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- Hi, I'm Sally Popper, and
I'm going to be talking today

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about attachment and the
clinical implications

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of attachment theory in research.

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I'll spend a lot of our time today

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talking about what attachment
is and how it develops.

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Some of what I'm saying may not seem

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relevant to you as a clinician.

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But I think you'll find
if you stick it out

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that understanding how
attachment really works

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in human development
will give you insights

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into clients who didn't receive sensitive

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and responsive caregiving
as young children.

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If you know enough about attachment,

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it is often possible to identify

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where a client is stuck developmentally.

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And if you understand
how attachment develops,

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you can tailor therapy to fill
in some of those deficits.

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So we'll start with what is attachment?

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Attachment is established
in the first year of life,

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primarily in the second six months.

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Attachment is the exclusive relationship

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between a child and a caregiver.

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Once it's established, no one can replace

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an attachment figure
without very hard work.

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Attachment evolved
evolutionarily, we believe,

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as a way for the child to maintain safety.

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John Bowlby read a lot of
evolutionary information.

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He was studying Charles Darwin

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when he came up with his
theories about attachment.

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And he believed that attachment evolved

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to ensure the survival of the species.

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Human babies, unlike most other animals,

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have almost no skills
to care for themselves.

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And it's critical that
they have a strong instinct

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to seek their caregivers
when they're in danger.

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It's also critical that the caregivers

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have a strong instinct
to provide that safety.

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So the fundamental quality of attachment

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is that it is safety-seeking,
it's activated

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by threat, by hunger, by
tiredness, by sickness.

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And the child seeks
closeness to the caregiver.

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It's important to focus on
this safety-seeking aspect

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of attachment because when you see clients

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who have not had a safe
and secure attachment

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when they were young, it becomes
very relevant clinically.

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And we will be discussing that later.

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Another fundamental
building block of attachment

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is that it is and provides
affect and arousal regulation.

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The caregiver in the
attachment relationship

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is able to regulate the child's emotions

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and the child's level of arousal.

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If you think about it, a
baby is very disorganized

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and doesn't have good regulation

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of body states or of feelings.

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And different states and feelings

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will come and go in the newborn.

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That gradually changes over
time, and it's the result,

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the direct result of caregiving.

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We'll be talking a lot
more about this important

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function of attachment
relationships later.

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Attachment begins in utero,
although you can't say

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that a baby is attached before
they are born, certainly,

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and across the first
days and months of life,

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as the baby learns the rhythm,

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the sounds, and the smell of mother.

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After birth, the baby learns how promptly

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his parents respond to his or her needs

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and how well they provide comfort.

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The baby learns how it feels to be

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calmed and regulated by parents.

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And the baby learns to
experience joy with parents.

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And although experiencing
joy may seem like a

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sort of a side effect or a
small aspect of attachment,

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it actually is a very important piece

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of the child's early development.

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Over a lifetime, an infant's
security of attachment

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is one of the strongest
predictors of psychological

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and social outcomes in later childhood.

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That doesn't mean that
there can't be other impacts

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of other events that
are equally predictive.

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But it is, it provides a basic direction

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which can be changed or it can go on.

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And if there is continuing
similar caregiving, the original

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attachment patterns become
stronger and stronger.

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That said, I want to tell you the story

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I heard this summer from Alan Sroufe.

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He wrote a wonderful book on
attachment over a lifetime.

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He's been doing a study of
children, high-risk children

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in Minnesota now for about 40 years.

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And he's beginning to see the
third generation of children

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and studying throughout what
attachment patterns he finds.

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He told the story of one of
the young boys in his study

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who was very securely attached
as an infant, looked great.

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At around five or six, his
parents had a bitter divorce.

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And his father took his brother,
he stayed with his mother.

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He was not looking quite as good

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at this point but was still fairly strong.

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When he was around 12,
he began to push away

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from his mother, as many early teens do.

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And he began to experiment with some--

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hanging out with kids who might
not have been the best kids.

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And he began to get into behaviors
that weren't so positive.

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Just at that moment, his
mother died quite suddenly.

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And that plunged him into some

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very negative behavior
during his teenage years.

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And if you'd seen him
during his teenage years,

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you wouldn't have thought that this was

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a securely attached,
well-developing child.

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He was involved in a fair
amount of deviant behavior.

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But later in his 20s he found a partner

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with whom he had a child, and
at the last point in the study

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Alan Sroufe said, his child was showing

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a secure attachment to
him, and he was showing

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a secure model of attachment as an adult.

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So this was an example of the ways

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in which a child's development
can change over time

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still having the base of attachment.

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And Sroufe's point was
that the secure base

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he had to start with
reemerged when he found

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a strong partner as an adult
and had a child himself

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and that that secure base that he had

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did serve him well in the long
run, although you might not

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have thought that when he was a teenager.

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Attachment is primarily
a right brain process.

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In the first three years of
life the right hemisphere

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of the brain is developing
rapidly, and the left hemisphere

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is coming along a little more slowly.

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The right brain includes
more emotional learning,

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contextual learning, it's more the forest

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whereas the left hemisphere
is more the trees.

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It's got more social learning,
and it has what is called

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implicit memory which is memory
that is not stored verbally.

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The left brain is more rational, logical,

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has to do more with what we think of

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as learning in school and so forth.

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In the first three years
prior to real language use

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by a child the right
hemisphere is dominant.

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And it is, as I said, developing rapidly.

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Attachment is primarily
a right brain process.

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And I mentioned implicit memories.

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Memories in the first two
or three years are implicit.

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And that's one reason that we
don't usually remember things

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that have happened to us
in the first years of life

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because those memories
are stored in our brains

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on the right hemisphere, and
there aren't words for them.

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But I think if you think of
an experience you've had,

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and one of the ways I like to remember

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what an implicit memory is, is to think

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of entering a house
where you catch a smell.

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And smell is one of the most

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direct routes to our right brain.

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You catch a smell that reminds

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you of your grandmother's house,

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that suddenly you are surrounded

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by the memory of your grandmother's house.

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This isn't something that you remember,

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oh, in my grandmother's house
the couch was on the left

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and the curtains were on the right

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and the chair here was red, those aren't

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the memories you have of
your grandmother's house.

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The memories are more holistic.

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That's a right brain implicit memory.

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The whole scene will come back to you,

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the feelings, the smells,
the look, the temperature,

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all of those sensory
aspects of the experience

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will pop right into your mind.

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And those are implicit memories.

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So we all have lots of them.

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But for most of the memories of things

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we've done we have more explicit memory,

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which is stored in our left hemisphere.

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And that can be talked about in words,

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and you can remember this happened first,

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that happened next and so forth.

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But the other place you
find implicit memories

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when you're doing therapy,
which is an important

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one to know, is when a person's
been severely traumatized.

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When you're traumatized,
your brain begins to work

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very efficiently to help
you fight, flee, or freeze.

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And suddenly your left
hemisphere is offline.

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So the memories of trauma
are often implicit memories.

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They're not verbally
encoded, they don't go

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through the hippocampus, which is the way

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in which memories get sort of filed away

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in the filing cabinets of our brain.

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They actually just get stored

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directly into the right hemisphere.

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So that's why if you've had a trauma,

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you may experience
flashbacks in which suddenly

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the entire traumatic scene
is there in front of you.

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And it feels as if you're reliving it.

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That's an implicit memory
coming to the surface.

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So there are many ways in which implicit

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memories are important clinically.

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But one way is that in this
first two to three years

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lots of information is
encoded in the right brain,

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but we don't have access to it verbally.

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And that's an important
feature for therapy

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because working with preverbal
memories is difficult

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since we tend to work verbally.

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So we'll talk a little
bit more about that later.

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Right brain skills are many,
and these are all skills

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that are learned in the
attachment relationship.

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Children don't learn these
without an attachment

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relationship, these include
reading social cues,

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regulating affect so that
you don't blow up suddenly

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out of context, you don't
shut down inappropriately.

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You can manage your feelings
in a fairly smooth manner.

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Communicating nonverbally which as we know

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is a really important
aspect of communication.

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Inhibiting impulses, which
if you think about it

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is one of our more critical skills.

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The fact that I'm sitting here right now

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and not jumping up and moving around

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or thinking of something I
want to call someone about

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or that kind of thing is a function

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of my ability to inhibit my impulses.

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And for a child to succeed
in school, certainly,

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but even with friends or in a home

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it requires that they're
able to inhibit impulses.

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Another right brain skill
is focusing attention,

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certainly critical for
most things we do in life.

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Understanding cause and effect
is a critical right brain

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skill, and it's one that
caregivers teach babies.

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Learning to plan, which
includes understanding

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cause and effect because
if you're learning to plan,

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you think if I do this,
that's likely to happen,

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maybe I don't want to have that happen,

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so maybe I should do
something else instead.

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Let's think about what
would happen if I did that.

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These are all taught in the
attachment relationship.

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Often we call these executive function

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skills, and they are critical skills.

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If you haven't learned
them in an attachment

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relationship in the first years of life,

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it's much harder to teach them later.

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But it's critical that
therapists, teachers,

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and parents do that at a later time.

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And actually, that's one of the
problems I have with therapy

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for children who've had
attachment losses and trauma

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where the therapy focuses
only on the trauma

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because if you don't take
into account the skills

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that the child lost or
never developed early on,

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you're not going to give the child

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all the tools he needs to succeed.

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Simply processing the
trauma is not adequate.

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Allan Schore is one of the most

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important authors on early development,

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on attachment, on regulation and so forth.

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And his writings tend to be quite

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ponderous and tough to get through,

252
00:15:45,863 --> 00:15:48,946
although critically
important in our field.

253
00:15:49,875 --> 00:15:52,038
But one of the simpler things he said

254
00:15:52,038 --> 00:15:54,314
is that a mother's primary job

255
00:15:54,314 --> 00:15:58,007
in the first year of life is
to increase positive emotion.

256
00:15:59,014 --> 00:16:04,014
This is done through right brain
play and social connection.

257
00:16:05,330 --> 00:16:09,914
It happens through touch,
voice tone, eye contact,

258
00:16:09,914 --> 00:16:13,422
facial expression,
rhythm, motion, and play.

259
00:16:13,422 --> 00:16:16,346
And if you think of parents
and children together,

260
00:16:16,669 --> 00:16:18,961
those are the ways that they interact.

261
00:16:19,535 --> 00:16:21,898
We just naturally begin to sing songs,

262
00:16:21,898 --> 00:16:26,306
to play touching games, to do rhyming,

263
00:16:26,306 --> 00:16:30,917
to do sing-song talking, and those things

264
00:16:30,917 --> 00:16:33,208
are very important for a child

265
00:16:33,208 --> 00:16:36,575
whose developing right
brain is just soaking it up.

266
00:16:39,157 --> 00:16:44,125
Another important piece of the
early caregiver relationship

267
00:16:45,032 --> 00:16:48,241
is that the parent and the infant--

268
00:16:48,241 --> 00:16:50,132
and I'm talking about
mothers, but it can be

269
00:16:50,347 --> 00:16:55,347
any parent caregiver, their communication

270
00:16:55,685 --> 00:16:58,489
and their feelings are contingent,

271
00:16:58,489 --> 00:17:03,489
that means one follows the
other in very close succession

272
00:17:03,752 --> 00:17:06,333
and they're collaborative increasingly.

273
00:17:06,333 --> 00:17:10,391
When a baby's tiny, there's
not as much collaboration.

274
00:17:10,391 --> 00:17:13,022
But as you watch development over months,

275
00:17:13,022 --> 00:17:15,830
you begin to see more of the baby

276
00:17:15,830 --> 00:17:18,848
leading the interaction
and the mother responding,

277
00:17:18,848 --> 00:17:21,557
then the mother responding
and the baby leading--

278
00:17:21,557 --> 00:17:24,348
I mean, the mother leading
and the baby responding.

279
00:17:25,032 --> 00:17:28,741
Berry Brazelton has called this the dance

280
00:17:29,156 --> 00:17:31,003
between the mother and the baby.

281
00:17:31,137 --> 00:17:36,059
And I spent some years
doing research on this

282
00:17:38,504 --> 00:17:41,555
where we did coding of mother and infant

283
00:17:41,555 --> 00:17:44,227
interaction on a second by second basis.

284
00:17:44,227 --> 00:17:46,963
So each second we had a split screen.

285
00:17:47,424 --> 00:17:50,344
Mothers were on one side,
babies were on the other side.

286
00:17:50,566 --> 00:17:54,062
One person was coding what
was the baby's feeling

287
00:17:54,062 --> 00:17:58,369
or behavior in each second,
and another person was coding

288
00:17:58,369 --> 00:18:01,778
what was the mother's behavior
and feeling in each second.

289
00:18:02,297 --> 00:18:06,432
And it is astounding how
closely related they are

290
00:18:06,432 --> 00:18:08,849
in time so that one of them will lead,

291
00:18:08,849 --> 00:18:11,490
the other will immediately
follow with a response

292
00:18:11,490 --> 00:18:14,264
that is contingent and collaborative.

293
00:18:14,587 --> 00:18:16,807
Then it will go back and forth.

294
00:18:16,807 --> 00:18:21,017
The baby may take a break, then
they'll come back together.

295
00:18:22,136 --> 00:18:27,136
But it is really a dance,
and it's lovely to see.

296
00:18:27,951 --> 00:18:32,582
Face to face interactions
with a baby excite the baby.

297
00:18:32,807 --> 00:18:36,516
So a good caregiver will
regulate that level of energy

298
00:18:36,516 --> 00:18:40,565
so that the baby doesn't
become overexcited

299
00:18:40,565 --> 00:18:44,650
and is able to stay with the interaction.

300
00:18:48,731 --> 00:18:53,731
When you see children
who've had profound neglect,

301
00:18:54,209 --> 00:18:56,217
like the children we've seen coming out

302
00:18:56,217 --> 00:18:58,350
of eastern European orphanages,

303
00:18:59,980 --> 00:19:04,574
often they'll look almost
autistic, and there's actually

304
00:19:04,574 --> 00:19:07,636
a phenomenon called institutional autism.

305
00:19:08,013 --> 00:19:13,013
And sometimes it's hard
to know whether a child

306
00:19:14,595 --> 00:19:18,052
who's fairly recently out
of a situation like that

307
00:19:18,052 --> 00:19:21,686
is actually autistic or
if they have experienced

308
00:19:21,686 --> 00:19:25,446
enough deprivation that
they just look autistic.

309
00:19:26,789 --> 00:19:29,300
I remember a period of time in my life

310
00:19:29,300 --> 00:19:31,261
when I was working with a testing

311
00:19:31,261 --> 00:19:35,767
specialist who could diagnose autism.

312
00:19:36,279 --> 00:19:39,062
And some of the kids I would see would be

313
00:19:40,216 --> 00:19:44,173
diagnosed as autistic by her at one time,

314
00:19:44,173 --> 00:19:47,328
maybe a year or two
later no longer autistic,

315
00:19:47,896 --> 00:19:50,730
maybe a year later autistic again.

316
00:19:50,930 --> 00:19:53,894
This really confused
me, as you can imagine.

317
00:19:54,057 --> 00:19:58,779
And I talked to her, and
she said it really is

318
00:19:58,779 --> 00:20:02,097
almost impossible to tell when a child has

319
00:20:02,097 --> 00:20:04,632
some of the features of autism

320
00:20:04,632 --> 00:20:07,906
that come from very profound neglect

321
00:20:08,212 --> 00:20:10,633
whether that really is autism.

322
00:20:10,717 --> 00:20:14,595
On the other hand, I
think I've seen children

323
00:20:14,595 --> 00:20:17,817
who look that way early
on change significantly.

324
00:20:18,228 --> 00:20:23,228
And so anyway, these
behaviors that you tend to see

325
00:20:23,793 --> 00:20:27,124
are self-stimulation,
so children may flap,

326
00:20:27,124 --> 00:20:29,530
they may clap, they may bang their heads,

327
00:20:29,530 --> 00:20:31,987
they may masturbate excessively.

328
00:20:32,848 --> 00:20:35,321
They may seem in their own world.

329
00:20:36,196 --> 00:20:38,719
They really don't know how
to have a relationship.

330
00:20:38,719 --> 00:20:40,800
They don't know how to have eye contact.

331
00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:43,829
They haven't learned that from experience.

332
00:20:44,005 --> 00:20:45,899
And we just don't know how much this

333
00:20:45,899 --> 00:20:48,426
can be moderated by intervention.

334
00:20:48,426 --> 00:20:51,997
On the other hand, I have, for instance,

335
00:20:51,997 --> 00:20:55,677
an example from my own work with clients

336
00:20:55,677 --> 00:21:00,123
of a young girl who was adopted
from Romania at 18 months,

337
00:21:00,123 --> 00:21:03,132
looked at that time like
about a six month old

338
00:21:03,132 --> 00:21:05,084
and couldn't hold her head up.

339
00:21:06,463 --> 00:21:11,463
She, when I last saw her, was about 14.

340
00:21:12,577 --> 00:21:16,685
And she had moved out of
looking quite autistic

341
00:21:16,685 --> 00:21:19,007
in probably kindergarten and first grade,

342
00:21:19,007 --> 00:21:24,007
to being able to interact,
being able to understand a joke,

343
00:21:24,645 --> 00:21:27,333
being able to understand sarcasm,

344
00:21:27,886 --> 00:21:29,991
even though she was still quite concrete

345
00:21:29,991 --> 00:21:32,690
in many ways and somewhat obsessive,

346
00:21:33,244 --> 00:21:35,433
she was interacting well with people.

347
00:21:35,433 --> 00:21:40,309
She had good eye contact,
she was beginning to learn

348
00:21:40,309 --> 00:21:43,575
to read nonverbal cues much better.

349
00:21:43,732 --> 00:21:48,732
And when I last heard about
her, she's going to college

350
00:21:49,478 --> 00:21:54,224
and is able to function
on her own quite well.

351
00:21:54,861 --> 00:21:58,093
So I think you do see changes like that

352
00:21:58,093 --> 00:22:01,644
in children who look
institutionally autistic.

353
00:22:04,330 --> 00:22:08,164
So thinking about
resilience, because obviously

354
00:22:08,164 --> 00:22:10,256
that's really critical when somebody's had

355
00:22:10,256 --> 00:22:12,389
negative experiences early on,

356
00:22:13,065 --> 00:22:17,115
infant resilience comes
from a pattern of cycling

357
00:22:17,115 --> 00:22:20,747
from positive to negative
and back to positive again.

358
00:22:21,792 --> 00:22:24,297
And it's important that
the negative happens

359
00:22:24,297 --> 00:22:28,375
because the child has to learn
how to move back to positive.

360
00:22:28,581 --> 00:22:29,801
So we don't want to protect

361
00:22:29,801 --> 00:22:31,905
children from everything negative.

362
00:22:32,100 --> 00:22:37,100
But the way that this occurs is

363
00:22:37,885 --> 00:22:39,533
in well-regulated interactions

364
00:22:39,533 --> 00:22:44,533
with a predictable caregiver
that create a sense of safety

365
00:22:44,712 --> 00:22:46,779
as well as a sense of excitement

366
00:22:46,779 --> 00:22:48,928
and curiosity about the world.

367
00:22:49,758 --> 00:22:54,155
All of these factors are
critical to later mental health,

368
00:22:54,371 --> 00:22:56,637
as you can imagine, I think.

369
00:22:57,584 --> 00:22:59,588
So now let's talk about the processes

370
00:22:59,588 --> 00:23:03,149
through which these right
brain capabilities are created.

371
00:23:06,792 --> 00:23:10,837
Mother's and infant's arousal,
as I talked about earlier,

372
00:23:10,837 --> 00:23:13,961
are synchronized within a
split second of each other.

373
00:23:15,343 --> 00:23:20,324
This synchronization creates
a psycho physiological state

374
00:23:20,324 --> 00:23:23,323
in the infant that matches the mother.

375
00:23:26,581 --> 00:23:29,032
Allan Schore has talked about the mother

376
00:23:29,032 --> 00:23:33,365
downloading her right brain
into the infant's right brain.

377
00:23:34,123 --> 00:23:35,727
And what we do know is that if you look

378
00:23:35,727 --> 00:23:38,937
at the right brain patterns of

379
00:23:38,937 --> 00:23:42,489
a caregiving mother and
a baby, they will match.

380
00:23:43,833 --> 00:23:48,833
Dan Siegel has called this
interpersonal neurobiology,

381
00:23:48,879 --> 00:23:51,131
that there actually is a neurobiology

382
00:23:51,131 --> 00:23:56,131
that goes between people,
usually in a dyadic situation.

383
00:23:59,849 --> 00:24:04,784
So the way we tend to think of this

384
00:24:06,414 --> 00:24:10,286
process happening is through
an attuned caregiver.

385
00:24:11,266 --> 00:24:13,526
And attunement is an important concept.

386
00:24:14,648 --> 00:24:18,076
It's different from empathy, it means

387
00:24:18,076 --> 00:24:22,358
feeling with rather than feeling for.

388
00:24:22,985 --> 00:24:27,432
So I'm not feeling your pain,
as Bill Clinton might say.

389
00:24:28,290 --> 00:24:30,570
I am feeling with you

390
00:24:33,297 --> 00:24:37,794
and really experiencing your experience.

391
00:24:38,873 --> 00:24:42,807
Dan Siegel has called it feeling felt by.

392
00:24:43,746 --> 00:24:47,839
And when a parent is attuned,
they read the baby's cues,

393
00:24:47,839 --> 00:24:50,550
and they communicate back that

394
00:24:50,550 --> 00:24:53,033
the feeling is known and shared.

395
00:24:54,254 --> 00:24:57,054
This is critical to
later social development

396
00:24:57,054 --> 00:25:00,231
because we need to
understand that other people

397
00:25:00,370 --> 00:25:04,262
can get us, can understand who we are.

398
00:25:07,736 --> 00:25:11,514
And this leads to an intersubjectivity

399
00:25:12,114 --> 00:25:17,114
of back and forth sharing
that's about reading cues

400
00:25:19,287 --> 00:25:23,596
and knowing that you are known by another.

401
00:25:27,497 --> 00:25:30,144
So mother's attunement enables her

402
00:25:30,144 --> 00:25:33,521
to organize the baby's states and promote

403
00:25:33,521 --> 00:25:35,985
the development of the baby's right brain.

404
00:25:37,731 --> 00:25:40,906
And gradually the infant
learns to attune to the mother,

405
00:25:41,182 --> 00:25:42,832
which is clearly an important skill

406
00:25:42,832 --> 00:25:45,554
in all social situations, and certainly

407
00:25:45,554 --> 00:25:49,593
as that infant becomes
a parent him or herself.

408
00:25:50,430 --> 00:25:54,131
And then there's reciprocal
interaction and organization.

409
00:25:54,461 --> 00:25:56,697
And the regulation that
has been the mother's

410
00:25:56,697 --> 00:26:00,026
becomes a collaborative process.

411
00:26:00,478 --> 00:26:03,796
I'm going to read a couple of quotes

412
00:26:05,317 --> 00:26:08,355
from Allan Schore, which
are a little bit dense.

413
00:26:08,355 --> 00:26:13,355
But I think they really add
some important information here.

414
00:26:15,054 --> 00:26:16,647
So one of the things he said is

415
00:26:16,647 --> 00:26:18,963
"The moment to moment expressions

416
00:26:18,963 --> 00:26:20,980
"of the mother's regulatory functions

417
00:26:20,980 --> 00:26:24,180
"occur at levels beneath awareness.

418
00:26:24,855 --> 00:26:28,413
"Even so, the attuned
mother can self-correct

419
00:26:28,413 --> 00:26:31,130
"by accessing her own reflective function

420
00:26:31,130 --> 00:26:33,553
"whereby she monitors not only

421
00:26:33,553 --> 00:26:36,879
"her infant's, but her
own internal signals

422
00:26:36,879 --> 00:26:40,501
"and differentiates her
own affective state.

423
00:26:41,336 --> 00:26:44,290
"She also regulates the type and intensity

424
00:26:44,290 --> 00:26:47,431
"of socioaffective information

425
00:26:47,431 --> 00:26:50,239
"within the dyads communication system."

426
00:26:54,026 --> 00:26:58,480
Another quote from Schore,
"Psycho biological attunement

427
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:02,482
"and the interactive mutual entrainment

428
00:27:02,482 --> 00:27:06,872
"of physiological rhythms
are fundamental processes

429
00:27:06,872 --> 00:27:09,878
"that mediate attachment bond formation.

430
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:13,536
"And attachment can be
defined as the regulation

431
00:27:13,812 --> 00:27:18,490
"of biological synchronicity
between organisms."

432
00:27:20,689 --> 00:27:24,714
Now I want to give you a concrete
example of how this works.

433
00:27:24,714 --> 00:27:27,143
And I'm going to show you a film

434
00:27:27,143 --> 00:27:30,720
of what is called a Still Face procedure

435
00:27:31,612 --> 00:27:35,921
being run in Ed Tronick's labs in Boston.

436
00:27:37,721 --> 00:27:42,721
Still Face procedure has proven to be

437
00:27:43,157 --> 00:27:47,306
a really important step
on our understanding

438
00:27:47,306 --> 00:27:49,964
of this mother-infant dance
that occurs and the way

439
00:27:49,964 --> 00:27:53,366
in which parents provide
regulation to their children.

440
00:27:54,673 --> 00:27:56,545
In a Still Face, as you will see,

441
00:27:57,175 --> 00:28:01,004
the mother and the child are face to face.

442
00:28:01,154 --> 00:28:04,101
Baby's in a little seat,
mother's right in front of him.

443
00:28:05,084 --> 00:28:10,084
For a few minutes they
play back and forth, talk,

444
00:28:10,683 --> 00:28:15,683
tickle, sing, whatever is usual for them.

445
00:28:17,060 --> 00:28:20,310
At a signal, the mother is told

446
00:28:20,310 --> 00:28:24,629
to make her face still with no feeling.

447
00:28:25,554 --> 00:28:28,078
And for a minute she does that.

448
00:28:29,406 --> 00:28:33,073
She keeps her face
completely expressionless.

449
00:28:33,566 --> 00:28:36,412
And what you'll see is
how the baby disorganizes

450
00:28:36,412 --> 00:28:40,169
during that time, how important it is

451
00:28:40,169 --> 00:28:42,941
that there's this back
and forth engagement.

452
00:28:43,476 --> 00:28:47,895
Often when you see this
happen, babies begin to look

453
00:28:47,895 --> 00:28:52,409
more young than they have
been in the interaction.

454
00:28:52,615 --> 00:28:54,650
They begin to look less organized,

455
00:28:54,650 --> 00:28:57,400
less able to manage their own state.

456
00:28:57,742 --> 00:29:01,794
And some babies, as
they get a little older,

457
00:29:01,794 --> 00:29:04,613
will try all kinds of tricks to get mom.

458
00:29:04,613 --> 00:29:06,260
And I think in this film you'll see

459
00:29:06,260 --> 00:29:08,335
a couple of the tricks that the baby uses

460
00:29:08,335 --> 00:29:10,588
to try to get mom involved again.

461
00:29:11,041 --> 00:29:15,505
They'll flirt, they'll
reach out, they'll point,

462
00:29:15,505 --> 00:29:20,011
they'll yell, they'll do anything
to get mom back with them.

463
00:29:20,463 --> 00:29:22,501
And then you'll see as soon as mom

464
00:29:22,501 --> 00:29:25,101
does start showing expression again,

465
00:29:25,101 --> 00:29:28,764
how quickly this baby
re-regulates with her.

466
00:29:29,423 --> 00:29:33,332
Some babies who really haven't
had as adequate parenting

467
00:29:33,332 --> 00:29:36,289
take much longer or don't re-regulate.

468
00:29:36,289 --> 00:29:40,112
And they really can't come
back from a loss like that.

469
00:29:40,337 --> 00:29:43,160
But this has been one
of the important steps

470
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:48,160
in our learning about
how babies require this

471
00:29:48,996 --> 00:29:51,873
responsive interaction at all times.

472
00:29:51,873 --> 00:29:55,296
And if you think about
children you may have seen

473
00:29:55,849 --> 00:29:58,735
who had parents who were addicted,

474
00:29:58,735 --> 00:30:03,735
who were severely depressed,
other things that would cause

475
00:30:03,915 --> 00:30:08,732
parents to neglect a child
or to not just be responsive,

476
00:30:10,239 --> 00:30:14,330
you can see why development
is so compromised.

477
00:30:18,123 --> 00:30:19,725
One of the things Schore mentioned in one

478
00:30:19,725 --> 00:30:23,649
of those quotes I gave you
was reflective function.

479
00:30:23,649 --> 00:30:25,983
And reflective function, if
you haven't read about it,

480
00:30:25,983 --> 00:30:27,731
it's a great thing to understand

481
00:30:27,731 --> 00:30:29,884
a little bit more about as a therapist.

482
00:30:30,391 --> 00:30:34,725
Peter Fonagy and Mary Target
have written about this.

483
00:30:34,725 --> 00:30:39,303
And they've talked about
the way a secure caregiver

484
00:30:39,610 --> 00:30:43,893
can use attunement to
the infant or the child

485
00:30:43,893 --> 00:30:47,816
as a way to communicate her understanding

486
00:30:47,816 --> 00:30:51,125
of the child's experience
so that the child

487
00:30:51,125 --> 00:30:53,421
begins to understand that there are others

488
00:30:53,421 --> 00:30:56,843
who can not only understand
him, but also help him

489
00:30:56,843 --> 00:31:00,485
become the person that
the caregiver is seeing.

490
00:31:02,581 --> 00:31:05,513
And we all do this as
parents, we see our kids,

491
00:31:07,081 --> 00:31:09,632
when they're babies, as
far more than they are.

492
00:31:10,362 --> 00:31:13,004
And if we can reflect
that back to the child,

493
00:31:13,004 --> 00:31:16,378
the child can begin to
grow into that conception.

494
00:31:18,702 --> 00:31:20,468
Okay, I'm going to talk some more now

495
00:31:20,468 --> 00:31:22,934
about affect regulation and its

496
00:31:22,934 --> 00:31:24,880
importance in the child's life.

497
00:31:25,535 --> 00:31:27,607
We've talked about that
as a right brain skill

498
00:31:27,607 --> 00:31:30,315
that's learned in the first few years.

499
00:31:33,827 --> 00:31:36,679
What we know about babies' brains is that

500
00:31:36,679 --> 00:31:39,563
they are experience dependent.

501
00:31:39,899 --> 00:31:42,217
There's very little of development

502
00:31:42,217 --> 00:31:47,217
that can occur without
information going on,

503
00:31:48,622 --> 00:31:51,747
without the baby receiving stimuli

504
00:31:51,747 --> 00:31:54,911
from the outside and
especially from people.

505
00:31:57,877 --> 00:31:59,968
One scientist has said
that the infant's brain

506
00:31:59,968 --> 00:32:04,968
is designed to be molded by
the environment it encounters.

507
00:32:08,922 --> 00:32:11,531
As I said, the newborn
is poorly regulated,

508
00:32:11,531 --> 00:32:14,447
both physiologically and emotionally

509
00:32:14,447 --> 00:32:17,490
and learns that regulation
from caregivers.

510
00:32:24,932 --> 00:32:28,354
Over time the baby internalizes

511
00:32:28,354 --> 00:32:31,207
the caregiver's affective regulation.

512
00:32:31,412 --> 00:32:35,718
And as a result, the baby
sharing the mother's state,

513
00:32:36,257 --> 00:32:40,063
which we've called
interpersonal neurobiology.

514
00:32:40,842 --> 00:32:44,207
And this means that the child
is fairly well regulated

515
00:32:44,207 --> 00:32:47,736
and then can devote his or her energy

516
00:32:47,736 --> 00:32:51,511
to learning, enjoying things, and growing.

517
00:32:52,461 --> 00:32:57,461
A lack of affect regulation
underlies all psychopathology

518
00:32:57,723 --> 00:33:00,171
and makes ordinary life very difficult.

519
00:33:02,325 --> 00:33:04,978
And this is not something you can develop

520
00:33:04,978 --> 00:33:07,429
on your own, really, this
is something that has

521
00:33:07,429 --> 00:33:10,730
to be developed within
a dyadic relationship.

522
00:33:12,525 --> 00:33:15,693
All right, so if we think
about the way regulation

523
00:33:15,693 --> 00:33:19,673
precedes in attachment development,

524
00:33:20,044 --> 00:33:25,044
we see external regulation by
the caregiver early in life

525
00:33:26,590 --> 00:33:30,693
to coregulation where there's
back and forth regulation

526
00:33:31,109 --> 00:33:35,392
and finally to the ability to
self-regulate by the infant.

527
00:33:35,694 --> 00:33:39,672
This is when the child has internalized

528
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:44,838
the regulation that's been
provided by the caregiver.

529
00:33:46,912 --> 00:33:50,327
A development of competency
comes out of this.

530
00:33:50,831 --> 00:33:55,552
A sense of agency is also the
result of a regulated brain.

531
00:33:55,552 --> 00:33:57,985
And that's one of the things
we find people missing

532
00:33:57,985 --> 00:34:01,469
when they've had serious
early trauma, is that sense

533
00:34:01,469 --> 00:34:06,469
of agency and a belief
that they can do things.

534
00:34:07,944 --> 00:34:11,544
These are such fundamental skills

535
00:34:11,544 --> 00:34:16,137
that you can only really teach
in a dyadic relationship.

536
00:34:18,611 --> 00:34:22,619
Finally, after developing
internal regulation,

537
00:34:22,619 --> 00:34:26,956
the child also develops
collaborative problem solving.

538
00:34:27,592 --> 00:34:30,759
They're able to work in
partnership with another.

539
00:34:31,432 --> 00:34:34,019
So that usually happens after the end

540
00:34:34,019 --> 00:34:37,995
of the first year of life,
the child begins to be able

541
00:34:37,995 --> 00:34:41,669
to recruit the caregiver to
help them solve a problem.

542
00:34:45,233 --> 00:34:49,234
As a child's attachment is developing

543
00:34:49,234 --> 00:34:51,509
toward the end of the first year,

544
00:34:53,170 --> 00:34:56,620
there begins to be for the
first time in the kid's life,

545
00:34:56,620 --> 00:35:00,123
when he starts crawling around
and getting into things,

546
00:35:01,045 --> 00:35:03,680
he'll for the very first time hear no.

547
00:35:04,369 --> 00:35:07,871
When you think about it,
a little baby receives

548
00:35:08,747 --> 00:35:10,530
in the hands of good caregivers,

549
00:35:10,530 --> 00:35:13,571
receives such adoration and love,

550
00:35:15,050 --> 00:35:17,132
and you can imagine what a shock it is

551
00:35:17,132 --> 00:35:19,675
when they suddenly start hearing no.

552
00:35:19,864 --> 00:35:22,971
And sometimes that no is
very loud and decisive

553
00:35:22,971 --> 00:35:26,059
and accompanied by mom picking up the baby

554
00:35:26,059 --> 00:35:28,091
and grabbing him away
from the electric outlet

555
00:35:28,091 --> 00:35:30,244
or the street that he's
about to crawl into

556
00:35:30,244 --> 00:35:33,023
or the dirt that he's about to eat.

557
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:41,461
When this happens, if
you remember yourself

558
00:35:41,461 --> 00:35:46,454
as a parent or seeing families,
a toddler just melts like

559
00:35:46,454 --> 00:35:51,447
a puddle on the floor crying,
he's devastated by this no.

560
00:35:52,278 --> 00:35:55,932
And of course noes are
essential for the child.

561
00:35:56,032 --> 00:35:58,809
But it can be hard for parents to see

562
00:35:58,809 --> 00:36:00,877
what happens when they say no.

563
00:36:02,906 --> 00:36:06,203
But in fact, this is an important part

564
00:36:06,203 --> 00:36:10,459
of a building block of attachment
called interactive repair.

565
00:36:11,428 --> 00:36:13,816
So a sensitive parent at this point

566
00:36:13,816 --> 00:36:17,470
where the child is on the floor in misery

567
00:36:18,204 --> 00:36:23,204
will pick him up and
repair the broken feelings

568
00:36:23,529 --> 00:36:28,042
by explaining that, you know, I love you

569
00:36:28,042 --> 00:36:30,093
very much and you're a wonderful baby.

570
00:36:30,093 --> 00:36:32,105
But if you crawl in the street,
you're going to get hurt.

571
00:36:32,105 --> 00:36:35,852
If you eat the dirt,
it might make you sick.

572
00:36:36,054 --> 00:36:39,713
If you touch the electric
outlet, it will hurt you.

573
00:36:40,279 --> 00:36:43,585
The caregiver explains it,
and of course, you know,

574
00:36:43,585 --> 00:36:46,267
a nine month old, ten month
old can't understand this.

575
00:36:46,617 --> 00:36:50,885
But the point of the repair is I love you,

576
00:36:51,715 --> 00:36:56,715
you can't do this, let's find
something else to do together.

577
00:36:57,271 --> 00:37:01,506
So if you think about the
number of times a baby

578
00:37:02,906 --> 00:37:07,906
does something they
can't do, it's thousands.

579
00:37:09,042 --> 00:37:12,434
So there's no again and again and again

580
00:37:12,434 --> 00:37:15,041
and again in this toddler's life.

581
00:37:15,334 --> 00:37:20,334
But there's also repair again
and again and again and again.

582
00:37:21,118 --> 00:37:25,598
So over thousands of
times the child learns

583
00:37:25,598 --> 00:37:28,607
that he or she is lovable even

584
00:37:28,607 --> 00:37:31,117
when he does things that are wrong.

585
00:37:31,812 --> 00:37:36,286
And the child develops the confidence

586
00:37:37,116 --> 00:37:39,473
to learn to repair breaks with others

587
00:37:39,473 --> 00:37:41,648
and to try new and challenging tasks

588
00:37:41,648 --> 00:37:43,408
where there may be mistakes made,

589
00:37:43,408 --> 00:37:47,234
there may be hurts, there may be

590
00:37:47,234 --> 00:37:49,409
other things that need to be repaired.

591
00:37:49,409 --> 00:37:54,409
So it provides a profoundly
important building block

592
00:37:54,843 --> 00:37:59,843
for life because we've got lots of times

593
00:38:00,075 --> 00:38:01,827
when we're going to make mistakes

594
00:38:01,827 --> 00:38:04,045
and when we're going to hurt people.

595
00:38:04,045 --> 00:38:07,778
And if we can repair, we
have an important skill.

596
00:38:10,594 --> 00:38:13,787
So two pieces of what I call brain wisdom,

597
00:38:15,017 --> 00:38:18,148
Bruce Perry who runs a
wonderful child trauma institute

598
00:38:18,148 --> 00:38:21,557
in Texas and writes beautifully,

599
00:38:21,833 --> 00:38:24,179
certainly I would track down his writings

600
00:38:24,179 --> 00:38:29,084
if you're interested, he says,
"States," internal states,

601
00:38:29,084 --> 00:38:33,406
"become traits which
become a lifetime pattern."

602
00:38:34,007 --> 00:38:38,230
So the feelings you have
that are predominant feelings

603
00:38:38,230 --> 00:38:41,792
begin to become more embedded as traits.

604
00:38:41,792 --> 00:38:44,848
And what Dan Siegel has said, which is

605
00:38:46,972 --> 00:38:50,330
a paraphrase of the
old Hebbian hypothesis,

606
00:38:50,330 --> 00:38:54,517
he says, "What fires
together wires together."

607
00:38:54,664 --> 00:38:58,162
So what we're learning,
this is all part of the fact

608
00:38:58,162 --> 00:39:03,162
that the child's brain
is molded by experience.

609
00:39:06,687 --> 00:39:10,008
If the neurons are firing
together again and again

610
00:39:10,008 --> 00:39:12,648
and again and again in
similar ways, eventually

611
00:39:12,648 --> 00:39:15,908
that will become a pathway
that's easily traveled.

612
00:39:16,297 --> 00:39:18,991
And that's one of the
things, the things we face

613
00:39:18,991 --> 00:39:21,409
as therapists, is helping people change

614
00:39:21,409 --> 00:39:26,108
those firing patterns so that
the pathways begin to shift.

615
00:39:26,291 --> 00:39:27,870
And fortunately, what we've learned

616
00:39:27,870 --> 00:39:31,949
is that that's possible, even as adults.

617
00:39:34,650 --> 00:39:36,863
All right, I'm going to talk a
little bit about what we call

618
00:39:36,863 --> 00:39:39,523
patterns of attachment
or styles of attachment.

619
00:39:42,596 --> 00:39:46,540
These describe, when
you're talking about a baby

620
00:39:47,463 --> 00:39:48,872
and their style of attachment,

621
00:39:48,872 --> 00:39:51,442
whether they're secure or
insecure, for instance,

622
00:39:51,442 --> 00:39:53,880
we're talking about describing

623
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:56,557
the relationship, not the child.

624
00:39:56,897 --> 00:39:59,319
So the child isn't a secure child.

625
00:39:59,319 --> 00:40:01,352
The child has a secure relationship

626
00:40:01,352 --> 00:40:04,318
with a mother, maybe with a father.

627
00:40:04,318 --> 00:40:07,732
They may have different
attachment relationships

628
00:40:07,732 --> 00:40:09,132
with the mother and the father.

629
00:40:09,132 --> 00:40:11,511
They can be secure with one
and insecure with the other.

630
00:40:12,849 --> 00:40:17,242
But as development goes on, these secure

631
00:40:17,242 --> 00:40:20,321
and insecure patterns become internalized

632
00:40:20,321 --> 00:40:23,430
into what we call an
internal working model.

633
00:40:25,417 --> 00:40:27,510
And the internal working model includes

634
00:40:27,510 --> 00:40:30,111
the child's conception about themselves,

635
00:40:30,111 --> 00:40:32,244
about the caregiving environment,

636
00:40:32,244 --> 00:40:34,759
and about the world more generally.

637
00:40:35,826 --> 00:40:38,184
And the way these patterns are established

638
00:40:39,415 --> 00:40:43,278
is by sensitive and responsive caregiving

639
00:40:43,278 --> 00:40:46,791
or the lack of sensitive
and responsive caregiving.

640
00:40:48,401 --> 00:40:53,401
So here's very grossly
overstated but general sense

641
00:40:54,839 --> 00:40:58,708
of how internal working
models might be seen.

642
00:41:00,066 --> 00:41:03,566
A baby who's secure or an adult

643
00:41:03,566 --> 00:41:06,214
who has a secure working model

644
00:41:06,214 --> 00:41:11,214
sees the self as lovable,
worthy, and good,

645
00:41:12,924 --> 00:41:17,924
sees others as helpful,
trustworthy, and basically good,

646
00:41:19,973 --> 00:41:24,138
and sees the world as safe and
predictable, in large part.

647
00:41:26,489 --> 00:41:30,157
Insecure attachments, more generally,

648
00:41:30,157 --> 00:41:34,972
and they're sort of like Tolstoy said,

649
00:41:34,972 --> 00:41:36,902
all happy families are the same.

650
00:41:36,902 --> 00:41:39,787
Unhappy families each has its own story.

651
00:41:40,186 --> 00:41:43,327
There's one form of secure attachment.

652
00:41:43,327 --> 00:41:47,172
There are many ways in
which you can be insecure.

653
00:41:49,127 --> 00:41:51,813
So generally in an insecure attachment

654
00:41:52,059 --> 00:41:57,059
you see yourself as
unlovable, unworthy, and bad.

655
00:41:59,240 --> 00:42:02,331
You see others as hurtful, untrustworthy

656
00:42:02,331 --> 00:42:05,826
and maybe even coercive,
and you see the world

657
00:42:05,826 --> 00:42:10,826
as dangerous and chaotic or
a place not to be explored.

658
00:42:13,578 --> 00:42:15,686
So why does this matter?

659
00:42:15,686 --> 00:42:19,451
Well, we carry our working model with us

660
00:42:19,451 --> 00:42:23,772
into new relationships that we have.

661
00:42:24,249 --> 00:42:26,475
And our working model actually shapes

662
00:42:26,475 --> 00:42:28,765
these relationships by our expectations.

663
00:42:28,765 --> 00:42:31,344
And if you think of meeting people,

664
00:42:32,067 --> 00:42:35,598
you know, if you meet
someone who approaches you

665
00:42:35,598 --> 00:42:39,986
without good eye contact,
who sort of, you know, says,

666
00:42:39,986 --> 00:42:44,923
hi, you know, who cares is
the feeling you get from them,

667
00:42:45,738 --> 00:42:48,289
they may answer your questions briefly

668
00:42:48,289 --> 00:42:51,982
or scornfully or dismissively,

669
00:42:52,562 --> 00:42:55,298
you don't feel like being
a friend with that person.

670
00:42:56,745 --> 00:42:59,868
And that person who may have what we call

671
00:42:59,868 --> 00:43:04,868
a dismissing attachment has
reinforced his attachment

672
00:43:05,930 --> 00:43:10,287
by causing you to not
want to be close to them.

673
00:43:10,741 --> 00:43:13,420
So they go into the interaction

674
00:43:13,420 --> 00:43:16,294
feeling like people don't like me,

675
00:43:16,294 --> 00:43:18,124
I don't want to get to know people

676
00:43:18,124 --> 00:43:20,369
because they're not that great anyway.

677
00:43:21,522 --> 00:43:26,201
And the way they approach the
interaction actually causes

678
00:43:26,201 --> 00:43:31,201
their expectation to happen,
and so people avoid them.

679
00:43:32,893 --> 00:43:36,175
If you meet someone who
comes on with a smile,

680
00:43:36,175 --> 00:43:38,268
who looks at you directly, who seems

681
00:43:38,268 --> 00:43:40,340
genuinely interested to meet you,

682
00:43:40,340 --> 00:43:42,941
who wants to hear what you have to say,

683
00:43:43,293 --> 00:43:45,883
you're much more likely to
want to befriend that person.

684
00:43:46,867 --> 00:43:50,148
And that person has brought
their secure model of attachment

685
00:43:50,148 --> 00:43:53,385
with them and has given you the sense

686
00:43:53,661 --> 00:43:55,588
that you're worthy and important

687
00:43:55,588 --> 00:43:57,884
as well as they're being
worthy and important.

688
00:43:57,884 --> 00:44:02,884
So their own secure
model will tend to evoke

689
00:44:03,875 --> 00:44:07,414
similar responses in others and in

690
00:44:07,414 --> 00:44:10,153
that way we tend to shape our world.

691
00:44:12,399 --> 00:44:15,667
And when we search for a partner in life,

692
00:44:15,667 --> 00:44:17,941
we tend to choose based on models

693
00:44:17,941 --> 00:44:21,637
from our previous
caregiving relationships.

694
00:44:25,204 --> 00:44:27,513
One of the things, the
most exciting aspects

695
00:44:27,513 --> 00:44:30,894
of attachment research in
recent years has been the work

696
00:44:30,894 --> 00:44:34,159
on intergenerational
transmission of attachment.

697
00:44:35,302 --> 00:44:38,541
We developed ways of
measuring adult attachment

698
00:44:38,987 --> 00:44:42,493
that seem to be parallel to the ways

699
00:44:42,493 --> 00:44:45,771
in which measure infant
and child attachment.

700
00:44:47,676 --> 00:44:51,819
And a group of people
had the idea of doing

701
00:44:52,572 --> 00:44:55,456
adult attachment interviews with mothers

702
00:44:55,456 --> 00:44:59,132
who were pregnant and a year later doing

703
00:45:03,608 --> 00:45:07,742
an attachment assessment of
a baby and that same mother.

704
00:45:08,243 --> 00:45:13,243
They found a 75 percent
predictive concordance

705
00:45:13,885 --> 00:45:17,603
of the mother's model of attachment

706
00:45:17,603 --> 00:45:20,829
with the baby's relationship
with the mother.

707
00:45:21,687 --> 00:45:26,341
And in another study where
foster babies and mothers

708
00:45:26,341 --> 00:45:31,341
were tested, they found
a 72 percent correlation

709
00:45:32,623 --> 00:45:35,528
between the baby's
attachment and the foster

710
00:45:35,528 --> 00:45:39,752
mother's attachment prior
to being with the baby.

711
00:45:40,156 --> 00:45:45,156
These are astonishing figures,
and they really indicate

712
00:45:45,242 --> 00:45:49,931
how important it is that
the attachment relationship

713
00:45:52,361 --> 00:45:57,002
in the first year of
life, how much it shapes

714
00:45:57,002 --> 00:45:59,907
a baby's whole sense of how they're going

715
00:45:59,907 --> 00:46:02,459
to interact with others
throughout their life.

716
00:46:04,863 --> 00:46:08,254
So when we talk about
patterns of attachment,

717
00:46:08,254 --> 00:46:13,254
we generally talk about secure
relationships or insecure.

718
00:46:15,551 --> 00:46:19,627
These aren't diagnoses, they're
not psychological diagnoses.

719
00:46:20,330 --> 00:46:24,207
But they are ways which
we've learned to measure

720
00:46:24,207 --> 00:46:27,249
in research settings, primarily.

721
00:46:28,350 --> 00:46:32,173
And we think of insecure and secure.

722
00:46:32,173 --> 00:46:33,872
But I think a more important way

723
00:46:33,872 --> 00:46:36,858
to divide attachment relationships

724
00:46:36,858 --> 00:46:40,138
is by organized and disorganized.

725
00:46:41,606 --> 00:46:46,606
So an organized attachment
means that a child

726
00:46:47,497 --> 00:46:51,170
has a way to get their
attachment needs met.

727
00:46:53,474 --> 00:46:56,415
About 60 to 65 percent of babies

728
00:46:56,415 --> 00:47:00,270
in middle class groups
are securely attached.

729
00:47:01,432 --> 00:47:05,697
They meet their needs
by seeking the caregiver

730
00:47:05,697 --> 00:47:08,478
when they're feeling
sad, when they're hurt,

731
00:47:08,478 --> 00:47:11,317
when they're tired, or when
they just want to share.

732
00:47:12,391 --> 00:47:17,391
And they take joy in seeing
their parent when they return

733
00:47:18,418 --> 00:47:21,265
to their parent after
a period of separation.

734
00:47:21,364 --> 00:47:25,304
Insecure babies tend to be split into--

735
00:47:25,304 --> 00:47:28,376
insecure and organized
babies tend to be split

736
00:47:28,376 --> 00:47:30,311
into avoidant babies who are about

737
00:47:30,311 --> 00:47:33,399
20 to 25 percent in the
middle class groups.

738
00:47:33,399 --> 00:47:38,399
Avoidant babies tend to act
as if they don't have much

739
00:47:40,055 --> 00:47:42,636
in the way of attachment relationships.

740
00:47:43,230 --> 00:47:45,174
They tend to, if mom has been away

741
00:47:45,174 --> 00:47:49,076
and comes back into the room,
they tend to sort of act like,

742
00:47:49,076 --> 00:47:51,935
well, so who cares that you're back.

743
00:47:52,381 --> 00:47:56,574
In fact, if you measure these
babies' physiological aspects,

744
00:47:56,574 --> 00:48:00,050
you'll find that they're very
aroused if mother's away.

745
00:48:00,050 --> 00:48:02,102
And when mother comes back, they get

746
00:48:02,102 --> 00:48:04,834
much calmer, but they don't act that way.

747
00:48:05,059 --> 00:48:06,971
And the theory is that they've learned

748
00:48:06,971 --> 00:48:09,242
the best way to get whatever they can get

749
00:48:09,242 --> 00:48:12,183
from mom is not to act too needy.

750
00:48:12,649 --> 00:48:14,565
So they tend to be involved with toys

751
00:48:14,565 --> 00:48:19,565
or busy with something
else, and that is their way

752
00:48:20,214 --> 00:48:23,725
of making sure that they get
whatever they can get from mom.

753
00:48:24,038 --> 00:48:26,703
The other group of
insecure organized babies

754
00:48:26,703 --> 00:48:29,604
are called ambivalent or resistant.

755
00:48:30,137 --> 00:48:33,932
These babies get very upset
if mom leaves the room,

756
00:48:35,224 --> 00:48:39,410
and they don't really get
comforted when she comes back.

757
00:48:40,169 --> 00:48:43,478
They either are very
angry, they may kick her

758
00:48:43,478 --> 00:48:47,578
and hit her and push on
her, or they just may be

759
00:48:47,578 --> 00:48:50,002
dissolved in a puddle of tears

760
00:48:50,002 --> 00:48:54,162
and not be consolable when she comes back.

761
00:48:54,408 --> 00:48:56,906
A secure baby, when mom
comes back to the room

762
00:48:56,906 --> 00:49:00,919
after a period of being
a way, may be crying,

763
00:49:00,919 --> 00:49:04,779
may reach for her, may
want to be hugged and held,

764
00:49:05,148 --> 00:49:08,461
but after a few minutes is
ready to get going again

765
00:49:08,461 --> 00:49:10,829
and doing the business of a baby,

766
00:49:10,829 --> 00:49:13,973
which is exploring the
world and enjoying toys.

767
00:49:15,969 --> 00:49:20,969
So simply being insecure
doesn't mean being pathological.

768
00:49:27,264 --> 00:49:29,689
It doesn't mean psycho pathology.

769
00:49:30,019 --> 00:49:34,513
And I would say most of us,
if you came into the field

770
00:49:34,513 --> 00:49:38,149
of social work, you're probably coming

771
00:49:38,149 --> 00:49:42,469
from some situation which was
less than ideal as a child.

772
00:49:42,799 --> 00:49:45,738
My theory is that people
who grew up very happy

773
00:49:45,738 --> 00:49:48,192
don't need to become therapists.

774
00:49:48,666 --> 00:49:50,562
We become therapists for reasons,

775
00:49:50,562 --> 00:49:52,193
for solving our own problems.

776
00:49:52,193 --> 00:49:55,995
And so many of us might have been avoidant

777
00:49:55,995 --> 00:49:59,002
or ambivalent as young children.

778
00:49:59,309 --> 00:50:03,104
And maybe we've worked our
way out of that by now.

779
00:50:06,641 --> 00:50:08,437
But it's important to recognize

780
00:50:08,437 --> 00:50:10,054
that being avoidant or ambivalent

781
00:50:10,054 --> 00:50:12,674
doesn't mean having a diagnosis.

782
00:50:13,902 --> 00:50:16,979
I'm going to show you now an example

783
00:50:16,979 --> 00:50:20,227
of the Strange Situation
from Everett Water's lab

784
00:50:20,227 --> 00:50:24,176
at Stony Brook in Long Island.

785
00:50:24,530 --> 00:50:29,530
And we're going to show you both secure

786
00:50:29,812 --> 00:50:33,435
and avoidant and ambivalent babies

787
00:50:33,696 --> 00:50:37,604
to give you an idea of
how these babies look

788
00:50:37,604 --> 00:50:39,993
and how we measure their security.

789
00:50:40,143 --> 00:50:42,648
We do this in what's
called a Strange Situation

790
00:50:42,648 --> 00:50:44,761
which was developed by Mary Ainsworth.

791
00:50:46,976 --> 00:50:50,592
And in the Strange Situation
the mother and the baby

792
00:50:50,592 --> 00:50:55,219
come into a strange lab
where there's video cameras,

793
00:50:55,219 --> 00:50:59,034
toys on the floor, chairs
on the side of the room.

794
00:51:01,220 --> 00:51:04,109
And part of the point is that
it's strange so that the child

795
00:51:04,109 --> 00:51:08,112
is not in a secure setting
where they feel comfortable,

796
00:51:08,879 --> 00:51:12,428
but mom's there so
they're okay for a while.

797
00:51:12,428 --> 00:51:16,586
Mom sits for a while,
maybe plays with the baby,

798
00:51:16,586 --> 00:51:19,786
talks to the baby, then a
stranger comes in the room.

799
00:51:20,379 --> 00:51:24,057
The stranger talks to mom for a while

800
00:51:24,503 --> 00:51:26,354
then sits down and plays with the baby

801
00:51:26,354 --> 00:51:28,268
and then mom leaves the room.

802
00:51:30,358 --> 00:51:35,358
The baby may be upset, the
baby may be not seeming upset,

803
00:51:36,145 --> 00:51:38,519
maybe the baby plays with the stranger,

804
00:51:38,519 --> 00:51:40,887
different babies will do different things.

805
00:51:40,887 --> 00:51:42,825
But what we're looking for is what happens

806
00:51:42,825 --> 00:51:45,258
when mom comes back in the room.

807
00:51:45,934 --> 00:51:50,934
Does the baby greet mom,
does the baby get its needs

808
00:51:51,812 --> 00:51:56,074
met by mom, and then does
the baby return to play?

809
00:51:56,850 --> 00:51:59,818
So you'll see different
reactions of a secure

810
00:51:59,818 --> 00:52:04,818
and insecure ambivalent and
an insecure avoidant baby.

811
00:52:05,614 --> 00:52:09,723
And the way in which these are rated

812
00:52:09,723 --> 00:52:12,067
is really almost entirely looking

813
00:52:12,067 --> 00:52:15,278
at how the reunion of
the mother and the baby

814
00:52:15,278 --> 00:52:17,871
in each of the two reunions that occur

815
00:52:17,871 --> 00:52:22,075
in the Strange Situation, how
those reunions take place.

816
00:52:24,405 --> 00:52:27,017
So now I'm going to show
you the Strange Situation.

817
00:52:28,032 --> 00:52:30,315
And you'll have a chance
to see for yourself

818
00:52:30,315 --> 00:52:33,561
how we measure attachment in infants.

819
00:52:36,392 --> 00:52:38,372
So one of the things you didn't see

820
00:52:38,372 --> 00:52:42,866
in the Strange Situation
is a disorganized baby.

821
00:52:43,306 --> 00:52:48,306
I think because disorganized
babies really are

822
00:52:49,244 --> 00:52:52,616
more pathological and
disorganization as an infant

823
00:52:52,616 --> 00:52:55,826
is associated with later
pathological development,

824
00:52:58,624 --> 00:53:01,710
people tend not to maintain
film banks of them.

825
00:53:01,710 --> 00:53:04,755
And they don't make
them publicly available.

826
00:53:05,565 --> 00:53:08,216
So when a baby is disorganized

827
00:53:08,216 --> 00:53:12,227
in their attachment to
a parent, the experience

828
00:53:12,227 --> 00:53:16,011
of that child is they have
no way to get their needs met

829
00:53:16,703 --> 00:53:20,388
because the source of safety,
which is the caregiver,

830
00:53:20,388 --> 00:53:25,178
and babies know that, is
also the source of fear.

831
00:53:27,328 --> 00:53:30,689
And this is either because
the parent is abusive

832
00:53:32,027 --> 00:53:35,829
or because the parent is
frightening, scares the child

833
00:53:35,829 --> 00:53:40,374
in some way without
being physically abusive.

834
00:53:43,139 --> 00:53:46,560
If the parent is the source of safety,

835
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:48,408
the child knows they have to go

836
00:53:48,408 --> 00:53:50,710
to the source of safety
when they feel fear,

837
00:53:50,710 --> 00:53:53,243
but the parent is also the source of fear.

838
00:53:53,243 --> 00:53:56,943
This puts the child in
an irresolvable dilemma.

839
00:53:57,330 --> 00:54:02,330
They can't both seek safety
and get away from fear.

840
00:54:04,627 --> 00:54:07,162
So in a Strange Situation
when these children

841
00:54:07,162 --> 00:54:09,909
are seen in reunion with their mother,

842
00:54:10,493 --> 00:54:13,051
they show all kinds of anomalous patterns.

843
00:54:13,051 --> 00:54:16,871
Some of them may freeze,
some of them may walk

844
00:54:16,871 --> 00:54:20,228
toward mom with their
head covered like this.

845
00:54:20,228 --> 00:54:23,596
They may approach mom and then
turn around and walk away.

846
00:54:23,980 --> 00:54:28,065
They may look just totally
dazed, and we think

847
00:54:28,065 --> 00:54:32,349
this is probably a precursor
of later dissociation.

848
00:54:34,605 --> 00:54:36,758
So they show one of these ways

849
00:54:36,758 --> 00:54:41,758
of really looking like
this is way over my head.

850
00:54:44,547 --> 00:54:47,230
I don't know what to do in this situation.

851
00:54:47,846 --> 00:54:51,930
And we see this pattern commonly

852
00:54:51,930 --> 00:54:54,002
in children who've been maltreated.

853
00:54:54,725 --> 00:54:56,803
We also see it to some degree for instance

854
00:54:56,803 --> 00:55:01,803
in children where their parents
have had a significant loss,

855
00:55:02,228 --> 00:55:04,686
for instance, maybe one of
the parents' own parents

856
00:55:04,686 --> 00:55:08,137
in the short time before
the baby was born.

857
00:55:08,243 --> 00:55:12,202
So we see it not just in
abusive parents, but parents

858
00:55:12,202 --> 00:55:15,652
who maybe aren't psychologically
available to their babies.

859
00:55:16,997 --> 00:55:18,752
This is the only pattern of attachment

860
00:55:18,752 --> 00:55:20,842
that really is seen as a risk for later

861
00:55:20,842 --> 00:55:23,804
psycho pathology and behavior problems.

862
00:55:24,561 --> 00:55:26,296
And it's a risk for both internalizing

863
00:55:26,296 --> 00:55:29,541
and externalizing problems in children.

864
00:55:31,455 --> 00:55:35,237
So other types of attachment reflect

865
00:55:35,237 --> 00:55:37,248
an organized system, as I said.

866
00:55:37,248 --> 00:55:39,346
And they help to organize
later development,

867
00:55:41,038 --> 00:55:43,371
whereas disorganization means that

868
00:55:43,371 --> 00:55:46,449
later development is more chaotic.

869
00:55:46,449 --> 00:55:48,468
And the baby tends not to develop

870
00:55:48,468 --> 00:55:50,904
these wonderful right brain skills

871
00:55:50,904 --> 00:55:54,646
which are the foundation for
most of the rest of life.

872
00:56:01,710 --> 00:56:06,229
So in a disorganized baby,
the baby sees the mother

873
00:56:06,229 --> 00:56:10,278
as a source of safety, without
her, the baby won't survive.

874
00:56:10,278 --> 00:56:13,563
And babies are aware of this
on a very visceral level.

875
00:56:14,088 --> 00:56:17,461
But the mother is simultaneously
the source of fear.

876
00:56:18,209 --> 00:56:21,814
And the baby is unable
to approach when fearful

877
00:56:21,814 --> 00:56:25,101
or to flee since there is no other safety.

878
00:56:25,652 --> 00:56:27,723
And that's what causes the freezing

879
00:56:27,723 --> 00:56:31,058
or the contradictory behaviors.

880
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:34,999
The internal working model
of a disorganized baby

881
00:56:34,999 --> 00:56:37,966
is of the self as not lovable,

882
00:56:37,966 --> 00:56:40,404
not likely to have its needs met,

883
00:56:40,988 --> 00:56:44,529
the caregiving environment is
unpredictable or threatening,

884
00:56:44,836 --> 00:56:47,536
and the world as a dangerous place

885
00:56:47,536 --> 00:56:49,867
where you can't count on others.

886
00:56:51,326 --> 00:56:53,946
And this working model, obviously,

887
00:56:53,946 --> 00:56:57,781
has profound impact on later development.

888
00:56:58,909 --> 00:57:03,909
What are the results of this
kind of disorganization?

889
00:57:06,657 --> 00:57:11,211
So we have not only a parent
who's the source of fear.

890
00:57:11,211 --> 00:57:13,310
We have a parent who
hasn't taught the child

891
00:57:13,310 --> 00:57:15,831
these wonderful skills that they need

892
00:57:15,831 --> 00:57:18,816
to take on all the problems of life.

893
00:57:19,529 --> 00:57:22,665
We may see extremes of
emotional expression

894
00:57:22,665 --> 00:57:25,687
that occur and stop unpredictably.

895
00:57:26,164 --> 00:57:28,873
I've worked with parents
who say, well, obviously,

896
00:57:28,873 --> 00:57:31,260
when my child is having tantrums,

897
00:57:32,875 --> 00:57:34,414
they're not really feeling this

898
00:57:34,414 --> 00:57:36,331
because they can stop on a dime.

899
00:57:37,046 --> 00:57:40,150
That doesn't mean they're
not really feeling it.

900
00:57:40,250 --> 00:57:43,093
It means the way they've
learned to regulate

901
00:57:43,093 --> 00:57:48,093
is to go from highly overaroused
to shut down in one second.

902
00:57:49,117 --> 00:57:51,550
That's not an adaptive pattern.

903
00:57:51,712 --> 00:57:55,248
They're very hard to
soothe, they often have

904
00:57:55,248 --> 00:57:58,373
poor regulation of sleep, appetite,

905
00:57:58,373 --> 00:58:01,856
bladder and bowels and other body states.

906
00:58:03,203 --> 00:58:05,034
If you work with children who've had

907
00:58:05,034 --> 00:58:07,694
significant disorganization early in life,

908
00:58:07,694 --> 00:58:09,895
you spend an awful lot of time talking

909
00:58:09,895 --> 00:58:11,662
about their poop and their pee

910
00:58:11,923 --> 00:58:14,686
because they don't know how to regulate

911
00:58:14,686 --> 00:58:17,465
even something as basic as that.

912
00:58:19,289 --> 00:58:23,868
The lack of trust in a secure caregiver

913
00:58:23,868 --> 00:58:26,930
means that the baby or the young child

914
00:58:26,930 --> 00:58:28,801
tries to meet their own needs.

915
00:58:28,801 --> 00:58:31,967
And often they will do
anything to be in control.

916
00:58:31,999 --> 00:58:33,457
And you can understand this because

917
00:58:34,810 --> 00:58:37,848
a baby expects a grownup to be in control.

918
00:58:38,131 --> 00:58:40,726
When they're not, the baby decides,

919
00:58:40,726 --> 00:58:42,955
I'd better handle this for myself.

920
00:58:43,288 --> 00:58:46,801
So when grownups later in their
lives try to be in control,

921
00:58:46,801 --> 00:58:49,123
these babies will resist,
these children will resist

922
00:58:49,123 --> 00:58:53,837
control by others very potently.

923
00:58:53,973 --> 00:58:57,352
And when you have a child whose goal is

924
00:58:57,352 --> 00:58:59,364
to be in control at all times,

925
00:59:00,148 --> 00:59:02,592
it's hard to be as strong as they are

926
00:59:04,252 --> 00:59:07,847
to assert control and safety
so that they can begin

927
00:59:07,847 --> 00:59:11,906
to learn that they can be safe and secure.

928
00:59:12,923 --> 00:59:14,882
Their lack of trust also means

929
00:59:14,882 --> 00:59:17,172
they don't know how to
be intimate with others.

930
00:59:18,436 --> 00:59:21,104
They're often very impulsive,
they haven't learned

931
00:59:21,104 --> 00:59:24,304
to control impulses, to inhibit impulses.

932
00:59:25,100 --> 00:59:27,033
They may have an undeveloped conscience

933
00:59:27,033 --> 00:59:30,902
or a warped conscience,
and they tend to make

934
00:59:30,902 --> 00:59:34,453
other people angry at themselves.

935
00:59:35,392 --> 00:59:37,924
And even in working with an adult client,

936
00:59:37,924 --> 00:59:39,945
if you've worked with an adult client

937
00:59:39,945 --> 00:59:42,136
who just makes you angry all the time,

938
00:59:43,228 --> 00:59:45,640
it's good to think back on whether

939
00:59:45,640 --> 00:59:48,175
this may be the source of that.

940
00:59:51,042 --> 00:59:53,414
So after there'd been a number of years

941
00:59:53,414 --> 00:59:55,760
of research on infant attachment,

942
00:59:57,036 --> 00:59:59,953
Mary Main and the other
researchers in this field

943
00:59:59,953 --> 01:00:03,539
began to look at whether you could measure

944
01:00:03,539 --> 01:00:06,432
adult attachment in a similar way.

945
01:00:08,075 --> 01:00:10,918
And they found by interviewing parents

946
01:00:10,918 --> 01:00:15,918
of the infants with whom they
had done Strange Situations,

947
01:00:16,306 --> 01:00:20,732
they began to develop, to
understand patterns in the adults

948
01:00:21,085 --> 01:00:25,196
that are parallel to the infant patterns.

949
01:00:27,009 --> 01:00:31,889
So some adults, many adults have

950
01:00:31,889 --> 01:00:34,489
organized internal working models.

951
01:00:34,489 --> 01:00:39,159
That's what we call the way we
measure an adult attachment.

952
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:44,920
So organized adults may
be secure or balanced.

953
01:00:46,742 --> 01:00:50,002
And these people are
able to explain clearly

954
01:00:50,571 --> 01:00:51,962
what's going on in their lives

955
01:00:51,962 --> 01:00:56,962
or to talk with you using
both affect and rationality.

956
01:00:58,308 --> 01:01:03,245
Insecure adults who are
organized may be dismissing.

957
01:01:03,568 --> 01:01:08,568
This is equivalent to the
infant attachment of avoidant.

958
01:01:09,104 --> 01:01:12,507
They tend, dismissing
adults tend to defensively

959
01:01:12,507 --> 01:01:17,287
exclude the importance
of affective information.

960
01:01:18,107 --> 01:01:20,661
They've learned not to put much emphasis

961
01:01:20,661 --> 01:01:25,004
on feelings or affect because they're--

962
01:01:27,233 --> 01:01:28,755
as a baby, of course, they learned

963
01:01:28,755 --> 01:01:32,535
that the best way to get their needs met

964
01:01:32,535 --> 01:01:35,966
by their mother was to appear
not to have many needs.

965
01:01:36,284 --> 01:01:38,570
As an adult, they've
continued that pattern

966
01:01:38,570 --> 01:01:41,601
by just trying to convince themselves

967
01:01:41,601 --> 01:01:44,295
that they don't have
many needs, and they tend

968
01:01:44,295 --> 01:01:48,081
to leave out affective
information when they talk.

969
01:01:48,695 --> 01:01:53,695
Preoccupied adults are
also organized attachment.

970
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:59,064
They tend to defensively
exclude some emotional

971
01:01:59,064 --> 01:02:02,323
information and some
rational explanations.

972
01:02:02,532 --> 01:02:07,532
And they tend to not get their
needs met well by others.

973
01:02:09,982 --> 01:02:13,277
Just as the baby couldn't
be comforted by the mother,

974
01:02:13,277 --> 01:02:17,131
these adults are always looking for more.

975
01:02:20,390 --> 01:02:25,176
The adults who are not organized
in their attachment styles

976
01:02:25,176 --> 01:02:29,502
are called unresolved in
relation to trauma or loss.

977
01:02:30,323 --> 01:02:33,809
And they tend to show
lapses in the monitoring

978
01:02:33,809 --> 01:02:37,300
of their discourse and
a lack of coherence.

979
01:02:37,300 --> 01:02:39,472
I'll try to explain this a little better.

980
01:02:43,066 --> 01:02:46,476
And in a couple of minutes I'll read

981
01:02:46,476 --> 01:02:49,013
from some adult attachment interviews

982
01:02:49,013 --> 01:02:52,300
to give you a better
picture of how this works.

983
01:02:52,588 --> 01:02:57,180
So when you're assessing
an adult's attachment style

984
01:02:57,180 --> 01:03:01,555
or a pattern, you interview
them using something called

985
01:03:01,555 --> 01:03:03,333
the Adult Attachment Interview,

986
01:03:03,333 --> 01:03:08,333
which is a semi-structured
interview which Mary Main

987
01:03:08,884 --> 01:03:13,116
has said is designed to
surprise the unconscious.

988
01:03:13,116 --> 01:03:15,137
And it's interesting how well this works

989
01:03:15,429 --> 01:03:17,709
because I think most of
us who have been trained

990
01:03:17,709 --> 01:03:20,186
to use the Adult Attachment Interview

991
01:03:20,186 --> 01:03:23,497
of course at some point have someone else

992
01:03:23,497 --> 01:03:25,808
give us the Adult Attachment Interview.

993
01:03:25,808 --> 01:03:27,382
And I know in my case and in the case

994
01:03:27,382 --> 01:03:29,483
of many of the people I worked with

995
01:03:29,483 --> 01:03:34,483
our unconsciouses, our unconsciousnesses,

996
01:03:34,506 --> 01:03:38,148
I guess that's the word,
were truly surprised.

997
01:03:38,148 --> 01:03:40,674
And I found myself in tears talking

998
01:03:40,674 --> 01:03:44,553
to my colleague about my early experiences

999
01:03:45,137 --> 01:03:49,138
because the way these
questions are structured

1000
01:03:49,138 --> 01:03:54,138
brings up reexperiencing
of early feelings.

1001
01:03:56,066 --> 01:03:58,151
So questions focus on the experience

1002
01:03:58,151 --> 01:04:03,151
of having been parented,
how one's parents responded

1003
01:04:04,389 --> 01:04:07,982
to sicknesses or other
difficult situations,

1004
01:04:08,009 --> 01:04:09,985
whether parents were ever threatening,

1005
01:04:10,908 --> 01:04:13,226
and how the adults feel their experience

1006
01:04:13,226 --> 01:04:16,277
of being parented affects them today,

1007
01:04:16,277 --> 01:04:19,271
and how they currently
parent their children.

1008
01:04:19,271 --> 01:04:21,684
It takes about an hour,
a little over an hour

1009
01:04:21,684 --> 01:04:26,684
sometimes to do an Adult
Attachment Interview.

1010
01:04:29,563 --> 01:04:31,976
And when you've done this interview,

1011
01:04:31,976 --> 01:04:35,414
you record it, and it is then transcribed

1012
01:04:35,414 --> 01:04:38,762
word for word and pause for pause.

1013
01:04:38,952 --> 01:04:43,952
And it is rated in a very
elaborate rating system

1014
01:04:45,974 --> 01:04:50,431
which where the focus of the rating is

1015
01:04:50,431 --> 01:04:53,790
on the coherence of
the person's narrative.

1016
01:04:53,790 --> 01:04:57,602
And coherence has very specific meanings.

1017
01:05:00,544 --> 01:05:04,739
But the coherence means telling the story

1018
01:05:05,677 --> 01:05:10,423
with appropriate feeling
and without defensiveness,

1019
01:05:10,753 --> 01:05:14,564
using enough examples and words

1020
01:05:14,564 --> 01:05:18,383
to make the story clear,
but not running on

1021
01:05:18,383 --> 01:05:23,114
with irrelevant aspects of the
story or other such things.

1022
01:05:24,282 --> 01:05:26,059
A coherent narrative makes sense

1023
01:05:26,059 --> 01:05:28,696
of their life, of one's life experiences.

1024
01:05:29,265 --> 01:05:34,265
And it challenges early
on egocentric beliefs.

1025
01:05:36,757 --> 01:05:39,247
A coherent narrative tends to integrate

1026
01:05:39,247 --> 01:05:41,528
positive and negative feelings

1027
01:05:41,528 --> 01:05:45,179
and integrate across
hemispheres of the brain.

1028
01:05:45,781 --> 01:05:49,479
And coherence moves a person toward

1029
01:05:49,479 --> 01:05:51,786
greater security of attachment.

1030
01:05:52,668 --> 01:05:54,653
This may be sort of confusing.

1031
01:05:54,653 --> 01:05:58,062
But I'm going to read to
you from a few interviews

1032
01:05:58,062 --> 01:05:59,705
and see if this doesn't give you a better

1033
01:05:59,705 --> 01:06:03,698
sense of what we mean by coherent.

1034
01:06:09,853 --> 01:06:13,145
Okay, one of the first questions

1035
01:06:13,744 --> 01:06:16,270
on the Adult Attachment Interview

1036
01:06:16,900 --> 01:06:20,002
is that the person is asked to describe

1037
01:06:20,002 --> 01:06:24,795
for each parent to give five adjectives

1038
01:06:24,795 --> 01:06:28,930
that would describe their
relationship with that parent

1039
01:06:28,930 --> 01:06:32,078
as far back as they can remember.

1040
01:06:34,505 --> 01:06:39,505
So here are three examples
of adults who used

1041
01:06:41,072 --> 01:06:45,754
the word loving in
relationship to their mother.

1042
01:06:45,836 --> 01:06:47,843
So the interviewer has just said,

1043
01:06:47,843 --> 01:06:50,820
"All right, the first word
you gave to describe your

1044
01:06:50,820 --> 01:06:54,638
"relationship with your mother
during childhood was loving.

1045
01:06:54,638 --> 01:06:56,909
"Can you think of a memory or incident

1046
01:06:56,909 --> 01:07:00,524
"that would illustrate for
me why you chose that word?"

1047
01:07:01,519 --> 01:07:04,102
All right, here's a secure person

1048
01:07:04,102 --> 01:07:08,037
talking about a mother who is loving.

1049
01:07:09,554 --> 01:07:14,377
He says, "Loving, I don't know if this is

1050
01:07:14,377 --> 01:07:17,110
"the sort of thing you're looking for.

1051
01:07:17,110 --> 01:07:19,020
"But one thing that comes to mind

1052
01:07:19,020 --> 01:07:21,269
"is the way she stuck up for me

1053
01:07:21,269 --> 01:07:23,354
"when I got in trouble at school.

1054
01:07:23,834 --> 01:07:26,401
"Boy, if I told her about
some problem at school

1055
01:07:26,401 --> 01:07:28,969
"and she thought I was in the right,

1056
01:07:28,969 --> 01:07:31,255
"or if I told her some kid or some teacher

1057
01:07:31,255 --> 01:07:35,285
"had treated me bad, she'd
go out and investigate.

1058
01:07:35,285 --> 01:07:37,622
"And she'd stick up for me to the teacher

1059
01:07:37,622 --> 01:07:41,354
"or to the kid's parents
or anybody, really.

1060
01:07:42,246 --> 01:07:44,369
"I could put it another way, too.

1061
01:07:44,984 --> 01:07:47,187
"I just knew where I stood with her

1062
01:07:47,187 --> 01:07:50,077
"and that she'd be comforting if I was

1063
01:07:50,077 --> 01:07:52,658
"upset or crying or something."

1064
01:07:54,186 --> 01:07:57,193
The interviewer says, "Thank you."

1065
01:07:57,345 --> 01:07:59,446
And the participant
interrupts and continues,

1066
01:07:59,446 --> 01:08:02,532
"Oh, you wanted a specific example.

1067
01:08:03,315 --> 01:08:06,140
"That time I set fire to the garage

1068
01:08:06,140 --> 01:08:08,587
"using my brother's chemistry set.

1069
01:08:09,017 --> 01:08:12,589
"I absolutely, positively
wasn't supposed to use that.

1070
01:08:13,573 --> 01:08:15,524
"She came running when the neighbors

1071
01:08:15,524 --> 01:08:17,748
"phoned the fire
department about the smoke.

1072
01:08:17,748 --> 01:08:21,419
"I expected to get the
life lectured out of me.

1073
01:08:21,419 --> 01:08:23,618
"But she just ran straight for me

1074
01:08:23,618 --> 01:08:27,250
"and picked me up and hugged me real hard.

1075
01:08:28,104 --> 01:08:30,031
"I guess she was so scared and so glad

1076
01:08:30,031 --> 01:08:32,549
"to see me, she just forgot the lecture.

1077
01:08:33,164 --> 01:08:34,531
"Later there were little hints

1078
01:08:34,531 --> 01:08:36,372
"at the dinner table about the incident.

1079
01:08:36,372 --> 01:08:38,823
"But I'd say basically what she did

1080
01:08:38,823 --> 01:08:41,203
"at the time, that was very loving."

1081
01:08:42,941 --> 01:08:45,725
So there's a person who's
able to describe well

1082
01:08:45,725 --> 01:08:49,751
what that relationship felt
like when he was young.

1083
01:08:49,903 --> 01:08:52,511
And you really do get a
sense of what it was like

1084
01:08:52,511 --> 01:08:55,105
to be that child with that mother.