The family represents the ecological nest of the human species and constitutes our affective core. It’s where we experience love and learn to love, and where the development of our potentials begins. The family environment needs to have the conditions of affective warmth, freedom, nutrition and safety (TORO). When we are loved and protected within the family we become able to love ourselves and others. For a family to have a healthy affective core each member needs to be loved, wanted, cared for, respected and protected, and not smothered. It’s important to have the space to express feelings and ideas with sincerity and spontaneity. It is within the family that we have the first opportunities to experience our own affection and to build affective bonds.
When we don’t encounter this affective core within the family we continue to search for it throughout our lives. In this sense, the Biodanza group can function as an affective matrix to those who haven’t had it in their early childhood, and thus help in establishing an affective network. Biodanza considers that in the absence of the family as "an ecological nest that creates and fosters life," an affectionate and sincere group can occupy this place and trigger the beginning of the development of the existential project of those members.
We know that in our society many families do not offer this affective core. People relate poorly and there is a lot of repression and authoritarianism that prevents others from standing up and establishing themselves as individuals. These families are considered toxic by systemic psychologists because of their pathological relationship patterns (symbiotic, lack of dialogue, alcoholism, etc.). People who grow up without being able to show their growth suffer a lot with such relationships. In Biodanza, when we receive people who come from these so-called toxic families, we can be certain that the group becomes a channel for the opening of affectivity and the formation of bonds within this ‘new family’, because when any change occurs in one of the members, it reaches, in one way or another, the whole family system.
In general, the way that civilization is structured hinders the expression of our affective potential. This happens because nations need to maintain power and control by producing fearful citizens who are quick to obey commands. This makes people embody the insecurity, fear and difficulty of expressing themselves as thinking and sensitive beings.
To maintain the dominant ideology with all its norms and standards it’s often necessary to prevent the authentic expression of the Being. Through its theoretical model and the biocentric principle, Biodanza proposes not only to awaken people to the world they live in as members of a society but also to make them feel and live their worth as human beings.
The line of affectivity has contributed much to this process, because it is through affectivity that we believe we can rescue the gregarious instinct in the human being, under threat by capitalism's worship of individualism and the accumulation of material goods. Moreover, affectivity strengthens and develops emotional health, enabling people to show solidarity and together defend their lives and the life of the universe.
In short, the exercises in the line of affectivity facilitate encounters, the development of affective bonds, and promotes affective communication between people. Consequently, they generate love, solidarity, self-confidence and feelings of security. All these reinforce our sense of identity and self-esteem, and increase the free expression of affection and authentic expression of the Being. Therefore, caresses are very important for human beings, and give us the dimension of who we are.