned.
- Reductionism—Hopefully this will not come as a surprise, however, the U.S. is a very reductionistic society: reducing wholes into parts. Almost all science here in the U.S. is held by the reductionism worldview. Don’t get me wrong, reductionistic science has produced many wonders and advances that make our lives much more comfortable, easy, and convenient. However, our continued embrace of reductionism—a very rigid, middle brain environment—keeps us from achieving the upper brain and robust EF skills. As the father of organic systems theory, Ludwig von Bertalanffy wrote in 1969 in his seminal book General System Theory, “Reductionism is great for analyzing elements, but then forgets to look at the relationships between elements, their interactions, and, as a result, is ill-equipped to put all the elements together in a whole that works.” Disembodying information is about destroying wholes. And as I have said above, in truth, we need reductionism and holism working together. Here’s Bertalanffy’s list of systems levels from simple to complex:
static structures—atoms, molecules, etc.
clock works—clocks, conventional machines, etc.
control mechanisms—thermostats, servo-mechanisms, etc.
open systems—cells and organisms in general
lower organisms—“plant-like” organisms
animals—increasing importance of traffic in information, beginnings of consciousness
man—symbolism: past & future, self & world, self-awareness, etc.
socio-cultural systems—populations of organisms (humans included);
symbol-determined communities (cultures) in man only
symbolic systems—language, logic, mathematics, sciences, arts, morals, etc.
- Lack of Societal Mourning Systems—Bertalanffy talks to us about how, when stressed, organic systems will, by their very nature, move to lower levels of organization until coherence is once again found. “The reason for the predominance of segregation into subordinate partial systems implies an increase of complexity in the system,” writes Bertalanffy. Trauma carries with it the potential to cause an organic system to dissociate into “subordinate partial systems” as a protective mechanism designed to serve the overall system. As I have said many times before, when being chased by a lion we do not find ourselves thinking about opening a college savings account for our children. We, instead, move from the upper brain where planning takes place, to the middle brain where quick and effective escape plans are arrived at. Once the danger is over, the system can once again take on its full complexity. Unfortunately, sometimes trauma can become locked and prevent attainment of full systems complexity. This is why evolution gave us the mourning process. Through mourning in a shared social space, we are once again able to achieve full systems complexity. I would posit that because of the rapid accumulation of trauma leading to psychological dissociation in our society, trauma has become locked. Unfortunately this has driven more dissociation, such as information scientists wishing to disembody information that ultimately has led us to social media and the technology that supports it. We need societal mourning systems, and they are in short supply.[4] And this leads me to my final reason for why the path to the upper brain is blocked.
- Lack of Initiation Rituals—As Cozolino talks about, the amygdala, the brain’s main fear center, is fully developed at birth. And this makes sense because being able to quickly and easily detect fear will hopefully keep us alive. Up until the age of eighteen or so, the brain’s main form of control is through the amygdala, the brain’s central fear center. This is why early safe and secure attachment relationships are so important. They allow the organism (humans and many higher order animals) to use parents as surrogate upper brains that can not only appropriately process danger in the environment, but also prepare us for the day that the upper brain takes primary control from the amygdala. This transition from amygdala control to PFC (prefrontal cortex) control can be psychologically jarring if it does not go well. This is where, traditionally, initiation rituals have come into play. They are designed to usher the teenager into the realm of the reflective upper brain and a coherent sense of self. Sadly, like with shared mourning practices, initiation rituals are in short supply. Teenagers are often left to deal with the amygdala–PFC transition on their own.
In his work, neurologist Elkhonon Goldberg suggests that what plagues persons suffering from schizophrenia the most is “hearing” commands coming from the PFC as voices. Under normal circumstances the amygdala–PFC transition could be unnerving. This is why it’s important for adult figures, especially those acting as secondary attachment figures, to support teens in their passage into the upper brain and a productive relationship between middle and upper brains. Unfortunately as neurologist Jay Giedd points out in his 2015 article entitled The Amazing Teen Brain, “A mismatch in the maturation of brain networks leaves adolescents open to risky behavior but also allows for leaps in cognition and adaptability.” The period of time for this mismatch is growing, from the onset of puberty (now as early as ten years old) to the time the PFC comes online (now as late as age twenty four). It is for this reason that surrogate PFCs in the form of attachment figures, both primary and secondary, are needed more than ever. Sadly, teens are being turned over to social media and other technologies and are being left to fend for themselves, to initiate themselves, thus the mental health crisis we find ourselves in currently.
So, allow me to quickly summarize all of these possible solutions:
- Age-gate social media
- Ban phones in schools
- GOOD universal pre-K (i.e., really expensive)
- Breakup big tech (apparently already starting)
- Expand child tax credit
- Expand college enrollment and vocational programs
- Spend more (like 30 times more) on childcare and mental health
- Increase the minimum wage to $25/hour
- Encourage whole-book reading (at least five whole books per year)
- Recognize and address anti-attachment forces and trends such as postmodernism, posthumanism, and certain forms of emancipation
- Add a focus on organic systems and holism to our already robust focus on reductionism[5]
- Bring back societal forms of mourning and initiation rituals
- Encourage parents (as primary attachment figures) and others (as secondary attachment figures) to spend more time with children and teens acting as surrogate PFCs
- And if society asks for teachers, mentors, coaches, professors, psychotherapists, etc., to act as treatment providers and neurologists delivering attachment-informed therapy, be prepared to compensate them handsomely.
- Last but certainly not least, let’s start embracing Bowlby’s work. He was there when this whole Internet, social media mess got started. He saw the writing on the wall. And he chose evolution, organic systems theory, developmental psychology, and ethology (the study of animal behavior). Maybe it’s time to get back to basics. Maybe it’s time to put what was left on the cutting room floor back into the main reel of modern attachment so we can experience the full story.
Will any of the above actually happen? Probably not. Why? Well, that will be the topic of my next post.
Notes:
[1] – Here’s their web site:
https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org
[2] – Here’s the link:
[3] – Here’s the link:
[4] – Not too long ago, the DSM (diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders) made normal mourning a pathology. Talk about going in the wrong direction. By pathologizing mourning, you lock it in and, in turn, prevent healing. For more on this topic, read this article on the American Psychological Association’s efforts to pathologize normal mourning:
https://www.centerforloss.com/2022/04/grief-is-not-a-disorder/
[5] – Elizabeth Swain in her 2024 book Multisolving comes out in favor of systems thinking. However, she goes further and suggests that systems thinking should be done in the service of socialism and emancipation psychology.
In my 2011 book entitled Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth, I talk about the three waves of systems thinking as revealed in Gerald Midgley’s 2000 book Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, Methodology & Practice. Wave one focuses on biological systems like the various behavioral systems: sex, thirst, hunger, attachment, caregiving/receiving, the need for shelter, etc. Darwin and his theory of evolution would be an example of wave one systems thinking. Darwin’s original organic systems theory served as the foundation for work by Bertalanffy, and also Julian Huxley who wrote Evolution: The Modern Synthesis in 1942.
Wave two focuses on social systems. So-called social Darwinism would be an example here. Social Darwinists use Darwin’s theory to support the idea that “the strong should see their wealth and power increase, while the weak should see their wealth and power decrease,” quoting the Wikipedia entry for social Darwinism. In essence, social Darwinism is used to support capitalism and capitalist structures. However, scholars of wave one biological systems theory believe “that social Darwinism is not a necessary consequence of the principles of biological evolution,” quoting Wikipedia once again. Midgley tells us that wave two systems thinking was used in support of the civil rights movement of the 1960s that often took positions against capitalism and the abuse of power.
Wave three systems thinking centers on emancipation from the enslavement of the body and, by extension, biology. Wave three thinkers reject any notion of biological determinism, that biology in any way determines our destiny. This idea is supported by the notion that body and biology can be transcended, that we can become posthuman or transhuman, that the body can be jettisoned. This is why in Bowlby’s Battle I argue that information scientists and cyberneticists, who argue for disembodied information, and wave three systems thinkers who too wish to transcend biology, make strange bedfellows. (You can add in here believers in The Rapture, The End Times, and The Singularity.) So, when I suggest that we take on a systems perspective, I am talking about a wave one systems perspective, the same one Bowlby used to develop his theory of attachment. I do not feel that reductionism and wave one systems theory are mutually exclusive. According to Bertalaffy’s list of systems levels above, reductionism and holism exist on a continuum. We simply move back and forth on that continuum never leaving it. Taking up an end member to the exclusion of the other only serves to undermine the integrity of the overall system not unlike how cancer can undermine the overall integrity of our bodies, or trauma can undermine the overall integrity of our minds.
