The Kind of Hunger People Don’t Talk About (thriveglobal.com)

During this time of isolation, small moments of tenderness can help us feel more connected than ever.

I believe that what is too often missing in people’s lives is the satisfaction of a fundamental need that they have not fully grasped or understood. The Dutch have a word huidhonger, meaning “skin hunger,” the feeling people develop when they are disconnected from one another. Let’s add to that another word that relates to emotional hunger: a Japanese everyday noun amae, loosely translated as “the expectation to be sweetly and indulgently loved.”  

In an effort to better understand and help his patients, Japanese psychiatrist Takeo Doi noticed something that surprised him. Hidden in the everyday language of his culture, he discovered, was a key to unlocking the mysteries of many of his patients’ psychological and emotional distress.  Amae, the need for sweet care, originates in the earliest bond between baby and mother, and remains in us like a kernel of goodness all our lives. Its usage in Japan is commonplace, amongst people of all ages and in varied situations. Most interestingly, there are a large number of Japanese words to describe all kinds of troubled mental states that arise when this need is frustrated or denied. 

Dr. Doi’s perspective is that this “dependent love,” is not immature, to be outgrown as quickly as possible, but is in fact the very foundation of human connections. Unfortunately, we Americans grow up in a culture where being “independent” is held up as a supreme achievement, while dependency is widely considered a liability. Thus, we routinely miss the pleasurable reciprocity of the emotional world of amae. 

When I co-wrote my first book with Dr. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, we used  the word cherishment to translate Doi’s amae. But to explain this silent hard-to-talk about emotion in even clearer terms, I kept searching for an even better equivalent English word. How do you speak about something that is non-verbal, something that is received into us, or simply given outward from us, not talked about? Indeed, cherishment loses its special power if you have to ask for it. 

Then — I found the word, which had been staring me in the face all the time, because it is, literally, everywhere. Tenderness. 

To read more of Faith Bethelard, Psy.D. D.S.S., Clinical Psychologist, article, please click here.