18 October 2008

Smart People, Geekines Ensues

Viewed irritating Smart People, and was consequently compelled to watch again only slightly irritating Good Will Hunting. SP lacked the aesthetic chops of GWH (the former full of caricatures & contrivances, but it was geeky fun to see such a clear example of copy process* in the overachieving, misanthropic-but-lonely daughter), but the ending was more plausible. There was no indication that the wounded, once basically capable, interpersonally pricklish professor experienced major personality change, only that he finally thawed some as a result of important relationships. "Will Hunting", on the other hand, went from emotionally broken to 'healed' and gloriously in love in what was portrayed as only a few months. But his character didn't merely need a thaw, he needed long term, interpersonal, reconstructive therapy, which, of course, is incompatible with a movie timetable. The therapy wasn't "bad" per se, but the catharsis model (muck about until the traumas are uncovered and at last have a good, healing cry) doesn't work so well. Certainly not for changing the 'wiring'. And certainly not a helpful ending for us saps who get all dreamy over the intellectually gifted but emotionally/interpersonally bereft.





*Excerpt from abstract: Studies connecting childhood experience and adult psychopathology often focus on consequences of abuse and neglect. Copy process theory (Benjamin, 2003) states that constructive as well as destructive experiences shape adult behavior with surprising interpersonal specificity. Childhood perceptions and social learning are encoded in memory and then “copied” in 3 basic ways in subsequent relationships: Identification (behaving as he or she behaved), Recapitulation (behaving as one behaved when with him or her), and Introjection (treating oneself as he or she was treated). From Critchfield, K.L. & Benjamin, L.S (2008). Internalized representations of early interpersonal experiences and adult relationships: A test of copy process theory in clinical and non-clinical settings. Psychiatry: Interpersonal & Biological Processes, 71, 1, 71-92.

17 October 2008

You are what you ate

Nice, skeletal sum of attachment theory, childhood into adulthood, invoking (at the end) the linguistic implications of adult attachment (i.e., the stuff I look for when coding Adult Attachment Interview transcripts, and when I listen to patients talk about their parents/early experiences/contemporary intimate relationships). Maybe a little jargony for the layperson, but sparsely so.

The child seeks the caregiver's security and protection for many reasons, but particularly in moments when he or she is frightened or in danger. Thus, careseeking often takes place in moments of high affective arousal, arousal that is then--optimally--regulated by the caregiver And by virtue of her role as regulator and container of that affect, the mother's response to the infant's affect becomes a part of that affective experience.

Children quickly figure out how to seek care in a way that will minimally disrupt their vital relationship to their caregiver. One of the things they must learn in this process is which affects are tolerable to caregivers, and which are not. They learn this via the repetition [...] of a particular relational drama around the expression of careseeking. Over time, their efforts to regulate their affects in such a way as to maintain their primary relationships become organized into what attachment theorists refer to as attachment patterns [....], characteristic ways of seeking care from and preserving closeness with the caregiver. And it is these ways of protecting the other and ultimately the self from affects that disrupt careseeking and caregiving that become internal representations of attachment or -- in analytic terms -- central aspects of psychic structure.

Because the survival of infants is dependent upon success in their careseeking efforts, these are psychologically and physically critical events. Without proximal care and containment, infants cannot function [...]. Thus, they must shape themselves (and their experience of affect and arousal) to ensure that their needs are met. They must obtain care, at whatever cost to their functioning. Aspects of self-experience, and especially affective experience, that preclude the maintenance of attachment relationships are disavowed reversed, fragmented, or dissociated. Knowing, thinking, and feeling emerge within the context of maintaining vital connections, [snip]. Children quickly learn what kinds of thoughts and emotions can be borne within the context of their primary attachments. It is within his or her earliest relationships that a child's core sense of self in relation to arousal, to affect, and to careseeking is laid down [...].

In adults, these same patterns are reflected in the way an adult regulates affect within the structure of narrative. Early moments of regulation live on in the structure of speech, of thought, and of affects. When we listen carefully to the contradictions, dysfluencies, and disruptions in narrative, we are witnessing the representation in language and thought of early dyadic experinces of disrupted careseeking and dysregulation.


From Slade, A. (2007). Disorganized Mother, Disorganized Child. In D. Oppenheim & D.F. Goldsmith (eds.) Attachment theory in clinical work with children: Bridging the gap between research and practice (pp. 226-250). New York: Guilford Press.

13 October 2008

Links!

  • Mail Goggles. Unfortunate Google has not yet created something similar for text messages, instant messaging programs, and live-in-the-flesh behavior. Oh wait -- that's called 'impulse control'. Also a shame Google has also not yet conjured up a program what does away with stabbing regret, heel calluses, and vanity sizing.

  • interactive artist daniel rozin works in a very particular artistic milieu, making mirrors from unreflective surfaces. one of his creations, 'the wooden mirror'...uses 830 square pieces of wood which are hooked up to an equal number of small motors which move the wooden blocks according to a built in camera. the camera picks up movement in light and somehow transfers the signal to the wood. the result is an eerie representation of reality depicted in tiny wooden pixels.

  • While I'm not going to advocate communal bathing rituals for all (i.e., almost everyone I know), doing this falls in the top five most pleasant experiences of 2008.

  • Yes, a tiny N (qualitative research), but I feel like sending the authors of this article devoted to ambivalence a greeting card.

  • It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. NYT piece about Palin's "pom pom palaver".