The Blindboy Podcast - Attachment Theory

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

Mental health podcast. How our earliest interactions with our parents can shape our adult friendships and relationships . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bola Boss, you hand-fed Kevins. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. Thank you for the feedback for last week's podcast, which was a weird one. It was a very exploratory, hot take about the history and cultural significance of pineapples. Which, that doesn't sound like much much but it was a very enjoyable podcast I enjoyed making it I learned a lot myself if you're a brand new listener I do recommend that you go back

and listen to some previous episodes some people go back to the start you can if you like but there's loads and loads of episodes about lots of different things and I suggest going back to some earlier episodes if you're a regular listener you know the crack for this week's episode Loads and loads of episodes about lots of different things. And I suggest going back to some earlier episodes. If you're a regular listener.

You know the crack. For this week's episode. I'm going to do. A mental health slash psychology podcast. Because. I always aim to have at least one a month. Of a mental health slash psychology podcast. Because. I know that you really enjoy them

and for me they're very healing. It's very healing and it's a form of self-therapy when I speak about psychology, self-help, shit like that. So what I'd like to delve into this week is a school of psychology known as attachment theory, which I haven't actually covered before, bizarrely. I haven't covered it. I've covered things like transaction analysis, which are quite similar to attachment theory, but I haven't covered attachment theory. But that's something you find anyway with

different schools of psychology or theory of psychotherapy. You find different schools of psychology or theory of psychotherapy you find different schools of psychology basically all describing the same shit using different language but this week i want to do attachment and in a nutshell what that means is your current relationships and that could mean close friendships or Or romantic relationships. Your fucking girlfriend, boyfriend, your husband, your wife. Your best friend. Whatever.

These relationships. May be determined. By the relationship you had. With your mother or father. In the first two years of your life. When you were an infant. and i know that sounds fucking mad but this is what attachment theory is about and it's a little bit it's a little bit terrifying and it seems a little bit unfair because a hypothetical situation let's just say you you

just got divorced this year you got divorced this year or last year, or you just went through a horrible breakup, or you consistently fall for people who don't treat you very well, or you consistently don't treat people well if they fall for you, attachment theory could say that the reason, the things that led to your divorce or even the things that led to you picking a partner that would end in divorce, that these things were determined by the relationship you had with your primary caregiver when you were four months old. And that's terrifying.

So we're going to look into this theory this week. And again, though, the wonderful beauty of psychology and the wonderful beauty of being human is nothing is completely deterministic. Yes, our childhood can influence how we are as adults and events from our childhood can cause us to behave in ways that cause us harm, but nothing is determined. As adults we have the ability to change and not be defined and determined by our childhood if we simply have access to the emotional tools and knowledge if we have access to the emotional tools and

knowledge to understand ourselves better then we can spot unhelpful patterns in our behavior and how we view ourselves and other people, and then we can change them and become a new person. We can write a new script for ourselves. And that's the beautiful liberation of psychology. So the roots of attachment theory kind of start in the 1950s with a fellow called Harry Harlow, right? Now,

before Harry Harlow, psychologists used to believe that we'd say a baby and a mother, that the bond was based primarily, was based only on feeding right it was a behavioral model so yeah the belief up at the time was that basically whether it be human beings or with animals that a baby will form a bond with whoever gives it food so if the baby is receiving food from a person,

then that becomes the baby's mother. And that's how bonds occur in animals and humans. And it was just the accepted belief. And then Harry Harlow came along and did a study using monkeys, which completely changed how we understand human bonds. So in 1958 Harry Harlow

conducted what was called the Wire Mother Experiment which is a bit of a scary sounding experiment and he conducted this experiment with rhesus monkeys who are, they're just small little cute monkeys

and monkeys were chosen because they're quite similar to humans. They're genetically and socially similar to humans. Now this isn't a particular ethical experiment, but it happened. So the wire mother experiment was, Harry Harlow got infant monkeys, right? Like literally newborn monkeys. And he placed them in cages.

And instead of having actual monkey mothers in the cage with the baby monkey, he put two fake mothers in. So think of it like this. You have a cage. You've got a newborn monkey. This monkey doesn't know anything other than this cage. This is its world.

And in the cage with the monkey is a mother monkey that's made out of wire. Just metal wire. But on this metal wire monkey is like a little teeth that can give out milk.

Right. And then there's a second mother monkey in the cage. And this second mother monkey can't provide food, but it's made out of really soft cloth like a towel. So baby monkeys got a choice between metal mother monkey with a rubber tip that gives out milk and then just soft fluffy mother monkey that has no milk and what harlow began to notice very quickly is the baby monkey the baby monkey didn't show that much interest in the metal mother only when it needed food metal mother only when it needed food. So the baby monkey would just go to the metal mother, suck the rubber tit, get whatever amount of milk it wanted, immediately left and then started clinging onto the soft mother and spent most of its day clinging for comfort and for safety onto this softer mother monkey that's made out of towel

and it barely recognized the metal monkey as even a monkey it just was like there's a thing that milk comes out of but this thing here that's soft and cozy and comfy this is where I want to be all day long and as soon as that cloth soft mother monkey was present the baby was not anxious not afraid felt safe and started to develop the confidence to kind of explore its surroundings a bit so long as it knew if if it got frightened, it could return to the soft mother monkey for a little hug. And the soft mother monkey wasn't hugging back. I mean, it's just a fucking towel in the shape of a monkey. Let's be honest. But baby monkey didn't give a fuck.

As far as baby monkey was concerned, this is my mother. It's soft and it feels nice and I feel safe. Even though it doesn't give me milk. So that experiment was fucking huge. Because it kind of rubbished the behavioural theory. It rubbished the theory that a bond between infant and mother is about food. And it said no, no, no. What's much more important is affection, care, safety, love, the feeling of comfort.

This is actually way more important than simply receiving food. So that was revolutionary for the 1950s. Then Harlow went a step further and he conducted a second experiment and he introduced a second monkey. So now what he did is he got two baby monkeys. One baby monkey was raised in a cage like I just described there with the cloth mother and the milk

and then he got a second monkey, baby infant monkey and this monkey was raised in a cage where there was no cloth mother. There was simply a metal mother that just gave milk. Now, both monkeys drank the same amount of milk. Both monkeys grew at the same rate. They physically looked identical.

But then, as they got a little bit older, their behaviours were markedly different. So the monkey that just had the cold metal mother behaved very differently to the monkey that had access to a mother that was made out of a towel. That provided the feeling of comfort, safety, compassion, intimacy, all this stuff. compassion, intimacy, all this stuff. So what Harlow did is he got he got the monkey that had been raised by the metal monkey and now after 90 days introduced it into an enclosure that contained a load of other monkeys.

And what he found was that the metal mother monkey was incredibly timid, very anxious, very shy, wasn't exploring its environment in any way whatsoever. They had no capacity to understand how to act around other monkeys, didn't know how to behave with other monkeys. They were then bullied by the other monkeys, didn't know how to behave with other monkeys. They were then bullied by the other monkeys. The other monkeys rejected them and when they were being bullied,

they had no capacity to stand up for themselves. They would simply allow themselves to be bullied. When they got older to the age that they were to mate with other monkeys they had great difficulty mating extreme difficulty finding a partner to mate and have sex and go through with the process of having their own children and if the monkey was female and did successfully mate when that monkey had a child it was completely incapable of being a mother.

Now the interesting thing is that this type of behaviour was only evident in baby monkeys that had been raised with the surrogate mother, with the metal mother, for more than 90 days. If they had been raised by the surrogate mother for less than 90 days, right? If they had been raised by the surrogate mother for less than 90 days, when they were introduced to the population of other monkeys, they were able to establish a bond. But if it had gone over 90 days, they couldn't form appropriate attachments with other monkeys.

And the thing is, too, this experiment, to be honest, it sounds pretty cruel when you read some of the findings of the experiment in 1958 it sounds pretty cruel like it says here like the to start with the baby monkeys were scared of the other monkeys then they became very aggressive towards them they were unable to communicate or socialise with the other monkeys and they indulged in self-mutilation, tearing out their hair, scratching and biting their own arms and legs. So they would self-harm. These monkeys that didn't receive any affection, that only received food, they were engaging in self-harm. And it says here, In addition, Harlow created a state of anxiety in female monkeys

which had implications once they became parents. Such monkeys became so neurotic that they smashed their infant's face into the floor and rubbed it back and forth. So that's heavy stuff. And the experiments were called pretty unethical at the time and not a lot of people were happy with the experiments. And the reason I'm mentioning them is if you're given historical context to attachment theory, you kind of have to mention Harlow and his monkey experiments you're not going to find

a psychologist today looking at harlow's research you just mention it because it's it's relevant to the historical context of attachment theory because that monkey research went on to influence the the theoretical underpinnings of the work of a fellow called John Bowlby. Who is seen as kind of the founder of attachment theory. As it relates to humans. Not monkeys but humans. Now before I go into Bowlby. I want to speak a little bit about a hormone called oxytocin.

Because. So if you think of that little monkey there bonding with the mother that's made out of soft fabric, that's made out of a towel, and that little monkey is clutching to this towel mother and experiencing a sense of safety and a sense of bonding, what's happening in that monkey's brain is its brain is releasing a hormone called oxytocin. And oxytocin is a hormone present in loads of animals, including humans, that it causes us to form social bonds. It's sometimes called the cuddling hormone.

Like, here's an example. Do you ever go to a house party? So let's just say, okay, you're in the pub. The pub is over. You want to continue the night. And you're like, fuck it, where are we going to go? The pubs are closed. And then someone says, I know of a house party.

And you get the address. And then you go to the house party but you're not really sure if you know anyone there so you walk into the house party and you don't see anyone you know so you feel a little bit a little bit anxious

a little bit weird you don't feel you feel a little bit on guard and you're walking around this house party anxious and not incredibly feeling safe and no one's even being mean to you you know the strangers are like come on in do you want a beer strangers are being sound to you but still you don't really feel at ease so then you walk through the party and you get to the kitchen and as soon as you get to the kitchen you see a person that you know you see a face that you know and it doesn't even matter if you know him that well

because you're in a house full of strangers you see that person that you know them well enough that they recognize you and you say hello to each other and then you get this lovely feeling of safety and familiarity. That's oxytocin. That's what that is. Oxytocin is produced when someone's given labor. Oxytocin is produced when breast milk is being produced. It's the hormone that creates social bonds in animals and in humans. When we love an animal, when we cuddle a dog,

when we cuddle a cat, we both produce oxytocin and this is what creates the bond between us and a cat and vice versa. Like here's an interesting one for me in my own life at the moment. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know that I have two feral cats that I feed.

And they're brother and sister. Their names are Silken Thomas and Napper Tandy. And these are two feral cats. And I feed them. And I feed them and I give them a home. They live in a little wooden house outside my back door. They live in there, they sleep there together and every day I give them food. But because they're completely feral, I've never touched these cats. I've had them for two years. I've

never touched these cats. They let me feed them. They always stay at least one foot away from me. They'll even meow at me. They'll even slow blink at me. They're not afraid of me. But I'll never be able to touch these cats. I just simply won't be able to touch them. adult cats they don't have a context for human touch so that's just the relationship that we have and I'm quite happy to care for them they have a loving relationship with each other they sleep with each other in the same bed they cuddle with each other they fight it's lovely to see but I don't have a close emotional bond with these cats however I used to have a cat that was fully domesticated that I raised from a kitten called Charlie who died and when he died it fucking broke my heart and I mean that in all sincerity it it really experienced it as deep deep painful grief and when I would cuddle Charlie and when he would come up and purr into my neck and I'd hold him

I would experience it as genuine love. So me and Charlie loved each other. We had we were both producing oxytocin when we physically banded with each other and when he died i grieved legitimately

broke my fucking heart and it still hurts to this day it still hurts and that was four or five years ago and you know there's a separate conversation that we as a society need to have about taking people seriously when a pet dies okay if you farm a fucking bond with a pet and that pet dies it's heartbreaking and one of the tough things when Charlie died for me was I have this very real massive

huge grief but then I have to be ashamed of it I had to cry in private if I met someone and they said why are you so upset I just couldn't say my cat died because

society would people would laugh at it like I when Charlie died I had to do a gig that evening and I should have cancelled that gig it was back in the rubber bandits that gig, I was, it was, it was back in the rubber bandits days,

what, what was the gig, was it, body and soul, or some festival like that, I had to do a fucking gig, four or five hours after he died, and,

and I, I, I cried through every song, I was crying, while trying to sing songs, I should have cancelled the gig, I should have cancelled the fucking gig, but you can't cancel a gig because your cat died.

Because that would literally... If I went on the social media and said I can't play body and soul because I'm fucking heartbroken over my dead cat that would make the newspapers and I'd have been laughed at. Now I'm not going off track here. What I'm saying is me and that cat Charlie had an oxytocin bond. We had a real bond based on

the hormone of fucking oxytocin and that meant that we loved each other. So therefore my grief was real. But these cats that I have now, these feral cats, I don't think I would be absolutely

heartbroken if one of them died. I would be very sad. And I think about it. I think about it. To be honest, if one of them died, I would be sad for the one that was left. I would be, it'd be so sad. Because they're brother and sister.

It'd be so sad to think, now you don't have each other, and I don't have a bond with you, and I can never have it. But I don't think if one of them died, I'd be upset, but I wouldn't experience it as intense, deep grief that would cause me to cry.

It would just be a very sad thing that happened and I think about it a lot because I've had them for nearly fucking two years now I feed them every day and I clearly care about them deeply because I want to provide them with safety and shelter but I don't have a bond and they don't have a bond with me

I'm their metal monkey mother do you with me I'm their metal monkey mother do you know I'm literally their metal monkey mother behind a screen door that just distributes fucking food and we've never had the opportunity to cuddle and

they don't associate me with an oxytocin release they would associate me with something like dopamine a pleasure chemical and i'm not talking out of my arse here because they've done studies on this they've done studies on on the release of oxytocin in humans and pets they found with dogs in particular when a dog and a human cuddle the dogs were shown to release have a 57 increase in oxytocin so dogs are very

sensitive to oxytocin releases with their human when when we bond cats less so when a cat uh bonds with their human or has a cuddle cats release oxytocin but only 12 and that's probably because you know dogs have been domesticated way longer than fucking cats and this too is why you know people with complex attachment issues or maybe someone who has suffered a trauma of some trauma of some description can often find it a lot easier to form loving bonds with with animals than they can with humans you know because if if this person to form a bond with a human it carries the risk of of rejection but animals don't reject it that's that's unconditional love so you can get your little your healthy dose of of oxytocin from a bond with an animal

if you're you're in a position or if you're at a point where forming bonds with humans is difficult for you and the interesting thing with oxytocin too is I had kind of a hot take theory that during the pandemic this might impact our oxytocin release and I looked into it and quite a few psychologists are looking at it right now that one aspect of why this pandemic feels so shitty, why our moods are so low, is we're simply not receiving oxytocin from our bodies because we're not bonding with people. Oxytocin gets released when you have a physical bond with someone,

when you hug, when you touch or when you're very close. So under the conditions of social distancing, we have less opportunities for oxytocin release and oxytocin makes us feel safe and loved, safe and loved, protected and happy. And instead we're turning to social media, you know, to get our dopamine, to get our oxytocin. They did a study in 2010 about oxytocin and social media. And the participants in the study, they did an experiment with Twitter. And this, a neuro-e neuro economist, I don't know what

a neuro economist is, I'm assuming it's a neuroscientist who's interested in the economy's impacts on the brain, but a neuro economist did a study about Twitter and oxytocin and they found that when a person tweeted, they got a spike at 13.2% in

their oxytocin levels which is the equivalent of what a groom would get at a wedding. And this is back in 2010. Twitter was a very different experience then, so I'm sure they've changed the algorithm to maximise our fucking oxytocin levels, you know? Because the thing with oxytocin too, it's not all fun and games.

It's not just the chemical that allows us to experience love and bonding oxytocin has also been suggested to be behind um feelings of jealousy envy and feeling good when another person is in pain or some misfortune comes it happens upon them which is a huge part of twitter a massive part of twitter in particular when when people pile on somebody when when this person has done something that's perceived as bad and everyone piles on you know people wouldn't pile on if it didn't feel good so back to attachment theory and let's look at the work of john bolby so we spoke about harry harlow and his monkeys and the little monkey with the mother made out of cloth

and how that monkey would form an emotional bond with that mother. John Bowlby, who was informed by this research, was interested in humans. And he wanted to understand the intense kind of distress that a human infant experiences when it's separated from its caregiver now i say a caregiver because it like any human can be a caregiver it doesn't necessarily have to be the biological mother it's the human that the child forms an attachment with as a caregiver, okay?

So, I'm going to use the word mother instead of caregiver because it's just easier to explain though. So, baby humans, similarly to the baby monkeys, experience closeness with the mother as safety

it's as simple as that ok the young baby wants to be wants to know that it's mother is nearby and as close as possible at all times because when that happens

that's the only way for that little baby to feel safe to feel safe. To feel safe and to feel not in danger. It needs to know, I can see my ma. There she is, our caregiver. And when the baby experiences separation from its mother, it will cry, it will cling, and it'll engage in searching behaviours. The baby will not feel safe if the mother isn't present. If the baby feels separated from the

mother, it will engage in attachment behaviours, crying, clinging, searching. Now what Bowlby brought to this is he was the one who posited that this is evolutionary behavior. This is something that's present in a lot of mammals. And this desire for attachment that a baby has with its mother or caregiver, this need for attachment and the expression of attachment behaviours when separation occurs, that this must be evolutionary. It is an evolutionary advantage that humans and other mammals evolved because babies who behaved in this way had a better chance of survival

because a baby can't fucking feed itself. A baby can't do anything. It needs its caregiver. It has to have its caregiver to feed it and to keep it safe. It's that simple. So these attachment behaviours are evolutionary. And we respond to that. You know, we are hardwired as adults to respond to the sound of a baby's cry.

I mean, even to take it back to fucking cats. You know, cats have lived alongside humans for, I think, about 10,000 years. But a domesticated cat has evolved over a short period of time to meow in a frequency that matches that of a human baby and i know that sounds mad but cats that are completely wild they tend to stop meowing when they become adults right adult cats have no need for meowing they're trying to be stealthy to catch their prey and not get caught by other predators but a domesticated cat will meow into adulthood and they have evolved alongside humans to meow in a way that

sounds to us like a human baby so we give them fucking attention they have hacked the attachment behaviors of human infants but back to john bolby and the attachment behaviours of human infants. But back to John Bowlby and the attachment behaviour system. So that system of an infant crying for its mother, clinging to its mother and searching for its mother. Okay. This system basically, according to Bowlby, it's effective because what the system basically asks, what the baby is asking at that point is,

is my mother nearby? Is she accessible and is she attentive? So, can I see her? Right, okay. Can I touch her? can I cling for her can I get close to her if she's there now that I can actually see her and get close to her

does she give a shit is she actually paying attention because that's the other thing the child could see it's mother the child could touch it's mother but will the mother actually respond and give the attention that's needed now if the child the infant can say yes to all three of those questions if the child can go there's my ma I can see her thank fuck great I can grab onto her. Brilliant. Excellent.

And she's happy to have me here. And she's minding me. Fucking class. I feel good. Okay. If the child can answer all of these things. Now the child feels. Secure.

The baby I should say. Now the. Because we're talking fucking. Babies. Now the baby feels fucking secure. The baby isn't worried about its attachment to its caregiver. And now what

happens? The baby develops confidence and because they're not concerned about the attachment to the caregiver, to the mother they're free to explore their environment, to start to learn

to start to learn, to start to play with other babies if they're there, to explore, to experience meaning, to experience the meaning of existence the best way that a little infant can. Essentially, their survival needs are met at that moment. And the baby's, a little baby's needs are safety and food. So their needs are met. They're not worried about them.

They feel secure attachment with their caregiver, their mother. And now they're living their lives and they're growing. Now, what happens like i said if that baby cannot if that baby says no to those questions so the baby can't see its mother so the baby now what wants its mother and now the ma isn't there so the baby's on its own and now when the baby searches definitely can't see the ma so now the

baby engages in the attachment behavior of crying very very loudly so that wherever the fuck the mother is she will hear the baby and then come immediately to the baby and offer it the security and safety that it needs in response to that as a response to that attachment response of crying but the mother doesn't come so what can happen there with that separation anxiety if it goes on

for too long or if it's very recurring that can be intensely distressing for the baby you have to realise this is a fucking infant so they don't have the capacity that can be intensely distressing for the baby. You have to realise this is a fucking infant, so they don't have the capacity to critically think.

They're not thinking about, where is my mam? Maybe she's out in the kitchen. Maybe she'll come back in. They don't have the capacity for this type of abstract critical thinking. It's very immediate for them. right now i'm in fucking danger and when my ma's here i don't feel like i'm in danger anymore but when she's not here i don't feel safe and i can't make myself feel safe now if you're a parent with a baby don't be freaked out by this don't be freaked out by the concept of when your child is bawling crying when you're not around that they're in great distress this is this

is not a normal part of life like this is part of being a baby we've all been there this is the most natural thing possible an infant experiencing the distress and lack of safety of their parent not being present in that moment and then the parent coming and meeting the needs of the child meeting their needs and making them feel safe and that pattern, that's how we grow and develop. That's eventually the infant learns that, ah, she's not gone forever. She just went to the kitchen. But this, this is the inevitable suffering of human existence. So don't be freaking out thinking, oh, the baby's asleep, but when it wakes up in the room on its own and it starts crying and I'm not there, that's terrible. No, that's normal.

There's going to be a period of time before you can get up and meet the baby's needs and that's the suffering of human existence. To try and completely remove that suffering from an infant's life is as unrealistic as trying to remove suffering from your life. Suffering is part of being alive. It's that simple. What's important is creating an environment where when an attachment behavior like clinging, searching or crying happens that the child gradually learns that these attachment behaviours are effective and my caregiver will come and offer me safety and love and then the child can form a secure attachment.

It's when those needs aren't met on a kind of extreme level that insecure attachments and problems emerge. Like Bowlby refers to this as when the child wears down, when the caregiver either completely rejects the child or doesn't come to the child, and the child engages in an attachment behaviour like crying, so much that it just kind of stops because no one's coming that's an extreme example there

and i'm not what i'm not going to speak about in this episode right i'm not going to speak about severe neglect and abuse okay i'm not going to touch on those issues because it would be irresponsible, I'm not a fucking expert, if I was to speak about issues of neglect or abuse when it comes to this stage of child development, I'll speak to an expert, but what I'm speaking about is kind of the normal attachment and not all of us are going to have completely, not all of us are going to have completely not all of us are going to come away from infancy with a complete secure attachment not all of us are going to get that

some of us will have a bit of an insecure attachment that we'll carry into adulthood because at certain points our attachment needs weren't met when we were infants for various reasons because parents are busy or parents have their own shit going on We weren't met when we were infants for various reasons.

Because parents are busy or parents have their own shit going on. That means they can't be the perfect caregiver all the time. And I'd say most of us experience that. And this is what into adulthood can create issues in how we then form attachments as adults with other adults in an intimate capacity whether it be through romantic relationships or close friendships or whatever but this can be

unlearned as such this can be unlearned and brought into our awareness before I continue with it let's have a little ocarina pause. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe a girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil.

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Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca That's sunrisechallenge.ca Actually, my ocarina pause is like, that's my attachment behavior. Looking for ye to meet my, my needscarina pause is like, that's my attachment behavior. Looking for ye to meet my needs for ye to subscribe to my Patreon account. That's what that is. That's me crying. Because I need the security and safety that patrons give me

but yeah this podcast is this is how I earn a living this is my full time job this is my full time job this is what I do so if you enjoy it if you enjoy listening to this podcast please consider becoming a patron

please consider becoming a patron patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month but the beauty of this thing is is that I'm actually a fucking adult

I'm an adult so even though I'm engaging in the attachment behaviour of playing my ocarina looking for you to give me the security of subscribing to my patreon I'm engaging in the attachment behaviour of playing my ocarina, looking for you to give me the security of subscribing to my Patreon. I'm an adult, so it's not really, it's not life or death. I can look at it in a critical fashion. So therefore, if you're not able to meet my needs to be paid for this podcast, if you're consuming this podcast and you're liking it and you're loving it

but you don't have a job at the moment or you can't afford it, that's fucking fine. It's grand. You don't have to. But if you can afford it, if you can afford to pay me for the work that I'm doing, not only are you paying me for the work I'm doing

but you're paying for the person who can't afford it so everybody gets a podcast and I earn a living it's a fantastic model that's based on kindness and soundness and it's a lovely example there of the difference between adulthood and infancy because a little baby can't say to its ma right now I need a hug and a suck of a tit but if you can't do that man if you can't do it it's grand I'll call into the neighbour next door alright

and she can give me a hug and a bit of milk if you can't do it right now it's grand I get security, safety and food and you get to take the day off don't worry about it infants don't have that luxury

but I as an adult I do have that luxury but I as an adult I do have that luxury and I just had that realisation there and another interesting parallel actually between the Patreon model that I'm trying to do and attachment theory is attachment theory

is sometimes very veers very much towards a society our western society that's capitalistic and individualistic it assumes that we have

a ma and a da and that's it but in other societies in certain indigenous communities for instance around the world where the grouping is a bit more egalitarian.

Parenting is sometimes shared between multiple individuals. So you don't just have one caregiver. If your mother or your father is unavailable at this time, there are other members in the community who you can form secure attachment with. And I've heard Gabor Mate, he's a psychologist who's very much into attachment theory, I've heard him talk about this as it relates to indigenous Canadian communities that have a much more advanced and healthier way of childcare, or it's community-based, rather than the individual individualism of western

capitalism you can have multiple caregivers that you form attachments with and that attachment is kind of shared to give people breaks and i suppose that that's kind of what my Patreon model is a bit. It's, if you're listening to my podcast, you actually don't have to pay me for it. But if you can, please do. And it's kind of shared around and then everyone gets a podcast. I'm trying to challenge the, I'm trying to challenge the simple,

transactional, capitalistic model of, here's a podcast, buy it. And if you can't afford it, you don't get it. Don't worry about it if you can't become a patron don't worry about it and if you can please do please do it's a it gives me a lovely sense of financial security

and safety and also it keeps the podcast fully independent I have the ad advertiser on this podcast to meet my contract with Acast but no advertiser can kind of tell me what to do i get to last week last week i turned down a pretty big advertiser because i just didn't like what they were selling i didn't feel i didn't feel like promoting it so i said no i don't really i don't

want to have you on the podcast that's fine i've got my patrons also follow me on twitch twitch.tv forward slash the blind by podcast I'm on every Thursday night at half eight making live music to the events of a video game very good crack follow me on Instagram blind by boat club and like the podcast and share the podcast with someone you know and

leave reviews and things like that not just my podcast any independent podcast always give an independent podcast that extra little bit of support because the podcast environment is becoming oversaturated with corporate money and that will just turn podcasts into shit radio that's what it'll do if that's allowed to happen so So back to attachment theory. We spoke about John Bowlby and his discovery of attachment styles that a young infant basically

will search for or try to cling for the caregiver or cry so that its needs of safety are met. But another absolute legend in attachment theory and someone who would be who has laid the foundations of kind of more modern attachment theory is a colleague of Bowlby's called Mary Ainsworth.

She specifically started to study the dynamics of infant and parent separation. In particular with an experiment that she devised she devised an experiment called the strain situation experiment so what Mary Ainsworth did is she got a mother and a child

the child is 12 months old because at 12 months old the child has started to develop what's called an attachment style it's had a year of expressing attachment behaviors like crying and experiencing the anxiety and discomfort of separation and then either having their needs met or not met in an adequate way so the child is 12 months old now so for the strange situation experiment to happen

a room is set up think of it a bit like a doctor's office or not a doctor's office think of it like a doctor's waiting room where you have some tables and chairs and it's a neutral enough space and then there's some toys on the ground

so the mother is in there and the 12 month old kid is in this doctor's waiting room with the ma the child is there feeling nice and happy because the mother is present the child is uh on the exploring because the child is looking around and it's like yeah there's my ma she's sitting up there I can see her I feel safe she's just over there I'm gonna play with these ties and I'm gonna have a laugh I feel secure right now and then what happens is a stranger is introduced to the room someone who the child doesn't know so the child might be a bit weird about this they're like who's this new person I don't know who this person is.

Are they a threat? Are they nice? But the child turns around and goes, well, there's my ma over there, so I'm safe regardless. Now what happens is the ma leaves and the child is now on its own in the room with the stranger. So the child might feel a little bit anxious. Then the mother comes back in with the stranger so the child might feel a little bit anxious then the mother

comes back in the stranger leaves now the mother leaves and the child is completely on its own in the space and usually the child now starts to feel anxious and starts to express attachment behaviors because now the child is completely on its own. And it's like. I don't know who the fuck that stranger was. Did they take my mother away? I don't know. There's no one here.

So the child begins to cry. Now the stranger comes back into the room. So the child isn't alone anymore. But now they're in the room with the stranger. And their ma isn't there. They might be a little bit awkward with this. And then the mother enters. And now the mother and the stranger are there in the room with the infant and the mother reunites with the infant so that there that's an experiment that is done like i said with a 12 month old infant

who has a bit of experience of attachment behaviours and the caregiver's response. And what I described there, when I described the infant's responses to that situation, I described a secure attachment. And what they found from the study is that about 60% of infants demonstrate this secure attachment, where basically the child feels comfortable they're a little bit weirded out by a new person, they're uncomfortable by it, they search for their ma for safety

and then when the mother's gone completely and the child is on its own then it starts to experience distress confusion when the stranger comes back in and Confusion when the stranger comes back in. And then finally when the mother comes back in. The child is comfortable and happy and safe again. And the child is able to go.

Okay Ma was gone. I don't know who the fuck that person was. They have a sense of confidence that Ma is going to return. And then when Ma does return. The child is like. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. This is grand. I i'm gonna go play with these toys so that there is an example of a secure healthy attachment that's a child who for the first 12 months of its life has generally had its attachment needs met

yes it's had situations where it's been really afraid and the caregiver wasn't there but ultimately when the child engaged in attachment behaviours like crying their needs were met. Someone came eventually and said I'm going to give you some love and I'm going to give you some safety and the child internalized this as people are to be trusted it's okay to trust people it's okay to trust my ma I truly believe that she loves me and will create a safe environment for me and because of these things I'm developing self confidence and I kind of just want to fuck with these toys I want to play with these toys and engage with curiosity and play and creativity and learn because I feel safe enough to do these things and that's a secure attachment now 20% of 12 month infants in this experiment 20% didn't

exhibit a secure attachment what What 20% did was, when the mother left, they were extremely distressed when the ma wasn't there. When the stranger was there, they were also extremely distressed. And then importantly, at the end,

when the mother comes back into the room to this infant, the mother is now having a difficult time soothing the infant and for the infant to feel safe even though the mother is back the infant doesn't truly believe that they're safe

they don't trust the mother being there they're like why the fuck did you do that and even when the ma tries to soothe them they engage in behaviors that are resistant they start sulking or even being aggressive towards their mother they start punishing the mother for leaving them like they do want to be comforted but they also really want to punish and blame the mother and this is known as an anxious resistant attachment style

so it's very different to the secure attachment style it's one that's permeated by anxiety and then a resistance to reunion they don't believe the parent they don't trust fully trust or believe that the mother is there 100 for their safety and the thing with this kind of the anxious kind of reactive style sometimes it's called the ambivalent attachment style that kind of develops when for the first 12 months the child they couldn't predict their caregiver's response when they exhibited attachment behaviors so the child kind of

when they experience separation anxiety and they cry or look it's like sometimes the ma comes and meets their needs but then other times she doesn't and the unpredictability of that kind of pushes the child towards a situation where they try to rather than having the confidence to rely upon the mother to make them feel secure, they try to become controlling of the situation. Like, because that 12-month-old can't trust their caregiver, the only mechanism that they have to respond to that distrust is to try to control through throwing

tantrums or hitting or punishing they're trying to be controlling and you know is that child now calmly has that child regulated its emotions for it's it's at a nice calm level and it's chilled out and is now playing with the toys no the. The child is distressed after the situation, and is experiencing anxiety, and uncertainty, and insecurity, and is now not playfully, comfortably engaging with its environment in a happy, meaningful way. So that's 20% of the kids. And then the other 20%, okay?

So 60% exhibited at the secure response to the strange situation experiment. 20% exhibited the anxious response that I just described. And then the other 20%, they expressed the avoidant attachment style response. So these children that are avoidant, they don't appear to give too much of a shit if the mother, when the mother's left,

they don't give too much of a fuck. Like when the stranger's there in the room and the stranger's trying to interact with them, they're not paying too much attention to the stranger either. And then when the mother comes back in to the room to unite with the child, it's like, the child was like, I didn't give a fuck if you were gone anyway. I'm more interested in these toys right here. I'm just going to play with these.

And they're kind of like, I'm not interested in you coming back in and giving me affection i'm going to play with these toys i'm not that interested i'm avoiding whatever uh attachment you're trying to have with me right here now and that's the other 20 the last 20 and this avoidant attachment style with the infant tends to develop when the infant when when they were trying to express emotional needs for for attachment in their first 12 months crying or whatever that they were basically rejected by the caregiver they found that it like communicating their emotions like crying help, give me safety, that these things were flat out rejected.

Maybe the caregiver was like, I'm not responding to you crying, or shut up, stop crying, stop crying. Maybe the caregiver themselves has got issues with emotional maturity and feels threatened by the child's display of emotion and is basically shutting down the emotional needs so what the child the avoidant child learns that

okay when when i cry or when i express attachment behaviors my caregiver shows up physically so I'm not completely left here on my own they show up so I'm relatively safe but they're not giving me that little they're not giving me intimacy they're just here they're there and they might actually be a bit pissed off that they had to come in because I'm crying so they're doing the bare minimum they're showing up but they really don't want to hear this crying business and they're not responding to it. And almost what you have there too is like an early defense mechanism. It's, yes, the child does have an intrinsic desire for love. The child wants love from its caregiver.

Like, it doesn't just, the child doesn't just want the safety of the mother being present. It's like, I also want love and intimacy and I want to feel that you love me. But because all the child got was, I'm here, what do you want? Is it your bottle? Because that's all they got.

The child is basically learning to tell itself that, I don't need itself that I don't need love I don't lean I don't need love anyway I'm fine here with these toys I'll focus on something else as this kind of defense mechanism to get just enough safety but no intimacy and that's called an avoidant attachment style so there's other ones as well like the disorganized attachment style but i'm not going to get into that what i want to focus on now for the end of the podcast is those three attachment styles okay you've got your secure attachment style which is 60 and then you have your

anxious resistant attachment style and your avoid avoiding attachment style so we're talking about a 12 month old however all of us developed attachment styles as kids and you can carry them into adulthood so surprise surprise as with all psychology if you're a 12 month old and you exhibit secure attachment styles with your caregiver when you're 12 months of age, when you're an adult, chances are you exhibit secure attachment styles with your romantic partners or your close friends. And same goes for anxious attachment styles or avoidant attachment styles. These things can be in the background defining the relationships that you have right now and what's going right and what's going wrong. So a psychologist called Hazan and Shaver in the late 80s were the ones who started to explore the concept that infant attachment styles can define our adult relationship styles and they base this basically on if you if you're if you're in a

in an intimate relationship with someone if you're in a romantic relationship with someone the commonalities that that shares with the relationship you had with your caregiver when you were an infant is both of you feel safe when the other is nearby and responsive all right so if that's your fucking husband or your girlfriend or whatever you both feel safe when the other is nearby and responsive you both engage in close intimate bodily contact you both feel insecure when the other isn't accessible you both share discoveries with one another

that's one of the best parts of a fucking relationship both of you enjoying something together, going for a meal together and enjoying the food together and it's so much better than if you were on your own both of you play with each other's fucking faces and exhibit like a mutual fascination with each other's bodies and a preoccupation with one

another in in a way that you're not going to do with your best friend you're probably not going to go up to your best friend and touch their face and go oh oh, I love your skin or your nose, or I love the way your eyebrow is. This is what you do with a romantic partner. People in romantic relationships engage in baby talk with one another. Your own little private language, which sounds like how you talk to a baby. This is a normal facet of an adult intimate romantic relationship.

And yet these are common facets that adult romantic relationships have with the relationship that we had with our caregivers when we were infants. So because of that, our attachment styles can also be involved, whether they're healthy, secure attachments or unhelpful, insecure attachments. So what Hazan and Schaefer did to try and test this theory. So if we take it back to Mary Ainsworth's experiment with the strange situation with the toddler, with the 12-month-old, where the results were that 60% of 12 months old were secure

then 20% were anxious and another 20% were avoidant they asked questionnaires of adults about their relationships with other adults and the results were the same. 60-20-20. So what they did is they presented three questions. They presented three scenarios to adults and said, which one of these three best describes how you are with romantic partners? And so the first one was, and this represents the secure attachment position. I find it relatively easy to get close to others and I'm comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me.

I don't worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me. So 60% of people said, that's how I feel when I think about getting a romantic partner or about the relationship that I'm currently in. 60% answered that. That's the secure attachment style. Then 20% found they had an anxious attachment style. And that was, I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like.

I often worry that my partner doesn't really love me or won't want to stay with me I want to get very close to my partner and this sometimes scares people away so that's the anxious attachment style that's the child who when the ma came back into the room they just couldn't be calmed down

and they were trying to punish and control the mother for abandoning him and then the last 20 percent responded to this and this is the avoidment the avoidant attachment style to adult relationships i'm somewhat uncomfortable being close to others i find it difficult to trust them completely difficult to allow myself to depend on them and I'm nervous when anyone gets too close and often others want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being. So that's the avoidant attachment style. So that's an adult who when they

were 12 months old in the room, when their ma came back in they were like I don't give a fuck about you I'm interested here in playing with these toys and bricks I see that you're there but emotionally I don't need your love I'm not interested in your love and that's what that

that child turns into that adult basically I'll be in a relationship with you but I'm ultimately I'm emotionally unavailable I'm more into my work I'm more interested in doing my work to be honest I don't really have time for relationships

oh jeez you're awful clingy you're very clingy with all these dates you want to go on and stuff I'm not really into that I think I don't want to go out with you anymore dates you want to go on and stuff i'm not really into that i think i don't want to go out with you anymore i'm gonna find someone new that's the avoidant attachment style so what what certain studies have found is that so people who have the secure attachment style the 60 percent who are basically i believe that my partner loves me and I also believe that I'm

worthy of love. I feel kind of, I feel okay. I don't, I tend not to think too much about these things. I'm more interested in what we can share together and I trust my partner and I believe that they trust me and when conflict happens we're able to resolve it. We do argue, but when we have a fight, we tend to make up quite easily afterwards. It doesn't turn into any other shit. I can't stress that enough, actually. As an indicator, as a clear indicator of a healthy, secure attachment style,

conflict fucking resolution. If you're in a marriage, if you've got a fucking boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, look at your conflict resolution. When you're intimate with someone, when you're close with someone, close friendship, whatever, you're going to have conflict.

That's a given. Probably every single day you're going to do something that annoys your partner or vice versa when you argue about it is the argument literally about the thing that you're arguing about if it's an argument

about the dishes is the argument actually about the fucking dishes and the dishes only or are the dishes a trigger for an argument about something that happened a year ago? Or are the dishes a trigger for jealousy or a tantrum? Or you're always like this, you never do this, you never do that. you're always like this, you never do this, you never do that.

And also, when you're finished arguing about the dishes, do you need to spend the rest of the day passive-aggressively not talking to each other until one person is ready to come forward with the hug? Or do you have a huge fight and then afterwards you can only properly make up after the huge fight or do you literally just argue about the fucking dishes have a bit of a barney and then forgive each other and it's fucking forgotten about it's literally forgotten about because why are you arguing about the dishes but if it's not the dishes and it's something more,

it's something deeper and things like jealousy, anger, passive aggression, all this shit comes into it and it's a repeating pattern, then that's an example of an insecure attachment style. But if conflict resolution is solid, you're only arguing about a thing, that's all the argument is about and once that's over there's no residual anger there's no residual there's no sense of rejection then you have a secure attachment style and if you can't identify it in yourself just think about friends in your

friends group is there a couple and every time ye all go out, are ye all kind of terrified that this couple is going to have a fucking argument? Because you know that when this couple has an argument, it's so intense that now everyone's involved and the night is ruined. That there is your insecure attachment style. Like you go out to a fucking bar and then like clockwork at like 11 o'clock one of them is outside crying because take it back to Mary Ainsworth's experiment

with the strange situation okay the child is in the room the mother has left there's confusion and now the mother comes back in for the 12 month old that right there is conflict

the 12 month old only has a couple of words, they're not getting into arguments with people but right there the mother has presented the child with quite extreme conflict and once the mother arrives back into the room and the child just goes, there's my ma, grand, everything's ok. That's security but when the child is ignoring the ma are needing to punish or engage in a fight there's your insecure attachment same thing with adults in relationships having unavoidable conflict over dishes people who have that that secure attachment style they tend to find other people who have that secure attachment style, they tend to find other people who have that secure attachment style. And these people then,

their relationship becomes a secure base. So like the little 12-month-old who had the secure attachment style, yes, they were upset when the mother left the room. But when the mother came back in, they're like, oh, there's my ma. Brilliant. I feel safe now. I'm going to go back and play with these toys and enjoy them. So these adults, their relationship is like a secure base.

It's they have the emotional time and space to explore their hobbies and to explore the world and to engage in meaningful activity that allows them to grow as people. And the fact that they're in a relationship doesn't really cause them a lot of stress because it's their secure base. Just like how their caregiver made them feel when they were a fucking child. They didn't think about whether their mother or father loves them or not they didn't have to worry about it

or whether they'd be rejected these people have solid sense of self esteem em less mental health issues less of a propensity towards anxiety and depression they're kind of fully functioning human beings mental health issues, less of a propensity towards anxiety and depression.

They're kind of fully functioning human beings. But then people who have an anxious attachment style in adult relationships. So they were the little baby who were very distressed when the mother left the room. And then when the mother came back in, they that mother's attention but they were punishing the mother for abandoning them people with this attachment style tend to find other people

with that attachment style or people with the avoidant attachment style and their relationships are steeped in jealousy a huge amount of jealousy, a lot of distrust, very, a lot of fighting, a lot of intimacy centered around fighting and arguments. Fighting, breaking up, having a massive fight insulting one another then making back up again

and everything's perfect terrified that their partner is going to leave them terrified that their partner is cheating on them continually trying to control emotional manipulation and these people again, their relationship isn't a secure base.

Their intimate relationships are a huge cause of stress in their life because they don't feel secure. They have the adult anxious attachment style and they were the little child who when they cried they couldn't comfortably predict when their caregiver would come when when they exhibited the attachment behavior of searching crying or clinging they couldn't comfortably predict will it work this time or will it won't work this time and this left them deeply secure insecure and deeply anxious so then those childlike

attachment behaviors they turn into adult attachment behaviors and the adult attachment behaviors are jealousy manipulation drama stuff that's really really fucking stressful and isn't pleasant for that person or the person who they're with and these people people with this attachment style they don't now have

the security to explore the world or to grow as a person or to engage in fucking hobbies or to even plan a meal on a Friday night with their partner and to know

is this going to end with the both of us drunk on the street shouting at each other and going home in separate taxis and then making up tomorrow so that's your anxious attachment style and then the avoidant adult attachment style is

basically maybe someone just not staying in any long-term relationships fleeting from each relationship never allowing someone get close loads of one-night stands instead of attempts at relationships telling themselves that to be honest relationships aren't that fucking important to me in my life anyway I'd rather focus on work I'd rather focus on something else I don't have time for this shit because they they had their the physical the physical presence and the physical safety was met by their caregiver but the emotional needs weren't met so the intimacy wasn't met and that last the 20%

the two 20% tend to end up with each other because someone who's in a secure someone who has a secure attachment style has the security

in themselves to probably not stay in a relationship with someone who's struggling with intimacy in some way. They're not going to find themselves attracted to someone who can't give love or someone who needs consistent drama or engages in manipulation. The secure person is going to try and find another secure person

and then the anxious attachment style tends to complement the avoidant attachment style for fucking hell for a hellish relationship where you have one person going I'm jealous all the time and then the other

person going you probably have a right to be jealous because I might fuck off at any point because I'm not interested in this and then the other person going well I'm hugely interested in this and if you leave me I feel like I'm gonna die well I might just fucking leave then and it's a vicious cycle so so that there that there is an an overview a really really basic overview of attachment theory attachment theory as it relates to infancy and how that can influence our adult relationships and it's just one theory it's just one theory and the important thing too if you were like if you were

relating to any of that stuff and you were going oh fuck that's me oh shit like that's not how things don't have to be that way this is the wonder of psychology like here's the beautiful thing about psychology

if you listen to those two insecure attachment styles the anxious attachment style and the avoidant one if I'm saying shit there and you're going

oh my god that's me wow oh wow I can't believe I've just heard all of my relationships described perfectly to me this is how I am if you feel a sense of personal revelation there it's because I haven't given you any new information that's always the case with psychology when you hear something that like opens up the world to you you haven't been given new information it's something you already knew and I've just given language to it you already knew it in your heart and in your emotions but psychology gives you words so that you can understand it so you knew it all along And that's why it feels like a revelation.

The words just translated it from an abstract emotion into something concrete that you can see. And I'm guessing everyone who's listening, you know, hears that secure attachment style and is like, I'd love to be in that place. I want to be in that place. And it's like, how do you get there? place I want to be in that place and it's like how do you get there well an overall mental health regime like ultimately what that secure attachment style is describing there is that that's a mentally healthy person with a healthy sense of self-esteem a healthy sense of organismic valuing or intrinsic value I I'm better than nobody else. Nobody else is better than me because you can't compare humans against each other. I'm okay. I'm grand. Everything's fine. I'm deserving of love and I deserve to love another person. I can't control

what happens to me in this life but I can control how I react to what happens to me in this life but I can't control how I react to what happens to me in this life I also don't expect to be happy all the time because suffering is inevitable suffering is inevitable painful things are going to happen but I'm just trying to I'm going to try and focus on what's happening right now so you're not nothing's determined if you identify with one of those insecure attachment styles don't freak out it's like identify it within yourself look at those behaviors and then work on your overall mental health your overall mental health to get to a position where you feel deserving of self-compassion and self-love and once you do that once you've got of self-compassion and self-love. And once you do that. Once you've got your self-compassion, self-love and your self-esteem in check. Then you're not searching for relationships to try and fix something that's internal.

You know. Nothing is determined. We all. We're not defined by our fucking childhoods. We can rewrite the script. We can totally rewrite the script. So that was real basic attachment theory. One thing I didn't get into,

because again, I'm not an expert and it'd be irresponsible. There's huge connections between attachment and addiction. I mentioned his name earlier, Gabor Mate. He is a world-leading expert on addiction and attachment. An incredibly fascinating person. I would love to have him on this fucking podcast for a chat if I got a hold of him I'd love it alright God bless I'll see you next week

I don't know what I'll be talking about next week enjoy the lovely weather it's very humid helmet. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play.

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