NYT: Attachment Theory: Yes, It’s Your Parents’ Fault

Posted on by doctorsuzana

I have long found Attachment Theory to be one of the most useful lenses through which to view and understand troubled parent-child relationships.  It is also a school of thought that can be a very helpful mode of self-study for adults seeking a better understanding of the roots of their unhealthy relationships….

Excerpted from The New York Times

Sunday Review | NEWS ANALYSIS

Yes, It’s Your Parents’ Fault

By KATE MURPHY

JAN. 7, 2017

We live in a culture that celebrates individualism and self-reliance, and yet we humans are an exquisitely social species, thriving in good company and suffering in isolation. More than anything else, our intimate relationships, or lack thereof, shape and define our lives.

While there have been many schools of thought to help us understand what strains and maintains human bonds, from Freudian to Gestalt, one of the most rigorously studied may be the least known to the public.

It’s called attachment theory, and there’s growing consensus about its capacity to explain and improve how we function in relationships.

Conceived more than 50 years ago by the British psychoanalyst John Bowlby and scientifically validated by an American developmental psychologist, Mary S. Ainsworth, attachment theory is now having a breakout moment, applied everywhere from inner-city preschools to executive coaching programs. Experts in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, sociology and education say the theory’s underlying assumption — that the quality of our early attachments profoundly influences how we behave as adults — has special resonance in an era when people seem more attached to their smartphones than to one another.

By the end of our first year, we have stamped on our baby brains a pretty indelible template of how we think relationships work, based on how our parents or other primary caregivers treat us. From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes sense, because we need to figure out early on how to survive in our immediate environment.

“If you’re securely attached, that’s great, because you have the expectation that if you are distressed you will be able to turn to someone for help and feel you can be there for others,” said Miriam Steele, the co-director of the Center for Attachment Research at the New School for Social Research in New York.

It’s not so great if you are one of the 40 percent to 50 percent of babies who, a meta-analysis of research indicates, are insecurely attached because their early experiences were suboptimal (their caregivers were distracted, overbearing, dismissive, unreliable, absent or perhaps threatening). “Then you have to earn your security,” Dr. Steele said, by later forming secure attachments that help you override your flawed internal working model.

Given that the divorce rate is also 40 percent to 50 percent, it would seem that this is not an easy task. Indeed, researchers said, people who have insecure attachment models tend to be drawn to those who fit their expectations, even if they are treated badly. They may subconsciously act in ways that elicit insensitive, unreliable or abusive behavior, whatever is most familiar. Or they may flee secure attachments because they feel unfamiliar….

 

….One reason attachment theory has “gained so much traction lately is its ideas and observations are so resonant with our daily lives,” said Kenneth Levy, an associate professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University who researches attachment-oriented psychotherapy.

Indeed, if you look at the classic categories of attachment styles — secure; insecure anxious; insecure avoidant; and insecure disorganized — it’s pretty easy to figure out which one applies to you and others in your life. The categories stem from tens of thousands of observations of babies and toddlers whose caregivers leave them briefly, either alone or with a stranger, and then return, a test known as the “strange situation.” The labels can also apply to how adults behave toward loved ones in times of stress.

Secure children get upset when their caregivers leave, and run toward them with outstretched arms when they return. They fold into the caregiver and are quickly soothed. A securely attached adult similarly goes to a loved one for comfort and support when they, say, are passed over for a promotion at work or feel vulnerable or hurt. They are also eager to reciprocate when the tables are turned.

Children high on the insecure anxious end of the spectrum get upset when caregivers leave and may go to them when they return. But these children aren’t easily soothed, usually because the caregiver has proved to be an unreliable source of comfort in the past. They may kick and arch their back as if they are angry. As adults, they tend to obsess about their relationships and may be overly dramatic in order to get attention. They may hound romantic interests instead of taking it slow.

Insecure avoidant children don’t register distress when their caregivers leave (although their stress hormones and heart rate may be sky high) and they don’t show much interest when caregivers return, because they are used to being ignored or rebuffed. Alternatively, a parent may have smothered them with too much attention. Insecure avoidant adults tend to have trouble with intimacy and are more likely to leave relationships, particularly if they are going well. They may not return calls and resist talking about their feelings.

Finally, insecure disorganized children and adults display both anxious and avoidant behaviors in an illogical and erratic manner. This behavior is usually the lingering result of situations where a childhood caregiver was threatening or abusive….

….“It can also be possible that people should be viewed as along a continuum in all categories,” said Glenn I. Roisman, the director of the Relationships Research Lab at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

It’s worth noting that just as people in the insecure categories can become more secure when they form close relationships with secure people, secure people can become less so if paired with people who are insecure. “You need social context to sustain your sense of security,” said Peter Fonagy, a professor of psychoanalysis at University College London.

 

Kate Murphy is a journalist in Houston who writes frequently for The New York Times.

Can You Learn Self-Control?

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NYT.com: OpTalk

Can You Learn Self-Control?

By

October 14, 2014

Walter Mischel conducted one of the most famous experiments in 20th-century psychology. In the late 1960s, he oversaw a test at Stanford University using a group of preschoolers. These studies gave him access to children whom he subsequently tracked for decades, collecting data on each child’s education, health and other factors. Now, more than 40 years later, he’s published a book, “The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self Control,” about the experiments.

In the marshmallow test, Mr. Mischel asked a preschool child to choose between receiving one small reward now (say, one marshmallow or one cookie) and waiting a short amount of time — about 10 minutes — to receive two rewards (two marshmallows or two cookies)….

…The test was designed to measure a child’s ability to delay gratification. The major problem at the heart of the test is the concept of intertemporal choice; that is, how we compare a larger delayed reward against a smaller immediate one. In study after study it’s been shown that our brains tend to undervalue a bigger payoff in the long-run, no matter what the objective calculation is.

In Mr. Mischel’s view, this is a test of willpower: the ability to use the brain’s executive, rational functions to overcome the immediacy — and emotional potency — of desire. In subsequent studies of his original subjects, Mr. Mischel found that children that were able to withstand temptation and wait for another treat were likely to have higher SAT scores, achieve higher educational degrees, earn more money and have a lower body mass index, an indication of healthy weight.

As Pamela Druckerman revealed in an Op-Ed for The New York Times last month, many parents (Ms. Druckerman included) subject their own children to the test, hoping to ascertain some glimpse of their child’s future. Mr. Mischel explains to her, however, that the results of the test are not destiny. On the contrary, self-control can be taught, and not only in childhood.

Mr. Mischel tells Ms. Druckerman that adults can learn from the children’s spontaneous attempts to resist temptation. Children were most successful when they tried to occupy their attention with something else — make up a song, say, or turn their back on the marshmallow — or transformed the object of desire in their mind, perhaps by imagining it as a piece of cotton or pretending it was smelly or dirty.

…Likewise, adults are better at avoiding temptation when they employ methods of distraction or distancing….

…Those habits can help us achieve what Mr. Mischel calls “a burning goal”: a long-term objective that requires consistent and often arduous work and attention….

…The key, all of these writers say, is to counter something that is emotionally “hot” — desire, temptation, emotion — with something “cool” — the brain’s executive function….

David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, however, sees it differently. He argues in a detailed, fascinating piece in Pacific Standard that learning to deal with impulses isn’t so much about building up self-control as it is training yourself to appeal to certain emotions — that is, not countering “hot” with “cool” so much as tapping into the correct “hot” response. Mr. DeSteno argues that emotions that have a moral valence and prize a greater social good — responses like gratitude, compassion, pride — can also help us control our behavior in favor of a delayed payoff. These qualities have been selected for historically because they are more likely to benefit a larger social structure.

In fact, an emotional response might be more effective and less draining in helping us resist temptation, especially over the long term. John Tierney wrote in 2011 in The New York Times Magazine that making decisions is depleting and that we each have only a finite amount of energy for making choices in a given time period. Mr. DeSteno refers to similar research, writing that even small decisions like whether to wear a blue or a white shirt wear down our willpower. And our executive function can be used to twist any decision to our advantage…For that reason, “any strategy based solely on forcing adherence to a set of virtues through a bunch of cool-headed, cognitive strategies and a list of ‘thou shall nots’ is a fragile one….”

 

 

 

Ten Things I Learned From My Father

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Ten Things I Learned From My Father

By Ian Anderson, From Squalor to Baller

 

1. You’re not defined by the things you own.

2. There’s no hurry to make up your mind.

My dad didn’t start his career until his mid-forties. Before that, he dabbled in many professions – forest firefighter, mailman, writer, carpenter, engineer, and more. Each of these experiences has added to his complex character and has played a role in preparing him for the next step. As a kid, I assumed this was normal; it wasn’t until later that I realized most people are more direct when it comes to careers. These days, there is a lot of pressure on kids to get into a good college, pick a major, and then get a job; I was lucky to learn early on that less linear career paths were just as viable. 

3. Read and write every day.

… I’ve still come to appreciate the importance of reading and writing on a regular basis. It’s good for your brain and for your vocabulary (and it’s one of the reasons I started this blog).

4. Don’t let the sun catch you sleeping. 

… I have long since discovered that time for yourself in the early morning will do wonders for your mood, productivity, and well-being.

5. Be Handy.

…I spent a lot of time in college reading and writing about how things work in the world, but I’ve slowly come to realize that although being book smart is good, being life-smart is better.

6. Go Outside.

I was lucky enough to grow up in in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where there are endless opportunities for outdoor adventures. For a mountain man like my dad, getting out of town and exploring the wilderness was not an optional activity for our family. Because of this, I spent much of my youth running down trails, rafting rivers, and summiting mountains. Looking back, I’ve come to appreciate the huge effect it had on my childhood and on the adult I became. Nature is a beautiful thing – go experience it. Go backpacking, rafting, biking, or whatever it takes to spend some time away from the mayhem of your daily life. 

7. Eat your Vegetables.

… Learning to cook for myself and understanding the core concepts of nutrition was one of the best things I learned as a kid. It only took a few months of greasy college dining halls to show me that a good diet and active lifestyle really are the foundation for a strong body and sharp mind.

8. Travel while you’re young.

9. Always have a hobby.

It should come as no surprise that I come from a long line of tinkerers, dabblers, and otherwise curious minds that put great value in breadth of knowledge…. I …always try to balance my life with a variety of activities that keep me well-rounded.

10. Smile. 

Nobody likes a grouch. Add some happiness to the world.