Organization of Relationships: Messiness and Reparation

The development of loving others, the sense of trust and future emotional well-being, evolves through communication of mothers’ and infants’ loving feelings toward each other and is the foundation for loving others over the life span. Critical to loving is the mutual capacity to navigate and repair the inevitable emotional commotions, disruptions, and even fiery uproars experienced in this most intimate relationship and in later adult couple relationships. Mother and infant do not move in complete harmony with each other but rather dance in and out of loving attunement. When most of us dance, we bump into one another, apologize, and then get back to dancing together—it is a messy process. Finding loving attunement again—the reparation of failures—builds love and trust; lack of reparation for ...