SOBN (Sphere O’Blog News) – We ended Part 1 of this interview with a promise from you to provide us examples—drawn from the world of John Bowlby’s work—of what you mean by attachment “bacon,” attachment “lettuce,” and attachment “tomato.”
Rick – Yes. To find a recent “bacon” or “core” or “object” example, I’d recommend an article that can be found over at LiveScience.com entitled Being Bad at Relationships Is Good for Survival by JR Minkel. Effectively this article talks about how insecure attachment patterns may actually be a good thing.
SOBN – How so?
Rick – According to the article, which profiles work being done at the New School of Psychology in Herzliya, Israel, unlike people who are securely attached, insecurely attached people are able to more easily scan the environment for signs of trouble and then react to that trouble. The researchers pumped harmless smoke into a room and it was the insecurely attached types who were quick to both recognize the potential danger and react to it. Apparently the insecurely attached types took control and ushered the securely attached types out of the smoke-filled room.
SOBN – Hopefully in a future post you can take a stab at explaining why you think insecurely attached types would be quick to respond when faced with potential danger. But for now lets get to some lettuce.
Rick – Sure. When I think of attachment “lettuce” or “cover” or “context” I think of George Lakoff’s book Moral Politics. Lakoff is a cognitive scientist turned political commentator. In Moral Politics Lakoff provides the reader with a short two or three page primer on Bowlby’s work in the area of attachment. Lakoff does this as a way of introducing us to the idea that Bowlby’s theory of attachment could also be viewed as a theory of empathy development. Lakoff correctly associates the development of secure attachment in individuals with the development of an ability to engage in empathetic relationships with others. As Lakoff has written about over at truthout.org, he sees empathy as a core that defines liberalism. So, I would suggest that we view Lakoff’s attempt to frame liberalism using concepts drawn from Bowlby’s theory as a good example of attachment context or cover.
SOBN – Do you have an example over at truthout.org you can give us?
Rick – Try Lakoff’s article entitled Obama’s Missing Moral Narrative.
SOBN – And an example of tomatoes?
Rick – Unfortunately I can think of a number of attachment “tomatoes,” “againstments” (to make up a word), or “countervailing views.” Let me give you one quick example. Back in the late 1990s, the noted psychoanalyst Susie Orbach gave a talk entitled Why Is Attachment In The Air? You can find transcripts of this talk on the Internet. Orbach talks candidly about how, back in the 1970s, many feminists rejected, that is to say threw tomatoes at, Bowlby’s theory because, on the surface, it appeared to glorify motherhood. According to Orbach, it was during this timeframe that many feminists were hard at work trying to understand how motherhood was being used as a form of oppression. Simply put, many 70s feminists did not want to hear about any theory that had the potential to encourage or even justify female oppression. As Orbach points out in her talk, this particular attachment tomato, which started growing in the 70s, is still around today, or at least as of the late 1990s mind you.
SOBN – So, will there be any method to this madness of putting together Bowlby BLT sandwiches?
Rick – I’m actually going to use the same blogging model I saw depicted in the 2009 movie Julie & Julia.
SOBN – You need Julia Child’s cookbook to make a Bowlby BLT? (laughs) Tell us about this Julie & Julia connection in Part 3, which will wrap things up.
Rick – Will do.
