In earlier posts (see posts from December 21st, 2010, and January 4th, 6th, 12th, and 20th, 2011), I have talked about what I call the Grand Bowlbian Attachment Environment (or GBAE for short). In my earlier posts I have argued that the GBAE holds the behavioral systems of caregiving, attachment, and sex. Bowlby’s ethological studies (e.g., the study of animal behavior) revealed to him that one of the greatest challenges facing the animal world was how to go about balancing and harmonizing the motivations arising from different motivational (or behavioral) systems that often have conflicting goals. My rather radical proposal that there exists a Grand Bowlbian Attachment Environment raised the specter of conceptual confusion: the word “attachment” could refer to an instinctual system or it could refer to some form of grand system.
Well, turns out that my radical proposal is not so radical. In his 2003 book Archetype Revisited, Anthony Stevens (who I have mentioned before) makes the same radical proposal. In this update, I’d like to quote Stevens as he makes his radical proposal, and then paraphrase Stevens as a way of pointing out how the two radical proposals are very much the same (making them not so radical anymore). In the process I’m hoping to clear up some of the conceptual confusion I have created.
Here’s how Stevens begins his radical proposal:
Sexuality is better conceived as an archetypal system than as mere “drive” or “instinct” in view of its complexity, its universality, its numinosity and its power.
In my opinion, the above is a good way of framing my idea of a Grand Bowlbian Attachment Environment. Allow me to paraphrase the above quote thus:
Attachment is better conceived as a Grand System than as mere “drive” or “instinct” in view of its complexity, its universality, its numinosity and its power.
Stevens continues (with my additions in brackets):
The significance of sexuality [attachment] in personal life extends far beyond the process of reproduction [mother-infant bonding]: it begins in infancy and continues to the grave; it is not confined to the sexual [attachment] act but is manifested in all forms of sexual [attachment] excitement ….
Back in 1956, Bowlby wrote, “Probably in all normal people, attachment continues in one form or another throughout life….” Stevens sums up thus:
Sexuality is every bit as much concerned with pleasure and with bonding as it is with procreation.
Allow me to paraphrase thus:
The Grand Bowlbian Attachment Environment is every bit as much concerned with sexual pleasure and with bonding as it is with caregiving and care-eliciting.
In my post of February 16th, 2011, I suggested that each of the behavioral systems—caregiving, attachment, and sex—leaves traces or impressions that can be accessed by the other behavioral systems. I pulled this idea in large part from Antonio Damasio’s 2003 book Looking for Spinoza—Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. In Looking for Spinoza, Damasio makes a rather startling observation: Even though different substances, such as cocaine, ecstasy, and heroin (and to a lesser degree alcohol) act on different parts of the brain, they all leave a common trace that is very body-based (e.g., relaxation, warmth, numbness, anesthesia, analgesia or relief of pain, orgastic release, energy). In my earlier post, I used Damasio’s rather startling observation concerning the shared body core of substance abuse to suggest that the interaction of the behavioral systems of caregiving, attachment, and sex likewise gives rise to (e.g., allows to emerge) a shared body core. All this to say that the individual instinct or motivational systems cannot be looked at in isolation; their very presence implies the existence of some type of grand or archetypal system that must be considered. Stevens raises sex to the level of a grand system whereas I raise attachment to the level of a grand system. It stands to reason that you could just as well raise caregiving (and care-eliciting) to the level of a grand system. Makes no difference really because, I would argue, you end up with the same grand system. It’s a matter of semantics what you call it.
Sadly though Stevens points out that current efforts to erase gender differences (by “gender escapists” as he calls them) centers on looking at sexuality from the perspective of an isolated instinctual system cutoff from all other behavioral systems, which, in turn blocks access to archetypal or grand systems. According to Stevens, blocking access to archetypal or grand systems can have potentially devastating effects. Stevens goes so far as to suggest that you cannot really have sex (in its fullest form) without access to the archetypal system that holds it. Or, I would argue, you cannot have attachment (in its equally fullest form) without access to the Grand Bowlbian Attachment Environment that holds it. Carole Pistole, in her 1999 paper Preventing Teenage Pregnancy: Contributions from Attachment Theory (J. Mental Health Counseling, April 1999, vol. 21) (executive summary available), effectively argues that early blocked access to the grand system that holds attachment, caregiving, and sex could play a role in bringing about sexual acting out later in life that takes the form of unintended teenage pregnancy. Conservative writer Mary Eberstadt, in her 2004 book Home-alone America—The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes, goes even further and argues that the breakdown of the grand holding environment that was the traditional home has resulted in such social ills as teen pregnancy (which agrees with Pistole), drug abuse, school shootings, promiscuous sex, binge drinking, overeating (which leads to obesity), music with misogynistic themes, and the list goes on. (I’d be remiss if I did not point out how many of the items on the above list lead to Damasio’s shared body core. Are these then attempts to gain access to the grand system that is Body?) Stevens also presents data that supports Eberstadt’s position. We all know the saying that “it’s not nice to fool mother nature.” Maybe the title to my February 24th, 2011, post is an appropriate reframe: “Don’t mess with the Grand Bowlbian Attachment Environment.”
PS – in the final moments before this post went hot, the following blurb appeared in my email from the Council on Foundations. It supports Eberstadt’s position mentioned above:
Teen Study: 5 or More Drinks a Day, No Biggie
The Associated Press – 4/6/11
Downing five or more alcoholic drinks nearly every day isn’t seen as a big problem for many of the nation’s teens, says a new report. The study being released Wednesday [04.06.11] by The Partnership at Drugfree.org also showed upward trends in marijuana and Ecstasy use among young people in grades 9 through 12. The Partnership’s “attitude tracking” study was sponsored by the MetLife Foundation.
