ALL COMEDY IS CONSERVATIVE:

When 20-year-old Khamzat Azimov went on a deadly stabbing spree in Paris this month, a May 12 attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, details about his upbringing caught the attention of psychoanalyst and counterterrorism expert Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin. [...]

"The problem is that these terrorists are coming from shame-honor cultures, which are dysfunctional by definition," Kobrin explains.

"Their reservoir of rage arises from problems nested in early maternal attachment in shame-honor cultures -- the early mother-infant bonding attachment, the first relationship in life," Kobrin says. [...]

Infants in shame-honor cultures, she says, are also often treated like objects and learn to repress their feelings to the point that internal rage can boil within.

Making matters worse, Kobrin says, women in shame-honor cultures are also often devalued, objectified, or even physically abused.

"Women who are abused also become full of rage," Kobrin says, noting that subconscious reactions of young mothers to abuse seriously impact a child's early development.

The first four years of a child's life is a crucial time when most infants develop empathy for other human beings, she says, adding that the lack of empathy and concern for the pain that terrorists cause to others is "almost worse than the terrorist attacks themselves."

[I] have spent years researching a major field of psychology known as attachment theory for a book. According to the science of attachment--developed in the second half of the 20th century by British psychotherapist John Bowlby--we're hardwired at birth to attach to a competent and reliable caregiver for protection because we are born helpless. The success or failure of this attachment affects all our relationships throughout life--in the workplace, on the athletic field, with loved ones--and yes, even in politics. Children who bond successfully with a primary caregiver--usually this is the mom but it could also be the dad, grandparent, nanny or other adult--grow up with what is termed a "secure" attachment. As adults, they tend to be confident, trusting of others, resilient in the face of setbacks, and able to enjoy long, stable relationships. Children who fail to achieve a successful attachment, on the other hand, may as adults have a lack of comfort with intimacy, difficulty trusting others, a constant need for reassurance from relationship partners, and a lack of resilience when faced with illness, injury or loss.

The biographical record is fairly strong on Trump's failure to develop a healthy emotional attachment to either of his parents. It may have contributed to his tumultuous personal life, but it also endowed him with some traits that made him well-suited to his late-career entry in politics.

Donald Trump is the fourth of five children of Fred and Mary Trump. Because his father was busy building a real estate business, and it was the mid-20th century when dads didn't typically do a lot of early child care, his mother cared for the children (with the help of a live-in maid) and was their primary "attachment figure." What factors may have affected the quality of young Donald's early care--his own temperament as an infant; the role, if any, of the family's maid in child care; the demands on his mother's time and energy of three older children and a subsequent pregnancy--we don't know. The president's own writings are largely silent about his early childhood; journalists and biographers fill in only some of the blanks.

But we do know that Mary Trump became seriously ill from complications during labor with her last child. An emergency hysterectomy and subsequent infections and surgeries followed--four in two weeks, one of her oldest daughters once said. As a result, at just two years and two months of age, Trump endured the trauma of the prolonged absence and life-threatening illness of his mother. It's not clear how long she was incapacitated. Indeed, we don't know that she ever really re-engaged with her son. According to a Politico Magazine story on Mary Trump, there's evidence that Mary and her son didn't interact much during his childhood (more on this later).

Infants who fail to receive that kind of care usually fall into one of two categories as adults. Either they have what's called attachment anxiety--leading them as adults to crave intimacy but have difficulty trusting others and constantly seeking reassurance--or they have attachment avoidance, where as adults they generally distrust others and convince themselves they don't need close relationships. The relationships they do have are often unstable. They also tend to be excessively self-reliant and desire a high level of independence. These last two traits--self-reliance and independence--are not necessarily disadvantageous, of course. They might be just the right recipe, for example, for an entrepreneur.

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