Companionship versus Care: Bringing Models of Infancy into the Study of Adverse Childhood Experiences

The twenty-first century is generating new contexts within which the importance of human companionship can be illuminated. One context is the rise of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Movement, which has gathered international enthusiasm over two decades. This chapter argues that the study of ACEs lacks a robust developmental account and that the current turn toward attachment theory, with its emphasis on care and buffering, will ultimately be insufficient. Instead, the chapter suggests that the emphasis needs to be placed on companionship, locating the origins of childhood trauma within intersubjective processes. Untangling this theoretical tension matters both for the public, whose understanding of childhood trauma has sharpened, and for infancy researchers, whose discoveries of embodied emotionality hold greater societal import than they may themselves realize. It is hoped that, in the process, the name of Colwyn Trevarthen, one of most influential scientists leading those discoveries, might gain the public esteem his legacy deserves.