If you do a search for Vladimir Putin on Google Images, you’ll discover not a single picture displaying his teeth. In virtually every picture his face is either blank or frowning. Dopamine and serotonin are key neurotransmitters responsible for making us smile. My hypothesis would be that Putin’s brain and body are low in both these feel-good chemical messengers. I would also posit that his brain and body are high in the hormone testosterone. High levels of testosterone also correlate with an inability to smile.
Over the course of his 69 years. Putin is believed to be directly responsible for the pain, suffering and death of many human beings. You don’t authorize and orchestrate such actions without it having a profoundly adverse affect on your neurophysiology. He’s no different than Joystick Warriors – pilots located in Langley, Virginia – delivering airstikes in eight different countries: their brains and bodies are negatively affected by their actions, even from thousands of miles away. For all of its power and glory, yours becomes a joyless life.
Developmentally Delayed
If we view Putin’s development through the lens of Attachment and Adverse Childhood Experiences research, he becomes the poster boy for how trauma can compromise brain function.
Of the four ways that human beings can connect to signiificant people in their lives, I eould make a strong case that Putin would come out on the “Discorganized” end of the Attachment Spectrum (Secure, Ambivalent and Avoidant are the other three attachment styles, each with their own characteristics). Adults with Disorganized Attachment lack understanding of their own and others’ feelings, are unpredictable and illogical, frequently exhibit aggressive behavior and tend to have a negative view of themselves and others. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, both of Putin’s parents were out of the house working – he was essentially a latchkey kid. There was no “trustworthy other” to help shape his relational nervous system in other than dysfunctional ways.
As for Adverse Childhood Experiences, according to Jane Ellen Stevens, “when you look at Putin’s early years, the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) pile up—lack of food, inadequate housing, bullying, neglect, parental depression, etc. And he obviously inherited a bunch of ACEs from his parents, including wartime trauma personified by Nazi forces that threatened their existence and their homeland” (The Nazis murdered most of Leningrad’s 3 million citizens during WWII).
Dealing with Brain Damage
When someone with this kind of compromised personal history comes into power internationally, the stakes for the rest of us change profoundly. The wisdom response to such people is that they must be restrained in order to keep them from perpetrating the pain and suffering that they inevitably wreak upon others.
The possibility for restraining such people becomes challenging, to say the least, when that person has a nuclear arsenal at their disposal. Nevertheless, such people cannot operate in a vacuum. They must have people around them to do their bidding. It is those people – the high-ranking authorities around Putin – that I believe the most strategic interventions should be directed. Presumably, some of them have had less disorganized early beginnings, beginnings that will have resulted in robust capacities for Executive Functions being operational in their brains. When you look over THE LIST of those capacities, it becomes clear that they are compromised in Putin’s brain, especially the ability to see the big picture going forward. Despots who invade other countries with no provocation tend not to fare well over the long term. The world’s best hope is that such capacities are not compromised in at least a few of Putin’s inner circle.
Thanks for this, Mark. Grateful to be healing my own damaged brain, one day at a time.
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Before you go invading … Maine. Oh wait, you already have! 🙂 XOXOX Mark
Great work, Mark. You humanize Putin which is important. As a trauma informed therapist, I am reminded to ask not “what’s wrong with this person” but rather “what happened to this person.” This may not help save the world from a dangerous man, but it softens my own toxic hatred towards him inside myself. Best way I know to turn suffering back into pain again, which is sometimes the best outcome we can hope for given the circumstances. Great to hear your voice again!
When you look at the havoc taking place in Ukraine right now, it becomes unmistakeably clear that it is the work of dysfunctional neurophysiology, in great measure, passed down generationally. Trauma, unfortunately, begets trauma. I learned as a kid to steer clear of wounded people. Most of the people in Ukraine, unfortunately, do not have that option. Hopefully, all of us – the rest of the world – will be brought skillffully to bear.
Your interpretation of this is very insightful. I especially like the reason he doesn’t seem to be able to smile. I would say poor guy but he is off the charts in his aggression. I’m with you in hoping his “advisors” have some semblance of a heart and a somewhat healthy brain.
All I have to do, Judy, is look at my own trauma history, and see how it works to distort the world. The bad news is … as the stress of being at war increases, flexible intelligence decreases. And it’s not like Putin’s hasn’t already decreased significantly. XOXOX Mark
On Mon, Mar 7, 2022 at 8:13 AM The Flowering Brain wrote:
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Great to read you again, Mark! When wounded people become parents, they can be shown ways to repair when seeing their baby as a whole human being. Seeing infants with humanized eyes is the approach of obstetrician Frederik Leboyer’s “Gentle Birth” and infant specialist/therapist Magda Gerber’s Educaring® Approach. Seems like slow forward learning to help prevent repeated wounds.
Thanks for your measured voice in these traumatic times! I always ask that question “can’t we just all get along?!” This time, I just wish that the Russian army would collectively see how wrong and criminal their actions are and just STOP doing Putin’s bidding! I wish those around Putin would just say no! But is that realistic? When people do bad things, they have made bad choices, and they can choose NOT to make those choices. I can only hope.
XOXO, Megan
What would Jane Goodall say? Her new “Book of Hope” is illuminating! She calls it “indomitable spirit” – I’ll go for that!
sorry can’t help myself-Despot not depot?
I LOVE your take on this traumatic upbringing-circumstantial or genetic or both. I don’t run a country, but as a Mom of 3 young adults I sure wish I had these insights earlier. I continue to explore & heal my own traumas & ACEs through a program with Rachel Yellin called “The Feel Good Life” (A nervous system rewiring and pleasure training program for women) I’m telling her about you too ; )
Yes, you are one smart guy to assess Putin this way; I have mentioned this particular post to many people; hopefully it will get the attention it deserves because change happens in small increments; I suspect the indomitable courage of Ukraine’s citizens and NATO’s unified stance has surprised Putin and he wishes he had never started this(maybe)—-what would be nice is if everyone use as little gas as possible this summer and coming out of a pandemic with the enforced stay-home orders, it will be difficult but we need to bring gas prices down by using none—another blow to the Impaler, Putin, who thought at one time that the west needed Russian oil. No we do not.
Kind of sad really to know that he could have made a more indelible mark upon history by utilizing Russia’s real and ONLY claim to lasting fame and that would be the arts—composers, writers, artists, dance. Stay home, conserve gas and read the Russian classics.