Why Satiating "Affect Hunger" Is Crucial for Children

As newborns, we are prewired to satiate our hunger for “affect,” which in psychology means the experience of feeling or emotion. Affect hunger is the cosmic glue that binds the newborn to their mother. It is the invisible drive that anchors, guides, and warmly welcomes the infant into the world. Infants possess an innate need to experience feelings and emotions at birth. Like a plant that bends toward light, children are hardwired to connect with their birth mother. Such a drive originates in the most primitive part of the mammalian brain and is all about survival. Yet, this essential psychological need is frequently neglected by parents and caregivers. If the child’s persistent affect hunger is not satiated, feelings of emotional deprivation occur. Being loved, protected, and cared for should be a birthright, but many children’s basic emotional needs go unmet.

Classic Research Findings

I first became interested in affect hunger in 1972 after studying the Rorschach Test and learning the Beck method of scoring and interpretation. Throughout my practice, especially regarding differential diagnoses, I have referred to Dr. Samuel J. Beck’s description of “The texture determinant, T,” which he explores in his book, Rorschach’s Test, II: A Variety of Personality Pictures.²:

The texture determinant, T, offers a clue to the concept of affect-hunger, projecting an erotic need deeply embedded in the early character formation. D. M. Levy³ discusses this concept in relation to maternal overprotection. Some early experimental studies by Levy provide controlled observation of this phenomenon and its implication for oral erotic gratification. Relevant to this topic are Harlow’s research⁴ concerning the effects upon love in the infant monkey and his use of cloth and wire as mother surrogates. His results appear to point to the importance of close bodily contact.

He continues:

The experience inherent in texture (T) is one of direct contact and in which the skin feels directly. Thus, T is generic to basic feelings of security, the anxiety aroused owing to deprivation of this contact, and the defensive strategies which are activated. The feeling tone projected is related to passive, dependent longings deeply seated in the oral character structure, concomitant with sensed rejection and deprivation, trophic and emotional. The need or “press” projected in T stems from the very roots of the early symbiotic mother-child relationship.

In other words, early in an infant’s life, physical contact between infant and caregiver is crucial for laying down a basic sense of security at a time when the child is not yet able to articulate and express his or her own needs. Touch is the infant’s first language.

David Levy, M.D., a leading child psychiatrist and advocate of the Rorschach test, wrote a classic paper in 1937 entitled “Primary Affect Hunger.” He interpreted this lack of texture and bodily contact as follows:

The term, affect hunger, is used to mean an emotional hunger for maternal love and those other feelings of protection and care implied in the mother-child relationship. The term has been utilized to indicate a state of privation due primarily to a lack of maternal affection, with a resulting need, as of food in a state of starvation… I am using the term to apply only to individuals who have suffered lack of maternal love in the early years of life. Assuming for the moment the value of maternal love as an essential component in the development of the emotional life, what happens when this element is left out of the primary social relationship? Is it possible that there results a deficiency disease of the emotional life, comparable to a deficiency of vital nutritional elements within the developing organism?⁵

My Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Findings

Throughout my years of practice, I conducted thousands of comprehensive psychological evaluations. In almost all cases, there was a consistently high correlation between affect hunger, maternal rejection, and lack of close bodily contact occurring in the early years of life. This was also the case with adults who I evaluated and treated, whose problems likely had their origins in primary affect hunger. These adults were physically and emotionally neglected by their parents at an early age. Essentially, they had been deprived and were delayed in their social and emotional development. They presented with severe psychological disorders and poor overall psychological functioning.

Impact of Parental Neglect

Beck, who also spoke of the anxiety triggered when we are deprived of affection and security, first published his book in 1945. Since then, few have followed in his footsteps. While searching the American Psychological Association (APA) databases 71 years later, I found only three articles about affect hunger. Why have so few focused on this critical human need? Is my field ignoring the “God particle,” the core ingredient upon which healthy psychological growth depends? Unless this unseen evolutionary need is met, mother and child fail to bond. Without this spark, our child’s emotional life can’t ignite, which significantly decreases his or her ability to thrive.

Professional thinking and guidelines have changed regarding the meaning of child neglect. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) defines child neglect, in the section entitled “Child Maltreatment and Neglect Problems,” as follows:

Child Neglect is defined as any confirmed or suspected egregious act or omission by a child’s parent or other caregiver that deprives the child of basic age-appropriate needs and thereby results, or has reasonable potential to result, in physical or psychological harm to the child. Child neglect encompasses abandonment; lack of appropriate supervision; failure to attend to necessary emotional or psychological needs; and failure to provide necessary education, medical care, nourishment, shelter, and/or clothing.⁶

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There is a reason why failing to provide our child with warmth, protection, and caring constitutes neglect. Such basic needs must be met to sustain healthy psychological functioning. They provide the building blocks for all future psychosocial and emotional development. They are the psychological equivalent of oxygen and food, which we crave from birth and require throughout our lives. If our affect hunger is met, we gain a greater capacity to regulate our lives while seeking meaning, self-fulfillment, and becoming happier and self-sufficient.

As already mentioned, there is little to be found in professional literature and research relevant to affect hunger. However, one psychologist, Dr. Bryan Egeland, at the University of Minnesota, became a pioneer in the study of neglect. In 1975, he began a research study and followed two hundred children from birth to adolescence. His goal was to discover the causal influences and effects of child abuse and neglect. His classic study resulted in several salient findings⁷:

1. As many as 55 percent of the two hundred subjects did not become securely attached to their mother by the time they were one year old.
2. Children raised by psychologically unavailable mothers were more withdrawn and dependent and experienced the highest degree of decline in mental and behavioral development as they aged. These levels were significantly worse than those of the children who had been physically abused.
3. The mothers who hadn’t been abused as children were significantly more able to comprehend and respond to their children’s emotional needs.
4. The extremely needy mothers were unable to nurture. They expected their children to gratify their own needs for love and nurturance.
5. The study concluded that “teaching caretaking skills is far less important than helping these mothers understand the meaning of the child’s behavior and how to respond to it.”