What's the Cat Hair?

A few months ago I began a weekly clinical group that meets for 90 minutes each Monday and focuses on how to help children and families who have been traumatized.
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This week I am readily sharing information that I think is both helpful and fascinating. It's about play.
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Almost all young mammals, including humans, play. Why is that? In a nutshell, most social scientists believe that play is a way to feel joy and is very very important in how well young mammals evolve.
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So in 1998 a neuroscientist named Jaak Pansepp conducted in depth studies on young rat pups at play in their cages. He observed them initiating rough and tumble and clearly enjoyable play with each other for four days straight.
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On the fifth day, he introduced a minimally threatening stimulus into their environment: a hair from a cat. He left the hair in the cage for only 24 hours and then removed it.
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Guess what happened to the rat pups' play after the cat hair was introduced and then removed?
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It is important to realize that these experiments were conducted with lab rats. They had never actually seen a cat. So here's the scene: the young rats are happily playing for four days. On the day the cat hair is introduced, play completely stops. Even after the cat hair is removed, play never returns to the level where it was before the time the hair was introduced.
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Here's the question: what happens when a signal of danger is introduced, even briefly, into their environment?

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Here's the answer: it changes everything. And like these rat pups, if you happen to be really young or really vulnerable, it can mean that life is never the same again.

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What an interesting question: "What's the cat hair?" Because if there is a single cat hair in a person's environment and it is not addressed, nothing else is important until it is no longer a threat. It makes no sense to try to fix anything else or expect someone to attend to anything else if there is a signal in the environment that represents a threat. The actual cat hair may be long gone, but unless you know you're safe, any number of events or "triggers" can simply and fully get in the way of play--get in the way of joy.

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So in difficult times, it makes sense to ask, "What's the cat hair?"

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For me, this is an easy question to remember, an apt way perhaps of thinking about what gets in the way of living a happy playful life.
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So how about it: What's the cat hair?