Now we come to a discussion, or an exploration, that makes (I believe anyway) this website a little different to other publications.
Most books, articles etc. that describe attachment focus on hurt children from families that are deemed to have problems, are dysfunctional, and/or have parents who are very needy – like, for example, children in families in the Focus Group.
Just to recap, here are brief descriptions of the different forms of attachment:
1. Secure Attachment:
Comfortable with closeness, playfulness; being ‘at ease’ in relationships is seen as natural.
2. Insecure Ambivalent Attachment:
Some doubt about whether one deserves love, i.e. love may be conditional, person is aware of implications of this and may work on difficulties through the life-course.
3. Insecure Avoidant Attachment:
Avoids closeness in relationship; intimacy may be problematic. Perfectionism is seen as important and playfulness is risky.
4. Disorganised Attachment:
Intimacy may be associated with violence or abuse; adult behaviour often has a clear self-destruct pattern.
I have described how insecure attachment of the types in the previous posts – particularly the disorganised type – affects individuals and families in the Focus Group. It can lead to oppositional, self-destructive behaviour, lack of trust and hope, tendency to demand instant gratification, and lack of ability to form warm, long-term, trusting relationships in adult life. It also leads to what is known as the trauma bond, where someone who engages in harmful, self-destructive behaviour chooses another of the same type; even though the relationship is – to every outside observer – a disaster.
The general belief is that children who grow up in families that display the most extreme form of insecure attachment (disorganised) in addition to having poor physical and mental health, may cause ordinary people all sorts of problems (in particular crime, but also dependency, illness etc.) costing the state a fortune.
So much for the Focus Group, but what about those who are of most influence of society – the Pillars?
I propose that, in general, organisations within the Pillars fall somewhere between ambivalent and avoidant attachment.
This is evident in organisations’ lack of trust in people, their risk aversion, their striving for perfection and obsession with shoulds, competition and comparison, lack of playfulness and (particularly in respect of the Focus Group), the avoidance of genuine contact and dialogue, their wariness of idealism, and in some cases even people being at ease with each other.
And remember the post on trauma, creativity and logic? Almost always – in my experience anyway – spontaneity, creativity, or passion are met by stifling amounts of institutional logic and rationality. This speaks volumes about the balanced development of left-brain and right-brain thinking within the Pillars……. and their willingness to allow the root foundations to flourish.
And of course, it follows that if the Pillars in general display avoidant and ambivalent attachment it is because a critical mass of people working within them are that way. This further implies that such styles have prominence in our hugely influential mainstream education system – in which almost all staff in the Pillars have spent 15 to 18 years.
In a later Chapter I mention the desirability of modelling what we want in families in our organisations. One of the reasons why I describe attachment theory in some depth and include this post is that I believe that it has significant relevance for what practitioners in the caring professions within the Pillars might aspire to.
The reason for this is – of course – that caring involves contact, warmth and at ease relationships – the stuff of secure attachment.
NOTE: Further reading on the Strange Situation experiments by Mary Ainsworth is recommended for interested readers, where she separated infants from care-givers and then assessed how easily they settled down again on reuniting. Those with disorganised attachment style had far more difficulty than any others, were confused and had no pattern of attachment.