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ARTICLE HISTORY Received 30 September 2025; Accepted 10 November 2025
In their essay, “Two diverging paths in psychological and neurobiological organization: Using or refusing love,” William Singletary and Timothy Rice provide us with a very rich work in which they integrate neuroscience findings with psychological findings, particularly those which are derived from psychoanalytic ideas.
They summarize their thesis noting that “early life experiences of actual danger or perceived danger,” (Singletary & Rice, , p. 10). that is, situations which promote a great deal of ongoing stress to the developing infant, lead to “epigenetic changes in the oxytocin/vasopressin system with maladaptive consequences over a lifetime.” (p. 10). Oxytocin facilitates cooperative human connectedness and vasopressin promotes aggression, vigilance, and defensive behavior. As a result of the stress there is an allostatic load, that is, a cumulative effect on the body of the chronic exposure to the stressful stimuli. This leads to both physiological and psychological damage. This allostatic load prevents the establishment of stable homeostasis, both physically and psychologically. As a result there are two paths to development: one in which safety and metabolizing love is predominant and the second, refusing love and experiencing loneliness and illness.
An important clinical example describes this second, pathological, outcome: a view of the world as an unsafe place. They describe a young boy who left a toy in Dr. Singletary’s office. “Before he came to the next session, I placed this toy on a table for him. When he walked into my office, he saw his toy and immediately exclaimed, ‘You stole my toy!’” (Singletary & Rice, , p. 5). In a very simple way, this example illustrates how a little boy, undoubtedly traumatized and in a constant state of stress, refuses to or cannot accept the love provided by the adult through returning his toy.
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