My apologies. I wasn’t able to write a post for last week. I do have an excuse though. I’ve decided to take the plunge and write a self publish book. I was working on this new project all last week and lost track of time. Actually, the majority of the book is already written. The book will consist of two executive summaries I wrote for the board and staff. The first summary is of Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s 1969 book General System Theory. I wrote this summary back in 2007. The second summary is of Gerald Midgley’s 2000 book Systemic Intervention. I wrote this summary in 2009.
I looked at a number of self publish web sites and ultimately decided on Wordclay (although you may wish to look at CreateSpace and Lulu). I had no idea what all is involved in preparing a manuscript. I spent last week getting up to speed. I’m discovering features in Word that I did not know existed. One of the things you must do is write a description for your book. This description could be used on the back jacket cover, or possibly on Wordclay’s web site for the web page that will appear in their online bookstore. Rather than get into more detail concerning my book project (which has a working title of Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth—Summaries of Bertalanffy & Midgley Revealing the Systems–Attachment Theory (Dis)Connection), I thought I’d post my description text (with added links) and get some feedback from my blog readers. As a heads up, until I hit the PUBLISH button over at Wordclay, my posts will be few and far between. I’m hoping to hit the publish button by the end of next month. Wish me luck. Once the book is published, I’ll post a link here at the blog site. If you have self published a book before, please leave a comment and let us know about your experience. As always, feel free to leave a comment (registration required) concerning my new book project.
Description of Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth
Historians will be the first to admit that the vanquished rarely if ever enjoy the privilege of telling their story let alone recording it for posterity. In Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth, geologist, psychotherapist and philanthropist Frederick Leonhardt invites us to view John Bowlby—arguably the father of attachment theory—as a warrior who ultimately was vanquished during his long battle to bring about a naturalistic systems theory revolution within such disciplines as psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, mental health, sociology and public policy. The image of Bowlby as a defeated warrior may help us to understand why the story of attachment as an application of naturalistic systems theory in such areas as psychology has never been fully told. In his 1969 book General System Theory, Ludwig von Bertalanffy—arguably the father of systems theory—tells us that others, like Bowlby, have tried and failed as well—Abraham Maslow (one of the chief animators behind humanistic psychology), Kurt Goldstein (a pioneer in Gestalt therapy), and Karl Menninger (of Menninger Clinic and Menninger Foundation fame).
In Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth, Leonhardt takes a first pass at trying to understand why luminaries in the field of psychology such as Bowlby, Maslow, Goldstein, and Menninger failed in their attempts to bring about a naturalistic systems theory revolution. Leonhardt suggests that the naturalistic systems theory revolution was conquered from within as much as from without: From within, the move from naturalistic purpose to sociological purpose and then on to emancipatory purpose was the main culprit (an evolutionary process detailed in Gerald Midgley’s 2000 book Systemic Intervention); from without, the meteoric rise of mechanistic systems theory (or cybernetics) made for an impenetrable foe. Today, emancipatory purpose motivates the human rights movement, while at the same time mechanistic or cybernetic systems form the foundation upon which rests such cultural phenomena as Internet search engines, digital video recording (DVR) services, smartphones and frequent flyer cards. In what can only be called a dark prognostication, Leonhardt sees short circuits forming between emanicpatory and cybernetic purpose resulting in an arcing of energy that may ultimately provide the fuel that allows us to rocket into the emerging age of posthumanism.
The format for Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth is a bit unorthodox: It consists of two executive summaries written by Leonhardt for the board and staff of the Frederick H. Leonhardt Foundation (named for his grandfather). “Think of Bowlby’s Battle as a very detailed annotated bibliography consisting of only two entries,” explains Leonhardt, who is executive director of the FHL Foundation. Leonhardt decided to summarize Bertalanffy’s 1969 book General System Theory and Gerald Midgley’s 2000 book Systemic Intervention as a first pass toward telling the story behind the systems–attachment theory (dis)connection. Even though Leonhardt is quick to point out that his executive summaries are hacks at best, he is convinced that the best way to truly receive and understand John Bowlby’s attachment theory message is to have a sense for the systems theory revolution (both mechanistic and naturalistic) that surrounded Bowlby during the 1950s and 60s, and to recognize that systems theory greatly influenced Bowlby’s thinking in the areas of attachment formation, maintenance and expression.
Leonhardt openly admits that Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth is just a starting point and not a definitive work on the Bowlby–systems theory connection. As a matter of fact, Leonhardt encourages the reader to view Bowlby’s Battle as a detailed RFP—request for proposal. In his capacity as a philanthropist, Leonhardt would enjoy nothing more than for a researcher (or research group) to come along and turn his “annotated bibliography” into a full-fledged treatment of the Bowlby–systems theory connection. Leonhardt points out that with all the controversy surrounding such topics as RAD (reactive attachment disorder), attachment or holding therapy, and attachment parenting, it may be time for mental health practitioners, science historians, psychology researchers and policy advocates to bring a naturalistic systems perspective back to Bowlbian attachment theory. And the work has started. In 2010, the FHL Foundation commissioned a research project that resulted in a paper by Gary Metcalf entitled John Bowlby: Rediscovering a Systems Scientist. Hopefully your read of Bowlby’s Battle for Round Earth will motivate you (or your research group) to carry on work designed to investigate and reveal the Bowlby–systems theory connection.
