And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. (The Bible, Genesis 2:19-20)

The quote above is, from a certain perspective, mysterious. I guess that everyone recognizes the moment when God’s newest creation – the human being – meets the other previously created beings. God asks Adam to take possession of these beings and to look after them. But then, strangely, God asks Adam to give them a name. It is not God who gave the names of the living beings, but Adam. And, apparently, this was a significant event, sufficiently important so as to be mentioned in the Bible. We are left with a question: Why God didn’t name Himself the other beings, before the creation of man?

In order to understand, perhaps we should put ourselves in the position of Adam. He is newly created but we could also say that he is newly-born. Just like a child, he encounters the world and its creatures. He doesn’t understand much of what he sees, so he has an important task ahead of him: he must organize his reality, his perceptions. From a chaotic amalgam of beings, he must identify and individualize separate entities. The only option is to give different names to each and every entity; he is, literally, organizing his perceptive field into notions and classes of notions. In this way, a cow becomes a cow, a dog becomes a dog, a cat becomes a cat, and so on. What was indistinct and obscure suddenly becomes cognoscible, purely by the simple act of giving a name. And since the Bible contains the story of Adam and his descendants, God allows him the freedom to name his reality; it will be, after all, his own and personal story…

If we think about it, every child being born into this world must repeat what Adam did; the child needs to learn to identify what he feels, needs, desires, perceives as bodily sensations… and he must also put all these experiences into language, into words. He must give a name for pleasure, fear, sadness, anger, hunger, thirst, pain, etc. And, just as God probably remained by the side of Adam when he named the other beings, the child’s parents should also spend time with him, to provide the necessary conversations aimed at validating this process of appropriating (taking over) the world by the child. In practice, it means that some discussions about words, concepts and meanings of the child’s experiences are necessary, so that the child can make sense of the world.

What if we don’t communicate with the child? What if we are not there, with him, when he needs us? What if the child has to manage alone experiences that perhaps are too difficult for him to understand, given his level of mental and emotional development?

If, for instance, my parents are divorcing… why do I have to feel responsible to bring them together and then spend my entire life doing “the impossible” because there was nobody next to me who could tell me that this is not my job and it is, anyway, beyond my control to reconcile my stupid parents!?!

If, for instance, my parents are (physically and noisily) fighting, being drunk or high… why do I have to feel guilty and wrongly believe that it is my fault because they are quarreling, and spend my entire life assuming stupid responsibilities or avoiding to stand up for my rights, being fearful and living on my knees!?!

If, for instance, my parents are emotionally absent during my early years and do not pay attention to me when I come to them and ask for advice… why do I have to spend my entire life believing that I am a “nobody” who is rejected by everyone and deserves nothing, and why should I also neglect myself and disregard my needs and kill my desires and enthusiasm because there was nobody with me during my childhood with whom I could share my joy and my zest, and perhaps also someone who could have taught me how to play (or actually played with me)!?!

You see… if the experiences from the childhood time remain without linguistic symbolization, if nobody talks to the child and explains what happens, what he feels, the significance of his perceptions, the entire experience remains implicit, wordless, and horribly misunderstood… Or, very often, large chunks of childhood are repressed and completely forgotten… if not even the entire childhood gets wiped out from the memory, only to be unearthed – if lucky – during some lengthy and painful psychotherapeutic process, when the childhood experiences are finally named, put into words, integrated in some coherent narrative…

There are parents who “are taking care of the children’s emotions” by hiding or avoiding discussions. They behave like the proverbial ostriches hiding their head in the sand and pretending that life never happened. This is wrong. The human being is one of the toughest creatures you will ever encounter and the child can tolerate immense traumatic events with only one condition: someone must be with him and explain to him what happens, what he feels, what he perceives. The child does not need to be protected by a shield of denial, by pretending that it didn’t happen; it needs – as Adam needed to do at the dawn of civilization – to give a name to that experience, to that feeling, to that body sensation. That’s it. The child needs to process, emotionally, if something traumatic happens early in his life. A divorce can be explained in simple terms. The death of a parent can be explained in simple terms. Everything traumatic can be explained, so that the emotional process of grief can start and the child can begin to make sense of the experience.

To give a name is easy, yet it is very difficult for some. It can take years to be able to say – to yourself and then assume it in front of the world – that you are sad, that you are afraid, that you are angry. It can take many years to find your own words… especially when nobody ever told you those words…

And then Adam said: this is my Fear… and this is my Anger… and, over there, is my Sadness… and you… I call you Pain… and here… I think I’ll call you Joy…

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