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The "Face-Game" vs. "The Gaze" The Face-Game orients the child to the outer world; The Gaze is an anchor to the child's inner world. The Gaze - full attention and Presence - I would say ATTUNEMENT - to the child by the caregiver - confirms the child's sense of itself, and becomes a touchstone that it can give itself as it grows, to balance and eventually counter overwhelm by the Face-Game. That is the supreme importance of attunement to children. It is a level of presence that brings the child and the caregiver into resonance; the caregiver's steady full presence provides the child with the safety in which to experience its own being-to-itself. I would suggest that as the child grows, the continued GAZE of the caregiver adapts to the child's development, and grows along with it - enhancing the experience of both. In that way, the child's native gifts come forward into the field created by the attunement between child and caregiver, and its creativity gains the space to grow and express itself, within the safety of the GAZE. (Of course caregivers in actual life - beyond infancy - are not actually LOOKING at the child every minute; but as the child internalizes the experience of being attuned with, the caretaker does not have to be present for the GAZE to provide this safety. Confidence, friendship with its inner world and experience, and the ability to be present to others while not abandoning the self: these are gifts of the GAZE. The GAZE is what enables the child to hold its own in the Face Game.

What an infinite relief!

My first response is that just reading this article helps me overcome the baseline sense of loneliness that pervades our culture now. To recognize relatedness is the only thing that can heal the destruction wrought by so much emphasis on the individual as a singular, isolated agent in their own life. I sighed with relief reading this.

This writing is beyond helpful to me. Since the earliest realization that I was expected to "make my way in the world," survival was the foremost consideration. I have been miserable in most of the 'jobs' I have ever had because I felt, physically, my enslavement to a system that serves only itself. My solution - which I will not state here, but which is extremely risky, though in all ways legal/moral/ethical - is now endangered more than ever. But for the first time, I am glad I made the choices I did, reading this perspective. THANK YOU!

Could I do that? Share another's wound? That Polish man had confidence that he was important enough to save; that gave him courage. What if you don't have confidence that you're important enough to save? You could ask anyway, I guess, and have to live with the "No" that he would have gotten, had he not been of value to the Nazis.

I love Suleika and read her Isolation Journals; I think "American Symphony" deserved the Oscar; I find her, and her brilliant husband Jon Batiste an inspiration. Thanks for this selection!

Is writing as effective, like complaining in a journal? Or do you have to do it out loud?

OMG. When I think of all the times in my long life when I've given myself grief for "not knowing my life path" or "having no goals,"...little did I realize that coddywimpling IS my life path! What a relief! Thank you!