Category: borderline mother

+SMOOTHIE IN THE BLENDER? NOT HEALTHY. FRUIT SALAD? HEALTHY. SO SAYS SIEGEL!

alchemynow8 Comments

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Tuesday, March 04, 2014.  I have not been content to rest since my last post without finding some positive angle with which I can leverage hope for healing after taking a serious look at the heavy and very factual information about attachment trauma and the right brain developmental alterations it can cause.

I used to see the image when I began my most serious search to find out the truth of what happened to me and about HOW I am in this world a decade ago that led me through developmental neuroscience studies that there were people whose problems in life could be seen scattered around a tabletop.  There seemed to be help available for those people.

Then there were the rest of us – those who I now know where nearly completely unsafely and insecurely attached – or not attached at all – from birth – who then suffered all kinds of trauma from abuses and neglect after infancy.  WE were – in my image which has returned to me as I write this post – simply shoved off of the tabletop to fall – who cares where???

I have moved into a line of thinking about these concerns that lets me know that for the most part, as Dr. Martin Teicher states, those of us off of the tabletop are evolutionarily altered individuals – who seem to live in an entirely different world.  I evidently am still looking for a bridge across the seemingly bottomless chasm that divides us from most other people.

I do not give up believing that there ARE ways we can improve our well-being.  I realized this evening that not only is my own current difficult state motivating me to look anew for workable solutions but so also is my desire to understand how MY MIND is helping to form the MIND of my little grandson under my care at least 50 hours a week.  I don’t want to accidentally miss important steps toward helping him NEVER have ANY of the difficulties I live with in terms of having a mind that was starved for what it needed to grow in the best way possible.

Before I present the excellent material below I will mention here a few resources that Siegel mentions in this short talk that are about healing:

(1) CASEL Guide:  Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs

You can Google search this program for more information – Siegel highly recommends it.      

(2)  There are many excellent resources online for this woman’s work, again highly recommended by Siegel:  The Roots of Empathy by Mary Gordon

(3)  Mindfulness – search this term online – it’s a buffet!  Again, highly recommended by Siegel

(4) Daniel Siegel – search amazon.com for his books – all are EXCELLENT!  I am ordering at least 3 of them – and may perhaps also buy the newer 2013 edition of his book Parenting from the Inside Out.

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Siegel has a lot to say about “differentiation,” “linking,” and “integration.”  I continue on my hunt to learn what he is saying.  It is important!  A healthy mind and healthy relationships – including parent-child relationships – are about improving all three!  Siegel says although the “blender” image which ends up in a “smoothie” does not signify health – the image of “a fruit salad” does. 

I wanted to write another hopeful fruit salad post – and here it is – hopefully to be followed up with more of the positive – although the truth of what might seem so negative is also vital to those of us who suffer from lifelong consequences of severe childhood trauma.  I can leave neither domain off of this blog – but my being able to strike a balance would be most excellent!

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Making sense – A great short video 2010 segment with Dr. Daniel Siegel where he discusses new research showing 100% overlap between the criteria for secure attachment and mindfulness.  (at around minute 4 on the slider bar) – Here is my transcription of a portion of that talk:

“…[H]ow do take energy and information flow and allow it to be about integration?  So it’s straight-on….  Let’s talk about what health is and about social and emotional intelligence – that is mindsight – are necessary for that, how mindsight is necessary for that, how actually knowing about the nervous system can be essential for knowing, for example, if you’ve been traumatized how integration has been impaired and then how to FEEL the texture of different circuits in the brain – literally, the skull-based brain – and know how to work that into your awareness so that you use the mind to actually shape the brain in new ways.

“So all of that is included in the mindsight approach, and I think it informs mindfulness as the book The Mindful Brain [Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being – 2007, by Siegel (see more of his books by clicking his name here] tried to do and…by looking at it this way you can actually see the incredible parallels between parent-child relationships – and attachment – which is one field of study – and contemplative studies and mindfulness.  

“So now what my students are doing is – those that are getting their PhDs – looking at the features of  secure attachment and now looking for mindfulness traits in the parents to see if they coordinate with or correlate with the security of the child’s attachment to that parent.  And the preliminary data says yes.

“And even trained as an attachment researcher myself and not being trained as a mindfulness practitioner what was fascinating for me was to take the criteria we use to assess the adult narrative – which is the most robust predictor of child attachment is how the parent has made sense of his or her early life experiences – Not what happened to him or her – but actually how they make sense of it….  The insight into “Look these good things happened, these bad things happened, I’m still working on it, it’s hard.  It’s a challenge.  But I see how my relationships really affected me.”

“Versus “Nothing bad ever happened” or “Everything’s good” or “I don’t remember anything” or something like that.

 “The parents who have a coherent narrative, when they’ve made sense it looks like those criteria – even though they were done without even the concept of mindfulness in mind – 100% overlap with the scientists who don’t know anything about attachment research who are now looking into mindfulness traits.  So by actually being kind of an innocent and newbie to all these fields by bringing them together you see these discoveries so that mindsight informs all of these different fields even though it’s a term that’s new in our vocabulary.”

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I also suggest taking a look at this online article.  I will read it tomorrow.  Right now I need to finish this post and end my evening in a more relaxed state of mind!

An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Psychotherapy:
Awareness, Mirror Neurons, and Neural Plasticity in the Development of Well-Being

Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

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I also want to point out a very important statement that appears in the article I mentioned in my previous post as it describes very particular language children need to hear to develop the best Theory of Mind.  I imagine that we-wounded might benefit from taking a close look also at this simple truth as stated in this Oxford Journal article:

“There is strong evidence that exposure to mental state language (references to beliefs, desires, emotions, etc.) directly predicts children’s later theory of mind understanding….  Jill de Villiers, however, argues that the critical factor in theory of mind development is not general conversational exposure to language about mental states and different perspectives but the acquisition of certain syntactic forms….  Specifically, de Villiers argues that the acquisition of complement syntax, in which a proposition is embedded under a mental state verb (e.g., “He thinks that the chocolate is in the cupboard”) or communication verb (e.g., “She says the box contains candy”), is necessary to represent false beliefs.  In support of this hypothesis, two studies found that training on complement syntax improved children’s performance on false belief tasks….”  (page 219)

Personally I believe that for we severe abuse survivors – especially when the traumas happened from birth forward and directly involved attachment-related “betrayals” – our being from the time we were very little could not understand the underpinnings of what is known as “false belief” in anything like an ordinary way. 

Here is a YouTube video that will give an idea about what researchers know as FALSE BELIEF

BUT – this train of thought would lead me off into another post – NOT going to happen tonight!

BUT – HEY!  What’s this?

False-belief tasks are distinct from theory of mind

“No, Linda.  Leave the autism research alone for the night!

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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+IN THE BLENDER –

alchemynow1 Comment

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Tuesday, March 04, 2014.  In one of the recent talks I listened to via YouTube (I’ve lost track of which one specifically) Dr. Daniel Siegel referred to research about how deaf children raised by parents who do not communicate with them via sign language lost “mindsight” abilities and can grow up to appear autistic.  Years ago when I first began my neuroscientific studies into the long-term consequences of infant abuse on brain development my sister mentioned that she thought some of my characteristics regarding difficulty in “reading” other people appeared similar to autistic troubles with processing social signals.  I have come to believe she was correct.

In this article — Theory of Mind and Language in Children with Cochlear Implants – researchers Ethan Remmel and Kimberly Peters present information about how hearing impairments affect a child’s development of what is known as “Theory of Mind (TOM).”

Dr. Siegel also states that empathy involves “mindsight” which is another word, basically, for empathy with self and others.  Empathy is reading another person and is different from compassion.  Empathy-mindsight are interactional experiences related to Theory of Mind.  Dr. Allan N. Schore writes volumes about the development of the early growing right limbic brain hemisphere through infant-caregiver attachment experiences.  This region of the brain is directly related to processing social information and to regulation (or dysregulation) of emotional experience and is altered in its development when relationship trauma is present in an infant’s life (as it was in mine).

Dr. Schore on page 280 of his book Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self Schore mentions that

“The right brain, the locus of the corporeal and emotional self is also dominant for the ability to understand the emotional states of other human beings, that is, empathy (Perry et al., 2001; Schore, 1994).  Empathy, an outcome of attachment (Mikulincer et al., 2001), is a moral emotion, and so attachment experiences thus directly impact the neurobiological substrate of moral development.  The orbitofrontal regions mediate empathy (Tekin & Cummings, 2002), and the prefrontal areas are now referred to as a “frontal moral guidance system” (Bigler, 2001).”

He continues on page 282.

“The functioning of the “self-correcting” right hemispheric system is central to self-regulation, the ability to flexibly regulate emotional states through interactions with other humans in interconnected contexts via a two-person psychology, or autoregulation in independent, autonomous contexts via a one-person psychology.”

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These processes Schore describes are directly connected to quality of early attachments as those interactions shape the physiologically developing brain of an infant.  Relationship with self and with “other” is impaired-changed through insufficient safe and secure attachment relationships during early critical brain-body growth stages.

On page 281 Schore states:

“It is important to stress the fact that the developmental attainment of a secure attachment bond of emotional communication and an efficient internal system that can adaptively regulate various emotional states only evolves in a growth-facilitating emotional environment.”

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I know this can all seem very difficult to comprehend but I challenge readers to try to let the words percolate within because I believe this level of truth about what happened to early trauma survivors resonates with the truth of what we know through our experiences in the world.  Remember, Schore is not talking about PTSD in what he says (below) but rather is describing a consequence of unsafe and insecure attachment relationships (neglect, abuse, trauma) during an infant’s earliest right brain developmental stages.

Schore goes on to say:

“Psychopathological regulatory systems contain poorly evolved frontolimbic switching mechanisms that are inefficient or incapable of uncoupling and recoupling the sympathetic and parasympathetic components of the autonomic nervous system in response to changing environmental circumstances.  The inability to adapt to stress and the continued activation or inhibition of internal systems that is inappropriate to a particular environmental situation essentially defines the coping limitations of all psychiatric disorders.

“I believe that every type of early forming primitive disorder involves, to some extent, altered orbital prefrontal function.  Indeed, there is now evidence for impaired orbitofrontal activity in such diverse psychopathologies as autism (Baron-Cohen, 1995), mania (Starkstein, Boston, & Robinson, 1988), unipolar depression (Mayberg, Lewis, Regenold, & Wagner, 1994), and borderline (Goyer, Konicki, & Schulz, 1994) and psychopathic (Lapierre, Braun, & Hodgins, 1995) personality disorders.  Because the orbital system is centrally involved in the executive functions of the right cortex, these studies underscore the importance of the role of right hemisphere dysfunction in psychiatric disorders (Cutting, 1992).  In light of the facts that this hemisphere mediates empathic cognition and the perception of the emotional states of other human beings (Voeller, 1986), and that orbitofrontal function is essential to the capacity of inferring the states of others (Baron-Cohen, 1995), regulatory dysfunctions of the prefrontal system would underlie the broad class of developmental psychopathologies that display “empathy disorders” (Trevarthen & Aitken, 1994).”  [BOLD added by me for emphasis]

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On page 35 of this same book Schore stated:

“Thus deprivation of empathic care [for an infant], either in the form of chronic excessive arousal intensification or reduction, creates a growth-inhibiting environment that produces immature, physiologically undifferentiated orbitofrontal affect regulatory systems.  Furthermore, extensive dysregulating experiences at this time are permanently etched into forming cortical-subcortical circuits in the form of right-hemispheric “pathological” representations of self-in-interaction-with-a-dysregulating-other.  Instead of a dual circuit organization that generates adaptive coupled reciprocal modes, these unevolved frontolimbic systems that maintain weak bidirectional connections with the sympathetic and parasympathetic components of the peripheral nervous system are only capable of generating coupled or uncoupled nonreciprocal (Berntson et al., 1991) modes of autonomic control.  They thus show a limitation in strategies of affect regulation.  The result is an organization that cannot adaptively shift internal states and overt behavior in response to stressful external demands.”

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It was, as I mention, so very important to me to find the work of Dr. Martin Teicher (articles highlighted in last post) – so I could move past the idea of “pathology” and “psychopathology” in what happens to abused infants when their attachment environment is so traumatic that it changes the way their body-brain develops.  We simply had to change our development to survive.  Simply?  Well, hardly that….

So — I cannot “read” other people in ordinary ways and this creates its own kind of sometimes nearly intolerable loneliness.  I CAN, however, read some things about people that I am not SUPPOSED to be able to read.  This kind of special empathy would be a topic for some other post – some other day.

(I still read all this kind of information and wonder about infants who are today often raised in large daycares (day orphanages) that I can’t imagine provide for them what is needed to grow a healthy right brain — what are the costs to this neglect?  Societally approved neglect?  Is anyone “in the know” asking the questions that I am?  I mean, the ones with the big research bucks behind them?)

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NEXT POST: 

+SMOOTHIE IN THE BLENDER? NOT HEALTHY. FRUIT SALAD? HEALTHY. SO SAYS SIEGEL!

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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+SOME ARTICLES FROM DR. MARTIN H. TEICHER – AN EXPERT ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF CHILDHOOD ABUSE

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Tuesday, March 04, 2014.  I am looking around online for some research articles about the work of Dr. Martin H. Teicher.  What HAS this great mind been up to lately, anyway?  I find it is actually difficult to find out –

The first article I found is a free open public access one about children/youth ages 11-14 and Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).  SAD “is a recurring mood disorder that has an onset and remission at predictable times during the year.”  While the article has a somewhat intimidating title — Scale-Invariant Locomotor Activity Patterns in Children with SAD (2013) it has some very fascinating material in it about SAD, circadian rhythm differences in children (that may match those seen in adults with SAD?), and regions of the brain involved.

According to the article by Kyoko Ohashi, Ann Polcari and Martin H. Teicher 3.3% to 4.2 % of youth in the United States report SAD symptoms (which are described here).  I’ve never specifically even thought about SAD and kids until I encountered this info!

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I am certainly experiencing a compound effect of my own reoccurring major depression with SAD in this frigid far north climate this winter, something I did NOT have to deal with in the lovely more southern Arizona climes.  My little apartment is FULL of daylight-natural light-full spectrum light bulbs!!  On days that the sun now reaches into my apartment with rays at least part of the day when it’s not cloudy – and it is certainly cloudy today – I can drastically FEEL a complete shift in my state of being as those rays disappear toward sunset.  I now know that there will be NO direct sunlight reaching into this apartment for 5 months out of the year due to a total lack of windows in all but the westerly direction.

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SAD evidently has not only has “typical major depression symptoms” but also has some “atypical symptoms” which are described in this article.  While the detailed specifics of how this research was accomplished can be rather tedious to read, a person can scroll down to the results and discussion sections for more understandable material from the findings of this study.

Teicher was also involved in this “small feasibility study” which suggested that more research on the subject of using infrared light in depression/anxiety treatment is warranted:

Psychological benefits 2 and 4 weeks after a single treatment with near infrared light to the forehead: a pilot study of 10 patients with major depression and anxiety.

Schiffer F, Johnston AL, Ravichandran C, Polcari A, Teicher MH, Webb RH, Hamblin MR.

Behav Brain Funct. 2009 Dec 8;5:46. doi: 10.1186/1744-9081-5-46.Free PMC Article

 

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This very important article (2000) by Dr. Martin H. Teicher – Wounds That Time Won’t Heal:  The Neurobiology of Child Abuse – is available free online by clicking on this title.

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There is a WordPress blog address for Teicher — http://drteicher.wordpress.com/about/  about “Recent findings regarding brain development and childhood abuse/adversity — but this page is taking forever to load and lists an archive of posts into March 2012. 

I have previously mentioned in one of my blog posts some time ago this very important article I find the link to on blogsite –

Parental Verbal Abuse Affects Brain White Matter

Choi J, Jeong B, Rohan ML, Polcari AM, Teicher MH.  Preliminary evidence for white matter tract abnormalities in young adults exposed to parental verbal abuse. Biol Psychiatry. 2009 Feb 1;65(3):227-34.

Here’s another:

Posts Tagged ‘corpus callosum’

Keynote: Pierre Janet Memorial Lecture ISSTD 10/18/10

November 21, 2010

Abuse and Sensitive Periods – Synopsis:

December 14, 2008

Research from my laboratory, and from other labs here and abroad, have shown that exposure to childhood abuse is associated with alterations in brain structure and function.  This research has largely focused on brain regions known to be susceptible to the effects of stress, such as the hippocampus.  We have recently expanded our knowledge regarding the potential adverse effects of abuse by publishing the first preliminary data indicating that the neurobiological consequences of abuse depend on the age of exposure (Andersen et al 2008).

Andersen SL, Tomada A, Vincow ES, Valente E, Polcari A, Teicher MH (2008): Preliminary evidence for sensitive periods in the effect of childhood sexual abuse on regional brain development. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 20:292-301.

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There may be more on this blogsite of interest but at the moment I am simply – cruising around….

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The truth is at this moment in time I do not have the heart to go back and read Teicher’s articles such as THIS important one which appears online as a PowerPoint.  I post these links in case some readers browsing through my blog today would like to take a little time to study Teicher’s perspectives – there are NONE more accurate and critically important on the topic of childhood traumas than Teicher’s.

Windows of Vulnerability:  Neurobiology of Child Abuse

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OK – HERE PERHAPS I STRUCK GOLD!!  Great list of Teicher’s articles to scan through —

This is a Google Scholar page for Teicher that counts 13,319 citations for his work – and YAY!!!  Take a look at the active-link articles posted HERE, although the articles are not listed chronologicaly.   I am still not convinced, however, that this page is up-to-date.  (Is that was a typo at the top, “Harvard Medicl School?”  My heavens!)

Martin H. Teicher

Harvard Medicl School / McLean Hospital

Childhood Maltreatment and Brain Development – ADHD – Depression – Biomarkers 

Verified email at hms.harvard.edu

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The bio page I found for Teicher as he is connected to McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School Affiliate, is not up-to-date.  There are articles listed for him there as of 2005 as being “in press.”

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You can also follow here:

Searches related to martin h teicher

dr martin h teicher

neurobiology martin h teicher

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And this all important information:   

+Dr. Teicher’s ARTICLE ON TRAUMA ALTERED DEVELOPMENT

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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+WAKING WITH HOT ICY TEARS – HOW COME?

alchemynow3 Comments

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Monday, March 3, 2014.  There is nothing fun about waking into tears as I did this morning when my alarm went off, or with the need to make an instantaneous choice not to let those tears escape the body that holds them – mine — or to let that sadness completely control my day.

My next thoughts came from a conversation I had with a friend yesterday who also suffers from the lifelong effects of trauma altered physiological development from infant and child abuse:  The set point of our entire body (nervous systems-brain, etc.) is NOT set at peaceful calm as it should have been had early trauma not happened to us.  Mine is set at sorrow.

So this morning I went on a hunt for what I remember from my thorough reading of the works of Dr. Allan N. Schore 8-10 years ago about what is said about abused infants’ “set point of balanced equilibrium.” 

I didn’t know enough in the beginning of my studies to take issue with anything of Schore’s I read, yet today when I read a statement like “Dissociation is a very early appearing survival mechanisms for coping with traumatic affects, and it plays a critical role in the mechanism of projective identification” I can clearly separate the operation of “dissociation” from “the mechanism of projective identification.”  In my thinking they are NOT the same thing even though when I first read this text I didn’t realize that.

Both my mother and I were forced to form a brain-nervous system with dissociation built into it.  But while Mother continued her development in the direction of massive use of projective identification I do not believe that I did.

As a result of my having been so abused by my (mentally ill-psychotic) dysregulated Mother I also had my infant (and therefore adult) “homeostatic equilibrium” massively disorganized.  However, dissociation is, for me, in no way ONLY tied to “interactive forces that induce intensely stressful states.”  My body processes most information it receives in this fashion, not “just” interactive forces with people.  My body (as readers have mentioned in regard to Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD)) receives nearly all information as intensely stressful – and this has gotten significantly worse the older I have gotten.

While no doubt this is true regarding projective identification, “Dissociation is a very early appearing survival mechanisms for coping with traumatic affects, and it plays a critical role in the mechanism of projective identification,” I believe that for myself dissociation NOW simply reflects my baseline state based upon how my body-brain was designed to operate as it changed in its developmental trajectory in an environment of massive ongoing trauma from birth.

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Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self (2003) by Dr. Allan N. Schore – page 62 – (if this link does not take you to this page do a Google Books search for “allan n schore equilibrium” and follow the first link shown).  Scroll up from page 62 in the book online – very important reading as well. 

“There is a great deal of interest amongst clinicians in intense, primitive affects, such as terror and rage.  But in recent work I have suggested that we must also deepen our understanding of the early etiology of the primitive defenses that are used to cope with – to autoregulate – traumatic, overwhelming affective states.  An interdisciplinary approach can thus model how developing systems organize primitive defense mechanisms, such as projective identification and dissociation, to cope with interactive forces that induce intensely stressful states that massively disorganize the infant’s homeostatic equilibrium (Schore, 2001a). Dissociation is a very early appearing survival mechanisms for coping with traumatic affects, and it plays a critical role in the mechanism of projective identification (Schore, 1998c, 2000g, 2002d).  Since these early events are imprinted into the maturing brain (Matsuzawa et al., 2001), where states becomes traits (Perry et al., 1995), they endure as primitive defense mechanisms.  It has been observed that patients who utilize projective identification have “dissociatively cleansed” themselves of traumatic affects in order to maintain some form of relationship with narcissistically vulnerable others (Sands, 1994.  1997b).”

“In two seminal papers, Kelein conjectured that defensive projective identification is associated with the massive invasion of someone else’s personality (1955/1975) and represents an evacuation of unwanted parts of the self (1946).  The use of a unique and restricted set of defenses in severely disturbed personalities has been long noted in the clinical literature.  Indeed, a primary goal of treatment of such patients is to help them replace excessive used of projective identification with more mature defensive operations.  Boyer described a group of patients who experienced an early defective relationship with the m other that resulted in a grossly deficient ego structure.  Their excessive use of projective identification “very heavily influences their relationships with others as well as their psychic equilibrium.  Their principal conscious goal in therapy is to relieve themselves immediately of tension.  Often they greatly fear that the experience of discomfort is intolerable and believe that failure to rid themselves of it will lead to physical or mental fragmentation or dissolution” (Boyer, 1990, p. 304).

“In writings on the “costs” of the characterological use of projective identification, Stark described, “Those patients who do n ot have the capacity to sit with internal conflicts will be in the position of forever giving important parts of themselves away, leaving themselves feeling internally impoverished and excessively dependent upon others” (1999, -. 269).”

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It does not take much searching (using the same terms I mentioned above) to find Schore stating on pages 289-290 in his book, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self, the following: 

“The brain of an infant who experiences frequent intense attachment disruptions and little interactive repair is chronically exposed to states of impaired homeostasis which he or she shifts into in order to maintain basic metabolic processes for survival.  If the caregiver does not participate in reparative functions that reduce stress and reestablish psychobiological equilibrium, the limbic connections that are in the process of developing are exposed to a toxic chemistry that negatively impacts a developing brain.  Developmental pscyobiological  studies indicate that hyperaroused attachment stressors are correlated with elevated levels of the arousal-regulating catecholamines and hyperactivation of the excitotoxic N-methyl-D-asparate (NMDA)-sensitive glutamate receptor, a critical site of neurotoxicity and synapse-elimination in eraly development (McDonald et al., 1988; Guilarte, 1998).  Research now indicates that apoptotic degeneration is intensifiec in the immature brain during the NMDA receptor hypersensitivity period (Johnston, 2001), and that the neonatal brain is more prone to excitotoxicity than the adult brain (Bittigua et al., 1999).  High levels of glutamate and cortisol are known to specifically alter the growth of the developing limbic system.  During critical periods, dendritic spines, potential points of connection with other neurons, are particularly vulnerable to long pulses of glutamate (Segal et al., 2000) that trigger severely altered calcium metabolism and therefore “oxidative stress” and cellular damage (Park et al., 1996; Schore, 1994, 1997a, 2001c).

“Furthermore, basic research shows that adverse social experiences during early critical periods result in permanent alterations in opiate, corticosteroid, corticotropin releasing factor, dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin receptors (Coplan et al., 1996; Ladd et al., 1996; Lewis et al., 1990; Martin et al., 1991; Meerlo et al., 2001; Rosenblum et al., 1994; van der Kolk, 1987).  Such receptor alterations are a central mechanism by which “early adverse developmental experiences may leave behind a permanent physiological reactivity in limbic areas of the brain” (Post et al., 1994, p. 800).  Impairments in the limbic system, and in dopamine, noradrenaline, and serotonin receptors have all been implicated in aggression dysregulation (Dolan, Deakin, Roberts, & Anderson, 2002; Oquendo & Mann, 2000; Siever & Trestman, 1993).

“Because the early maturing (Geschwind & Galaburda, 1987; Schore, 1994) right hemisphere is more deeply connected into the limbic system than the left (Borod, 2000; Gainotti, 2000; Tucker, 1992), this enduring reactivity is “burnt” into corticolimbic circuits of the right brain, the hemisphere dominant for the regulation of stress hormones cortisol and corticotropin releasing factor….”  READ MORE HERE – or go to the 2nd link following the term search I mentioned above)

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So how’s this for light early Monday morning reading?  You can Google search for any term you don’t recognize in order to get a clearer picture of what Schore is saying.  Personally I find myself wondering if in my situation the “aggression” circuits were not allowed to develop due to my exposure to SUCH abusive rage in Mother.

When I wake as I did today finding myself “on the verge of tears” I can now look for, find and use my mental aggression toward THE HUNT for supportive information about why it is NOT MY FAULT in any way that the set point of my entire being is set at sorrow rather than at peaceful calm.

This means that I must use massive amounts of my waking energy to fight against a state that is completely natural for my body’s resting state. 

Notice also in the above text Schore’s use of the word PERMANENT – and he means what he writes.  This is the kind of information that Dr. Daniel Siegel is NOT talking about – although I am open to the understanding that research in the past 10 years may have opened up areas of new knowledge about this kind of “permanence” that Schore is mentioning.  However, I would not take new concepts of brain plasticity to mean that we can change what happened to us on the level of permanent during the brain developmental stages Schore is talking about. 

It is also important to remember that the entire body is effected by this kind of traumatic stress in its development – certainly not “just” the brain.

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As I have mentioned many times I felt so hopelessly damaged as I read Schore’s work!  It was when I finally found the work of Dr. Martin Teicher that I realized all of what Schore describes of trauma-caused developmental changes actually means in the bigger picture that we become “evolutionarily altered” beings made within and to endure within a malevolent world.  It is the mismatch between our natural state and life in a more benign world that causes us the most trouble.

Who chooses to cross the morning’s threshold from sleep to wakefulness being forced to find such ways to cope with the icy threat of heated tears?

Who chooses to have to plow through the facts of developmental neuroscience to discover what changes create this kind of “resting state” within one’s body?

None of US, that’s for sure!

But here we find ourselves, none-the-less.  I would rather KNOW what’s “wrong=changed” within me as I fight every moment of the day to be “happier” than my body tells me I am than to NOT know.  And if you continue to study this kind of information you will recognize yourself AND most probably the reality of your abuser, as well.

It helps me to remember that for all else I need to cope with in my everyday life I will ALWAYS have a trauma altered body to cope with life with – and coping with the conditions within my trauma changed body is a life’s work all by itself!

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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+SOME HELPFUL ‘INS AND OUTS’ OF LAY SCHOLARSHIP

alchemynowLeave a comment

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Sunday, March 02, 2014.  Never before in the history of our species has so much information been available to so many people.  The exclusivity of access to this information is shrinking at the same time that the body of information is growing exponentially.  As lay scholars (and this includes everyone who has found their way to this blog) we can be as creative, far-ranging, thorough, specific and eclectic as we choose to be in our studies.

 Information posted below about how to find and access research online has kindly been provided by blog commenter mlhyde – and THANK YOU!  The link to this information will post at the top of this blog’s “ABOUT” page where it will remain so that I know where I put it and so that blog readers can also find it when they need it.

I have used PubMed in my studies.  It is a fantastic resource site which contains a MASSIVE searchable database of research in the format of abstracts and/or FREE access articles. 

Google Books at http://books.google.com/ may offer searchable pages of books that are not accessible via, say, amazon.com’s book pages.

+++++++++++++++++

Here is the first comment about research provided yesterday, March 1, 2014:

+

Sorry for my long comment but you need some information.

You made a comment about not being able to get internet access to some literature now that you are not at a university but I know that there are many ways to get access to some journals.  When searching using Google Scholar, you will find free access even when there are no pdf links to the right of the citation.  Just be sure to click on the “All x versions” to see which choices you have.  Look at the green words and see the journals/publishers.  The ones which say europepmc or cat.inist.fr usually are just catalogs, same for psycnet.apa.org (although not all of their journals are subscriber only–sometimes you need to put the name up onto Google search and see for yourself if the article is accessible.  You learn which psych journals are out of reach.

If it says Sage you can still get free access to many psych journals NOW by registering with Sage for email alerts, not just to specific journals but to informative notices (that then gives you global email alert checkoff boxes). They used to notify you in special newsletters devoted to specific fields when they had free access trials but now you have to go to

http://online.sagepub.com/cgi/freetrial

periodically to check if there is anything new. They have free access to ADDITIONAL psych journals right now until the end of March 2014.  However, I usually sign up for everything there so that when I do a search on something like “abuse” and I get journals that are not in the psych journal list (e.g. Journal of Interpersonal Violence), but are on free trial lists right now, I can still get the article.  I just copy the journal information of articles that I want but that are not yet freely available to a list for when a trial does open up.

Sage also has free access to all of its journals in the database in October or November (if you register).  Usually it has free trials to neuro journals in November and very often overlap with ALL Database free trials.  They never give you enough time to get everything.  However, if you periodically do searches on Sage, saving articles to a list, you soon discover which journals you want free access to and can save their names to a list, too.  That saves you a lot of time when the all database free trial occurs.

Also look for Oxford University Press which has a free access period, too at times, but it also has free access to many of its psych journals and others which it doesn’t often tell you about in the “About this Journal” section.  For instance:  I found that Integrative & Comparative Biology tells you that it will give you free access for 2012 and part of 2013 right now, but in fact it gives you free access back 17 years.  Now that may be because I am registered to get email alerts from them on many journals, so when I go to any Oxford University Press journal it automatically logs me in (I set those preferences in my browser).

Royal Society of London also has free periods, usually in November or December each year, but sometimes at other times.  They give free access to some journals if they are 1 year old, and to others if they are 2 years old, back to about 10 years old.  Since they have truly ancient articles dating back to the 1700’s, you generally have to wait until Nov/Dec to get those.  They do have open access journals, too, as well as open access articles (as all databases have).

In the class of rarely free belong the following with comments:

SpringerLink also has some open access journals, too. Even Elsevier/ScienceDirect have some freely accessible, but rarely. Taylor & Francis is rarely free.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences gives free access to all year old issues and some new ones. Even Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences gives some free access. Then PLOS has free access all the time (get on the free email alerts there) and BMOC also has many journals that are free. Cell has many journals associated that have free access to many issues as does J. Neuroscience, and American Journal of Physiology journals.

Also I found some Indian journals, like

http://www.ijpm.info/

which is free access. I think that I found them through Medknow.

So always go to the listings after you click on “All x versions”.  Now ncbi doesn’t always have free access but

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/?filter=t4&titles=current&search=journals

gives a list of journals where for the most part, you can get free access. Some are listed on the Sage website where sometimes it won’t give you a location other than a citation in a search, or it won’t give you access there to articles earlier than 2014, but you can get them at the above website.

Some journals give free access after they are a year old, but Google Scholar may not let you think you have access by their notation because they are cataloged on information that is not updated.

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From today’s comment from mlhyde, March 2, 2014:

Actually, I find specific articles in Google Scholar. In fact, most of Teicher’s research is available for free there, as I said, much of it not implied when you see a list of sources without a *.pdf file on the right side of the page.  You just have to type the title and one author’s name into the right space under “Advanced Search”.  Sometimes, once I got a listing of all versions, I had to search for the journal on regular Google and then for the article on that journal’s website.

++

These comments were made to this Friday, February 28, 2014 post:

  +BLACKBIRD PIE – WHAT IS TRUE FOR US?

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

++++

+BLACKBIRD PIE – WHAT IS TRUE FOR US?

alchemynow6 Comments

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Friday, February 28, 2014.  Last night, just after my daughter came to pick up the baby and I had begun to cook my supper the electricity went out.  I instantaneously thought the usual.  Did something dangerous happen in my apartment?  Do I need to check my circuit box?

I looked out my door into the hallway.  Only the dim illumination of the backup light.  The outage was wider spread than just my dark world.

Next I went to the only window in this room I spend my weekdays cooped up within caring for my 19-month-old grandson and looked out to “make sure” the outage was city wide.

It was not.

Of the 8 buildings I can see from my spot in this complex only three of them were dark while the rest were comfortably lit against the increasing subzero cold of nightfall.

What?  How could THAT happen?  I located my dim flashlight, stood in front of my refrigerator where I have the magnet with the apartment complex management number, and telephoned to report the darkness.  I was the first caller of the at least 90 apartments without power.  As I explained conditions to the woman in some other town who took my information background calls began to come in as others also found their management telephone numbers and began to complain.

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I know how to make-do in darkness.  I also suspect most of the other residents can do the same seeing as over 90% of the people who live in these apartments are refugees from locations across the globe.

I found my plastic bucket full of tea lights I have carried with me as emergency measures for many years.  Most of them were long ago transformed into glued-together stacks through the months of homelessness I went through before I found my Arizona house.  Locked within the confines of my traveling 1978 el Camino the heat of the sun had reshaped them.  I found a kitchen knife, pried their little wicks out of their waxed encasing, lit and placed 10 of them around my apartment.

Now what? 

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Sitting alone in the darkness is always a good time to think.  I thought about how for probably everyone who keeps a personal blog not much happens that isn’t filtered through a verbal process that evaluates the usefulness of experiences of ongoing life for the blog’s purpose.  I am never an exception to this process.

How like myself 30+ years ago it was for me last night to note that I operated for so many years – including the entire 18 years of my childhood – under the simple belief that everyone’s life was no different from mine.  This is a hairline distance away from thinking “Everyone’s life is like mine.”

I just had no way to determine a single thing DIFFERENT about my life from anyone else’s, not even the difference between my siblings who were cherished and adored by my parents and I who was hated and harmed at every turn.

Last night I had no way to know what the degrees of darkness were until I looked out my window and there the comparison was!  There was something different (special?) about my building and the other two randomly-placed dark buildings in this complex that matched my own.

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In the light of my little candles I found my crochet hook and continued my busy work of crocheting flowers from my handspun yarn.  The flowers did not arrive into the world in perfect shape but at least my productivity was matching pace with the passing of time.  I was reminded of living as a child on our Alaskan mountain homestead in our canvas hut with candles and kerosene lanterns to do my homework by.  (No water, no phone, no neighbor for over a mile of wilderness.)

I thought about my growing concern as I again reach across the distances of separation to try to find more current developmental neurobiological information than I currently possess.  (Yet as my list of references shows I spent hundreds of hours over five years accumulating enough information to know there was something VERY different about how I am in the world than is true for most other people.  Even without adding into this list what I have discovered in the past years I have had this blog this list is impressive —  see:  REFERENCES (main file).)

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I have been asking lately “What new information is available about how severe early trauma-changed survivors can improve their well-being?”

Last night in the quiet of the waiting darkness I reminded myself to be careful.  Not to sell myself or my readers short.

Siegel is by self-proclamation a kind of conciliation expert.  He will look for the newest and best information about what humans share together as far as how EVERYONE can work their brain to build new and helpful relational circuits and pathways.

Well, great.  It’s not that anything Siegel says is incorrect or even misleading.  At the same time finding the broadest possible common ground is NOT what ever helped me heal – or even to recognize what truly happened to me through 18 years of horrendous psychotic abuse from birth.

I had to go looking.  I had to search meticulously at the writings of neuroscientists themselves to find how I was DIFFERENT from nearly everyone else before I could find the first solace I had experienced in my life.  “AH-HA!!  So THAT is what happened to me!”

My very physiology changed through trauma exposure.

I found back in my researching days information about epigenetics before those articles even appeared online except as abstracts with up-coming publication dates included.  I knew the field was ripening and that the fruits would fall – and I knew I had to wait.

I found allusions to new research about the default resting state of the brain.  I found information that was also suggesting these states were connected to consciousness.  I also found I would have to wait for that research to be accomplished and published.

So I found other things to do.  I started this blog.  I wrote ten book manuscripts.  I changed all of the details of my life.

And now I look again through a magnifying glass starting with Dr. Siegel’s work about the underpinnings of attachment as it determines the course the river of our life steers off into.

WARNING!!!!!

I am not going to now let go of the vital knowledge that i searched hard to find and now know:  for all of the accurate descriptions of brain plasticity, etc. none of that information will ever give me – no matter how hard I work at applying it to improve my well-being – anything more than the equivalent of a few salvaged tea lights to live within a very dark world of history that contains enough darkness of trauma during my infancy and childhood to put out most ordinary people’s lamp-of-soul and of body in one big-bad-wolf’s PUFF!

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If we continue “only” to assuage ourselves into believing that what happens to infants and children doesn’t really matter – because science is telling us if they want to “get better” bad enough they can do what everyone can do!!!!  Change their brain ‘cause EVERYONE now knows that brain plasticity is the salvation of our species.

WRONG!!!!!

A greatest danger exists if we continue to use the insights gained through scientific research to support the status quo of our cultural thinking about infant and child abuse.  We cannot afford to be lulled by any snake charmer’s (and no, I am not speaking of individuals but rather of HOW our culture receives information within their own mental framework) melody that suggests that harm done to infant-child physiological development – nervous system/brain/stress-calm response system/immune system, etc. – not to mention the damage to SELF realization – “Can’t matter that much because anyone can FIX it” if they want to badly enough.

WRONG!!  We cannot deny ourselves as survivors of the LIGHT that true realization of the DARKNESS provides for us as we learn how evolutionarily-altered we are because of the early traumas we endured (again, see Dr. Martin Teicher’s work, which Siegel also highly values.  If I were Ivory Tower I would be able to freely access ALL of Teicher’s work – something I dream of in my disability income poverty!).

We must be careful when it comes to the GENOCIDE certainly of a healthy happy self that continued infant and child abuse and neglect accomplishes NOT TO FORGET the reality of the truth about the truth of its wrongness and of its harm.  This is like denying the holocaust – because harm to infants and children DOES create both a form of genocide AND a holocaust.

We will not work to stop infant-child abuse and neglect by simply making it disappear in our societal mind.

I was momentarily mesmerized by “the newer findings” from science as Dr. Siegel so charmingly presents them.  There are at least (my thoughts) 5-7% of us who were so harmed when we were little and young that NOTHING can ever restore us to the body we WOULD have had (including our brain) if we had been saved from harm by SOMEONE when we needed help most – and nobody was there to care or to act on our behalf.

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Yes, maybe feeling lulled feels good – a little like feeling soothed – which no abused infant ever feels.

Feeling lulled is attractive.  It give us a place/space within which we can rest – all survivors, my bet, are extremely TIRED on deep, deep levels by having to work so hard at being alive.

I know for myself I have to watch for that lulled state with extreme vigilance because being lulled serves me no good purpose if I am “buying into” information about “recovery” that no more applies to me than did all I was told by my therapists for the ten years I went to them for help, answers, hope and direction.

NONE of them EVER told me what I have found out for myself – the info I continue to place within the pages and posts of this blog.

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“Snap out of your trance, Linda.  Do not be entranced by scientifically-suggested name changes and super-solutions that hide the truth of the conditions you KNOW you live with.”

No light is going to come flood me with the truth but my own.  It is my response-ability to filter every piece of trauma-related information through my own sense of what resonates with my own truth – what rings true – what increases the light I have to live with in this world, not dims it.

I did not read that material, hunt it out, do everything in my power to digest it simply to have fun in my life.  I did it to SAVE my life.

I will give you an example.  I spend 50-55 hours a week caring for my toddler grandson.  I KNOW I love him with all of my being.  I KNOW I am giving him every safe and secure attachment relationship benefit that can be given to a new human being growing into the world.  He gets laughter and limits, he gets snuggles and cute whispered secrets in his little ears, he gets soul-filled lullabies as he gets rocked with a bottle for naptime, he has a WONDER-FULL life here with me and I firmly believe with my entire being that I am GIVING him his life – SAVING his life by keeping him out of a “day orphanage” during these most critically important stages of his physiological and self development.

All fine and good?

NO and there is NO NO loud enough, strong enough, clear enough to express what I say next.  Due to the consequences of the severe abuse and neglect and its trauma from the time of my birth and for the next 18 years of my life – I CANNOT FEEL – AND I MEAN FEEEEEEEEEL – what any of this interaction with my grandson (or with anyone else) FEELS LIKE!!

Could I “gain awareness” and change my nervous system, my brain, my SOMETHING and have given to me in consequence the ability to FEEL LOVE as I KNOW most other humans can feel it?

NO!

Is anyone in that great Titanic of science research bothering to look at the states of someone like me?

NO!

Why – I ask you and would ask them if they had ears to hear – WHY NOT?

I trust my inner voice which immediately responded to the question I just wrote as I wrote it with the word SMUG!!!  Science is TOO SMUG to truly give enough of a damn to find what really matters to those of us who suffer most.

I don’t believe that our right brain ever lies but our left brain sure does!  Watch out for the 4-and-20 blackbirds baked in the scientific pie.  Others can afford to be lulled – evidently – by “false security” that a view of new research findings provides.  We as survivors – and those little people currently enduring what we know so well – cannot afford the luxury of pretending all is and will be well. 

We have to know what we know inside of our self first and listen for the ring of resonating truth.  We WILL have that response.  We need to trust it.  A half-truth is not the truth.  Beware be-aware – our truth does not match much of THE truth from that “other” world.  We KNOW this. I know that we do. 

Our truth is our light that will never go out and cannot be stolen from us.  By knowing our own truth we are indomitable.  That is why we are still here.

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NOTE:  In example of what I know I can say that for all the well-intentioned and supposedly thorough research that was accomplished to build an attachment theory no one bothered to notice that NO MOTHER such as mine was could have possibly been accessed for any of those studies.  No such mother as mine was and so such baby as I was ever found their way into anyone’s research lab. 

By leaving THOSE findings out of research on attachment processes no finding of any of that research ACTUALLY applies to my truth.  I know THIS to be true.

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

++++

+WELL, THE BLUE-NOSED-GOPHER STRIKES AGAIN! (SEE END OF POST)

alchemynow6 Comments

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Thursday, February 27, 2014.  There is a link here to a talk Dr. Daniel Siegel gave on Identifying Your Child’s Attachment Style that is transcribed on the PsychAlive website.  My computer won’t bring up the pictures on the page, but in spite of those big blank areas on my screen I found the text very helpful.  Complicated attachment concepts are given here in clear words that are grounded in everyday life examples.

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I just signed up for this free webinar listed on the PsychAlive site:

June 3: Is Your Attachment Style Shaping Your Life?

Presenter: Lisa Firestone, Ph.D.

”Attachment refers the particular way in which you relate to other people. Your style of attachment was formed in childhood, however, once established, it has a heavy influence on how you relate in everything from your intimate relationships to how you parent your children. Understanding your style of attachment is helpful, because it offers you insight into how you felt and developed in childhood, while revealing ways that you may be emotionally limited as an adult. By learning your early attachment style, you gain insight into actions you can take to improve your close relationships. You can learn techniques to challenge areas in which you may feel limited and even form an “earned secure attachment” as an adult. In this Webinar, you will gain a better understanding of how your own attachment style influences your life, while learning tools to enhance your adult attachment style and develop yourself in ways that will bring you more success in life.”

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Now I am taking my first look at – Patricia M. Crittenden’s Dynamic Maturational Model of attachment theory

I see there is a heavyweight and very legitimate book written by this clinician published in 2011 by Norton:

Assessing Adult Attachment: A Dynamic-Maturational Approach to Discourse Analysis

Book Description on Amazon.com

A method for identifying the psychological and interpersonal self-protective attachment strategies of adults.

This book focuses upon new methods of analysis for adult attachment texts. The authors’ introduce a highly nuanced model—the Dynamic-Maturational Model (DMM)—providing clinicians with a finely-tuned tool for helping patients examine past relationships, in addition to gauging the potential effectiveness of various treatment options. The authors offer a fascinating explanation of the neurobiological underpinnings of DMM, grounded in findings from the cognitive neurosciences about information processing. In this volume, readers have an eminently practical, theoretically-grounded work that is sure to transform many types of therapy.

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Here are the five reviews of the book on Amazon

I am thinking that this book is probably a MUST for any professional who wants to use the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) as either a client assessment tool or for anyone using this powerful tool for research.

It does not sound like a treatment-based book.  I would wonder, however, if the use of this tool and the classification system presented is without bias in terms of a particular treatment style.  I would have to look further into the book to tell.

I am concerned that now that the AAI has been released to the public that it’s integrity as a tool will be compromised by shoddy applications.  How can such a useful tool – a true gift to humanity from my point of vie – be protected and preserved in its usefulness and accuracy so that it will be used for what it was designed to be used for?

In looking at the contents of this book it seems that the use of the AAI and its classifications is presented with integrity.  The possible use of the resulting information in a treatment setting would be biased by the author’s theoretical approach.  SEE CONTENTS HERE

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HERE is a 2005 article:  Attachment Theory, Psychopathology, and Psychotherapy:

The Dynamic-Maturational Approach

By Patricia M. Crittenden

Family Relations Institute, Inc.

In this article Crittenden’s dynamic-maturational model (DMM) of attachment theory is comprehensively presented and discussed.  It is a “heady” article and not easy to read.  However, it is an important, valid model that describes “adult pathology” in terms of early attachment failures and complications and is therefore immensely helpful for anyone trying to assist a human being to find increased well-being in their life. 

This theory and its application appear to me to be specific to a very skilled, high quality and long-term therapist-client relationship which is – I believe – in all but a very few cases impossible to access for most insecurely attached people.  A thorough reading of the article at the above link will provide a comprehensive view of Crittenden’s model and its implications.

In a simplistic and off-handed way I would say that it seems likely that only on the level of training in psychiatry would a clinician actually attend to the detailed study both of this model and of its implications and applications.  To my knowledge psychiatry is today nearly always concerned with giving formal diagnosis for the prescription of drugs and NOT with the kind of deep, careful and thorough rebuilding and healing work that Crittenden promotes.

This is a tragedy of life in today’s modern world.

This is not to say that we as individuals can’t pursue a serious study of her model so that we can work toward our own healing by integrating what we learn about attachment through Crittenden with what we know about ourselves.  Who among us is that motivated – and that hopeful?

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Attachment theory is about identifying what attachment is, what it does, how to prevent problems and how to identify problems when they exist.  It is not about fixing those problems except that it is increasingly operationalizing the underpinnings of this entire process.

Crittenden’s work takes what I have just stated and INCLUDES the fixing aspect.

I searched in Google Books and found that Dr. Daniel Siegel does mention Crittenden in his book The Developing Mind but I cannot access that reference online.

Both professionals are mentioned side-by-side HERE

++++++++

I did uncover this very informative page today and highly suggest readers take a few moments to scan through the comment section HERE.  Many illuminating points of view are presented in response to a talk Dr. Siegel was a part of.  Many sources of material about attachment are also mentioned in these comments.

From this link I just found this – which fascinates me!  Those of you who have read my book,

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

written with my daughter Ramona – may have questioned my conclusion that all my psychotic abusive BPD mother did to me was inspired by HOPE that originated in her child mind in reaction to the traumas of her childhood.

Comment and reply:

Laurence Drell 04.23.2011 13:54 

I find listening to Dan like rereading Shakespeare… there is always a slight new nuance of emphasis on something important that comes out of his discussions.

I have always felt that in therapy as patient or therapist that the sense of being “known” was somehow therapeutic in itself. How that occurred varied. And each patient speaks a different language so what is said and how it is said makes all the difference… but it always seemed crucial to growth to have this experience. And Dan describes this so clearly on an energetic level of two minds resonating and feeling that connection.

I was impressed by the current work and research on the neurogenesis of the integrative fibers in the brain when one person feels known by the other (or one part of the mind is connected to another as in meditation)

And it made so much sense when it was mentioned that the development of these new pathways enable us (and patients) to make greater use of the abilities and strengths we always have but don’t always use… especially when in the midst of emotional turmoil.

I found Dan’s clear description and explanation to a patient of how therapy can help the patient develop and grow parts of the brain that have not had the opportunity to develop (yet) incredibly useful.

Personally I have found that clearly (and with honesty) offering hope to a patient is therapeutic in itself. I am not sure where in the brain or the mind that the change actually occurs and perhaps it is just in a space in the middle of that triangle that Dan describes, but I know that it is an essential ingredient for growth.

And it is reassuring on some level to be reminded that what we do in therapy (and in every relationship) has actual neurobiologic mechanisms that can be understood and that understanding these mechanisms can then be used to teach better ways (parenting skills etc) to interact with one another and ourselves. It is all so hopeful.

Thanks again for a wonderful lecture.

Laurence Drell, MD

Washington, DC

drdrell.com

Reply

Dan [Siegel] 04.23.2011 14:10 

Hi Laurence: Thanks for your reflections! The “ingredient” of that hopefulness is important, and fascinating. I wonder how you feel about the notion that intention is at the heart of hope, and that intention in many ways is the coherence push of emotion, that process which assembles elements together, often in an integrative way with positive intention. There is some fascinating writing about intention, and it is woven with in-depth explorations of a hard look at emotion, opening our minds up to the pathway from intention to connection. Anyway, when we imagine the intention of hope, we can sense some way in which the emotion (an integrative process, inside and interpersonally) created links us to our patient/client, with the “yes state” of receptivity that invites both the social engagement system to become activated (ala Porges’ Polyvagal Theory) and perhaps even neuroplasticity conditions to be primed…Lots to reflect on, and much synthesis to soak in! Thanks again for your reflections and see you soon I hope. Dan

OH MY HEAVENS!

I just wrote this and it posted – nearly three years after Siegel’s above words were written:

Dr. Siegel – I am a grass root in-the-trenches student of your work. Reading this comment today inspired hope in me that you might read the little book I wrote with my daughter about the terrible tragedy of my abusive, psychotically mentally ill mother and what she did to me. “Story Without Words” is available in kindle format on amazon.com and concludes with my statement that the entire saga of Mother’s story as she entrapped me within it was essentially about the process of HOPE as Mother portrayed it within a story she wrote as a child.

At the same time I have little hope that if I hit ‘send comment’ that my words will actually reach you! But what is life without hope!

thank you! Linda

How will I know if Siegel replies to me?  I hope (!!) I receive notification via email! 

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment

++++

+IF I KNEW WHERE I WAS GOING I WOULD BE THERE BY NOW!

alchemynowLeave a comment

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Wednesday, February 26, 2014.  I tried a Google search a while ago for the terms ‘daniel siegel planet earth’ – and my computer crashed.  True, this old beater is – well – old.  I rebooted and began again this time narrowing my search through a Google Books search to this book:

The Developing Mind

By Daniel J. Siegel, 2nd edition, 2012.  (I see on amazon.com you can RENT this book.  I’ve never before heard of such a thing!)

I am especially interested in what is in the beginning of the first chapter of this book.  You can read it HERE although the yellow highlighting might be a little distracting at first.  Those of you who FOLLOW THIS LINK are in for a treat (assuming this link remains active for any length of time).  If not, just Google Book search for my initial terms that led me to this chapter – ‘daniel siegel relationship planet’.

I read, no devoured the 2001 first edition of this book.  I don’t have the energy or motivation to start over again with this updated edition.  What I want to know is evidently not in this book, anyway – as stated in this chapter one.

“And the mind is also relational, not a product created in isolation.  These relationships include the communication an individual has with other entities in the world, especially people.  This book focuses especially on the important ways in which interpersonal relationships shape how the mind emerges in our human lives.  But we also have a relationship with nature, with this planet, with the Earth upon which we live, that shapes our mental (and physical) lives as well.  This is a vital form of relationship that sustains us in the air we breathe and the water we drink.  But this book is focused primarily on the person-to-person aspect of our relationships.”  Page 5

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Earlier on page 3 Siegel notes:  “Energy and information flow is what is shared among people within a culture….”

I know something else, as I noted in my last post.  It is a fact that “energy and information flow” is also shared between humans and all of life, NOT just “among people within a culture.”  If Siegel knows this – he did not state it here.

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Siegel displays the history of the definition he created for MIND — and I think this is the first/ONLY scientific definition of mind on the planet — in these early pages of his book in chapter one.  This is his definition of mind:

“The mind is an embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information.”  (from the top of page 3)

Siegel also talks at the beginning of this chapter on page 3 about “interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB)” as he states:

“IPNB embraces everything from our deepest relational connections with one another to the synaptic connections we have within our extended nervous systems.  It encompasses the interpersonal power of cultures and families, as well as insights into molecular mechanisms; each contributes to the reality of our subjective mental lives.  IPNB is not a branch of neuroscience, but a broad field drawing on the findings from a wide range of disciplines that explore the nature of what it means to be human.  Based on science, IPNB seeks to create an understanding of the interconnections among the brain, the mind, and our interpersonal relationships.  IPNB can also be used to understand our relatedness beyond the interpersonal, to other living creatures and to our whole planet.  With this approach, new strategies for both understanding and promoting well-being are possible.  We can both define the mind and outline practical steps for how to cultivate a healthy mind as it develops across the lifespan.”

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This is specifically what I want to know more about:  “our relatedness beyond the interpersonal, to other living creatures and to our whole planet.” 

I am tantalized with these words – and then left with absolutely NOTHING more.  Scanning the index of the book leaves me nowhere to go for the information I seek  (I do see fascinating new additions to the book under ‘epigenetic factors’.)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The other wing of the bird of my current interest and investigation relates to how someone with a severe abuse and insecure/unsafe attachment history might become secure enough in adulthood to provide secure attachment to their children and not to pass the trauma of their own early life on to their offspring.

This is a very complex issue and one I do not expect to understand in its fullness, by any means.  At this point I am simply examining language being used in attachment studies to identify some of these kinds of patterns.

The index of this book shows

“Earned” secure autonomous status in three areas of the text:

(1) pages 119-120

(2) pages 142-143  (Very important information about the essence of attachment styles is presented on these pages – use of the side scroll bar might allow you to access these pages from any other place in the book.  If not, just Google for Google Books and put in ““Earned” secure autonomous status” and you will find it.  I think a search inside the book on amazon is too limiting to get to these pages.  I may be wrong!)

3) page 324 (I don’t see that this page on “earned secure attachment” can be accessed online.)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Of particular interest to me in my search for understanding the difference between Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) (which Siegel states as I mention in THIS POST is not an insecure attachment disorder) and “disorganized/disoriented insecure attachment are the following two paragraphs from page 142.

“It is amazing that such a complex process as interpersonal communication and parent-child relationships can actually be understood in a fairly simple manner:  Attachment at its core is based on parental sensitivity and responsivity to the child’s signals, which allow for collaborative parent-child communication.  Contingent communication gives rise to secure attachment and is characterized by a collaborative give-and-take of signals between the members of the pair.  Contingent communication relies on the alignment of internal experiences, or states of mind, between child and caregiver.  This mutually sharing, mutually influencing set of interactions – this emotional attunement or mental state resonance – is the essence of healthy, secure attachment.

“Suboptimal attachments arise with repeated patterns of noncontingent communication.  A parent’s communication and own internal states may be oblivious to the child’s [in essence the parent does not SEE the child], as in avoidant attachment.  In contrast, an ambivalently attached child experiences the parent’s communication as inconsistently contingent; at times it is intrusive, and yet at other times there is an alignment of their internal states.  If the parent is a source of disorientation or terror, the child will develop a disorganized/disoriented attachment.  In such a dyad, not only is communication noncontingent, but the messages sent by the parent create an internal state of chaos and overwhelming fear of the parent within the child.”

In my case I had no relationship of any kind with my father.  Mother did not allow one and father was not one to ever stand against her.

This would be THE BEST I could say of Mother’s relationship with me (as different from her relationship with my five siblings):  “If the parent is a source of disorientation or terror, the child will develop a disorganized/disoriented attachment.  In such a dyad, not only is communication noncontingent, but the messages sent by the parent create an internal state of chaos and overwhelming fear of the parent within the child.”

My problem in “working with” Siegel’s statement is that I cannot see that this pattern constitutes any kind of an attachment relationship at all!  I intimately know what I am talking about.  I was NEVER SEEN by her – and NEVER was I ‘safe and secure’ as her daughter in any way.  Mother was so psychotic regarding me that I did not exist AT ALL separate from being her projected own bad, evil self (that she had to create a permanent hell for and trap me within).

This is NOT attachment, and if this is the case than I DO fit the Reactive Attachment Disorder pattern rather than any named “insecure attachment” category.

What difference does any of this thinking make to me?  I am not sure – yet.  I do not see how a scientific rule can be a rule if there is even ONE exception, and I may well be that one exception.

If I do in fact “have” RAD – which is NOT an insecure attachment disorder according to Siegel – then everything about my relationships with my children would therefore apparently be excluded from any discussion related to “earned secure attachment” by default.  As I think my way through all of this I may find that my own term for what I experienced (and still do) with my children, BORROWED SECURE ATTACHMENT is exactly correct.  (Where are my peers, then?)

(Siegel goes on past the above paragraphs to talk about “earned secure attachment”.)

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The AAI = the Adult Attachment Interview.  CLICK HERE and scroll down to page three for a description of this protocol which is used to assess adult attachment styles.

This is completely out of my budget, but Dr. Siegel has published a seminar recording (2012) titled

Applications of the Adult Attachment Interview

I wish I could hear what he says about this because I suspect he is illuminating the release, finally, of the AAI for public use.  I also want to know where to access information about this release and of the current standing of the AAI in its public use.

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I am making a note here where I can find it to investigate this — Patricia M. Crittenden’s Dynamic Maturational Model of attachment theory

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

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Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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+ABUSED BY A PSYCHOTIC? WHAT SENSE IS THERE IN THAT KIND OF UNIVERSE?

alchemynowLeave a comment

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Wednesday, February 26, 2014.  This post is directly linked to the previous post just published

+EARNING SECURE ATTACHMENT BY HEALING OUR TRAUMA LIFE STORY?

I just found this page posted on the blog in 2006, a quote from Siegel’s book The Developing Mind:

+SIEGEL – EARNED SECURE ATTACHMENT

I was evidently questioning Siegel’s statements those 8 years ago.

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The whole idea of mine about “borrowed secure attachment” versus the standardized (scientifically qualified) category of “earned secure attachment” is being awakened and revisited now due to my encountering a statement in a video talk I listened to and posted about with some transcribed notes of that talk last weekend:

+LINK TO NOTES I JUST TRANSCRIBED FROM DR. SIEGEL’S MINDSIGHT TALK AT THE DALAI LAMA CENTER

In this talk Siegel basically alludes to the fact that relationship with “the planet” is as real as relationships with self, pets and humans, and he is describing this in terms of attachment and the necessary “integration” attachments provide.  Unfortunately he did NOT go into detail about his ideas in this regard in this talk.

I am therefore on the hunt to find more of Siegel’s thoughts about how he sees MIND as including mind of self connected to mind of other – with OTHER including our relationship with “the planet” as well as to human beings.

This greatly matters to me because while at the same time I experienced 18 years of terrible abuse by my psychotic mother I was also not allowed to form any attachment relationship with HUMANS.

I was NOT prevented from forming attachment relationship with the Alaskan mountain wilderness where we homesteaded in my childhood.  It is this relationship with ‘nature’ itself that I believe saved me – AND – allowed me to form “borrowed secure attachment” relationships with my children.

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All of this is also swirling around in my mind in connection to Siegel’s assertions that “the open plane of possibilities” is a positive ‘place’ to aim for!!  I mentioned this plane as I first discovered it in Siegel’s thinking in this post

+EARLY TRAUMA, DISSOCIATION AND DR. DANIEL SIEGEL’S “PLANE OF POSSIBILITY”

I am also on the hunt for more information about this plane as I am suspecting that its existence in Siegel’s thoughts as he describes it relates in extremely important ways to the PLANE severely traumatized infants and children not only know very well – but also are not allowed to leave by way of anything like a normal, ordinary developmental process as nontraumatized children do.

This same plane may be the state we reached (and reach now)  in between our ongoing experiences of being a self in our own self-world as a sort of “given place” that enables enduring trauma and its survival possible.  While ‘dissociation’ is most often the term used to describe our experience that term, too, is probably best relegated to the old vernacular as the new ‘lingo’ vernacular that more accurately describes the OPERATION of attachment processes finds its way into awareness and thusly to consciousness within our culture.

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I see a kind of confusing dichotomy if not an actual paradox in what little I have encountered thus far of Siegel’s thinking.  If reaching the “open plane of possibility” is so advantageous then how is “awareness” such an attractive alternative to being on this plane?

I would think that awareness might be the greased slide we can use to access this plane – but based on what I know of how my mind operated during the 18 years of my abusive childhood (coupled with horrendous periods of forced isolation and solitary confinement without attachment with another human being during those years) – THINKING in ‘thoughts’ that would even detect this so-called level of awareness in operation are NOT what I suspect “the open plane of possibility” has to offer or is about.

I also remain entirely unconvinced that it is necessary to access the greased slide of awareness to find one’s way to this plane of possibility.  I am quite certain that I lived nearly entirely on that plane for the first 18 years of my life, as I have mentioned.

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In my thinking that plane may be simply the natural state of our existence if it is not tampered with through our experience.  Interestingly unlike any peer I have ever met I know that plane because my experience WAS completely tampered with through horrendous abuse the likes of which I have never heard of, either.

That abuse left me entirely to myself – in my natural state – because nobody ‘let me out of the cage of my mother’s mad-hell’ for more than a very few moments so that ‘regular experiences’ could contaminate my access to that state/plane of possibility.  I simply lived there.

++

This fact left me wide open to being able to borrow the attachment circuitry my children simply naturally possessed because they were born human.  I did not interfere with their process.  They led the way – very clearly – I simply followed their lead.  I did not contaminate (or thwart) their natural (innate) attachment process which I recognized because ordinary attachment also is generated within (I suspect) that same “open plane of possibility.”  (I doubt there is more than one of these planes on this planet!  That is very handy!  Lol)

++

In my mind having my menarche come to me in the middle of the 2nd strongest (and longest) earthquake recorded in history is just a part of the picture of what I know.  That experience was just another one from my Alaska years that seemed designed (i.e., the white butterflies, my vision, etc.) to not let me forget – or undervalue – what I know inside me as it also highlighted the power of connection with the earth itself.

There is another way for someone abused nearly beyond belief in their early years to achieve secure attachment with offspring other than through the recognized channels of “earned secure” attachment.  It can come directly through the powers of this “open plane of possibility” that Seigel describes in the same way that surviving that kind of abuse happens.

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Again in the chapter-article Siegel wrote:

“This is such a crucial point that I’ll repeat it: When it comes to how our children will be attached to us, having difficult experiences early in life is less important than whether we’ve found a way to make sense of how those experiences have affected us. Making sense is a source of strength and resilience. In my twenty- five years as a therapist, I’ve also come to believe that making sense is essential to our well- being and happiness.”

From my own experience I would say that it has taken me over 30 years to BEGIN to make sense out of what happened to me – and that making sense is not enough.  I have written before on this blog that the minimum jail sentence Mother would have well deserved would have been 15,000 years.  I have only figured out in this past year that it was Mother’s PSYCHOTIC mind that caused so much trouble. 

What does ANYONE really know or understand of such a psychosis and the harm it can create?  What sense of this could even the most accomplished “professional” make of Mother’s mind?

Nada.

A simple-minded suggestion that “making sense” is even possible for those of us at the bottom of the human attachment heap certainly does nothing to give credence to such a speaker.  Yet I also recognize that it takes a certain kind of humility forced upon us survivors that is not likely to be found among “the experts” that lets us know in many ways we are up against the impossible when we try to make any sense of what happened to us.

(I can accept that working toward healing our story, making it and ourselves “more coherent” is vital — but I am not convinced that “making sense” applies in my case where the chaotic mayhem of absolute psychotic mental illness created the whole mess.)

SENSE is a HUGE word – as it is given over to the family of meaning from which it derives.  Those of us in what I estimate to be the bottom 5-7% of infant-child abuse survivors have the sense in every cell of our body that let us #1 SURVIVE what happened to us and then #2 allows us to carry along with us the rest of our lives the HUGE sense of a story that does not belong to us as individuals but that was forced upon us.

It belongs to the SENSELESS (at present) culture and society that ever allowed what happened to us to happen at all.

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Meanwhile – back to the drawing board I go in search of new INFORMATION that can help me to make more sense out of my story.  Making sense is a PROCESS, not a destination – in my mind.  Especially in my case where my entire reality was intertwined with the senseless insanity of my abusive mother I have to look toward understanding what happened to HER mind to cause her to create the world she created for me — and then to my mind for what saved me.

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!  Click here to view or purchase: 

A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

++++

 

+EARNING SECURE ATTACHMENT BY HEALING OUR TRAUMA LIFE STORY?

alchemynow2 Comments

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Wednesday, February 26, 2014.  I once read an art history book that attributed a sentiment to Henri Matisse regarding the amount of time very nearly all people are willing to spend in the presence of a great work of art.  My paraphrase:  How sad it is that so few people are willing to spend even as much time looking at a great painting as it takes to peel and eat an orange.

This thought comes to mind as I continue to investigate the thinking of Dr. Daniel Siegel about attachment especially in regard to the new lingo that seems to be appearing about this essential characteristic of life.

We NEED new lingo about attachment.  We are passing the stage of our evolution that allowed us to leave scientific research-based thinking out of our relationships.  Yet the neuroscientific lingo is too foreign to most people to make sense out of.  In listening to Siegel talk on videos I detect that at least his efforts, and perhaps efforts of MANY expert attachment specialists the globe over are doing what I call OPERATIONALIZING attachment.

We are increasingly being given language to talk about the essential processes of how we are human!!  I am not going to begin to understand what this new language is and what it is describing if I only devote the “orange peeling and eating” span of time to its study.

So with my pledge to myself to learn as much as I can about what happened to me through early trauma as it matters most alive and well in my mental pocket – I continue forward in finding, contemplating and digesting what I can discover of Siegel’s mind as he shares it with our mind.

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This morning I am over on the PsychAlive – Psychology for Everyday Life website where I found an illuminating article by Dr. Siegel.                                                                                                             

This topic is of HIGHEST importance and significance to severe early trauma survivors:

Making Sense of Your Past by Daniel Siegel, M.D.

This link takes you to

Creating a Cohesive Life Story: An Excerpt from Dr. Daniel Siegel’s New Book Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.

(There is a list of other very important links on the sidebar of this page.)

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It is not hard for me to think as I listen to the wisdom of Siegel that those of us with severe early trauma history have FAR TOO MUCH INFORMATION within us to make sense of or to integrate.  INTEGRATE seems to be one of the new operationalizing lingo words on attachment that is of highest importance.  The fact that Siegel as perhaps THE most informed attachment expert on earth now says “You can reinterpret the entire field of attachment through this lens of integration and you make deep sense of the neural implications of attachment as well as the relational implications.”  (This quote can be found around 1:23 on the slider bar by clicking HERE.)

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I have said two related things repeatedly on this blog over the years: 

(1) Trauma remains unresolved because nobody has yet LEARNED THE LESSON contained in the trauma experience that would pave the way for such a trauma to never happen again.  The more horrendous the traumatic experience and the younger the age at which it was experience the more likely it will be that trauma overwhelms the individual because it contains TOO MUCH INFORMATION. 

We are a COLLECTIVE species.  Who helps us process, learn from and integrate the horrors of our traumas?  I did not cause the trauma that happened to me during the first 18 years of my life.  It had NOTHING whatsoever to do with me!  That trauma came from my parents’ history and inner workings and from within those outside our family who did absolutely NOTHING to recognize the trauma going on in our family.

(2)  I have also repeatedly said that as we heal from trauma we are healing our life story.  It is then correspondingly true that as we heal our life story – the narrative of our self in our life – we are also healing ourselves – and in a larger way, I believe, our entire family line (those alive, those yet to be born AND very possibly healing those living in the next world, as well) and our species.

As I stated on the blurb about this blog the day I started it years ago, it is the HEALING of traumas NOW that will prevent them from being passed to the next generations.  Healing our self by healing our trauma story, healing our story as we heal our self – is at the center of this work.  But I DO NOT believe we ever do this work alone.

As Dr. Carl Jung pointed out, humans share a collective mind.  Siegel reiterates this fact in the latest attachment lingo.  None of us are in this lifetime on this planet alone.  Our stories are part of the largest story that can be told.  What does that MEAN?

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Here’s the first part of the chapter-article I mention above by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel:

“Why do we parent as we do? When researchers asked this question, they hypothesized— as many of us would— that it is the childhood experience of parents that predicts how they behave with their own children. This sounds plausible, but it turns out not to be quite right.

“When I first heard about what the researchers actually found, it changed my life and my understanding of the life of the mind. The best predictor of a child’s security of attachment is not what happened to his parents as children, but rather how his parents made sense of those childhood experiences. And it turns out that by simply asking certain kinds of autobiographical questions, we can discover how people have made sense of their past— how their minds have shaped their memories of the past to explain who they are in the present. The way we feel about the past, our understanding of why people behaved as they did, the impact of those events on our development into adulthood— these are all the stuff of our life stories. The answers people give to these fundamental questions also reveal how this internal narrative— the story they tell themselves— may be limiting them in the present and may also be causing them to pass down to their children the same painful legacy that marred their own early days. If, for example, your parent had a rough childhood and was unable to make sense of what happened, he or she would be likely to pass on that harshness to you— and you, in turn, would be at risk for passing it along to your children. Yet parents who had a tough time in childhood but did make sense of those experiences were found to have children who were securely attached to them. They had stopped handing down the family legacy of nonsecure attachment.

“I was excited by these ideas, but I also had questions: What does “making sense” really mean? How can we accomplish it, and how does it occur in the brain?”  — CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

+++++++++++++++++

As I continue to read this article I soon reach a point where things start to feel very intense inside of me.  I HEAT UP!  I know something deep inside of me that I doubt ANYONE else knows about what Siegel said here:

“They could give a coherent account of their past and how they came to be who they are as adults. In contrast, people who had challenging childhood experiences often had a life narrative that was incoherent in the various ways I’ll describe in the following pages. The exceptions were people like Rebecca. Based on the facts of their early childhood, they would be expected to have an avoidant, ambivalent, or disorganized attachment as children and an incoherent life narrative as adults. But if they had a relationship with a person who was genuinely attuned to them— a relative, a neighbor, a teacher, a counselor— something about that connection helped them build an inner experience of wholeness or gave them the space to reflect on their lives in ways that helped them make sense of their journey. They had what the researchers called an “earned secure” life narrative. Such a secure narrative has a certain profile; we can describe its features. Even more important, like Rebecca we can change our lives by developing a “coherent” narrative even if we did not start out with one.”

(I very much wish Siegel had place a live link at the point where he says there is “a certain profile” of “earned secure” attachment.  But that would make it too easy to untangle and therefore realize what Siegel KNOWS (and describes in the current, advancing operationalizing vernacular of the field of attachment studies) about this line of thinking so I could compare it to what I know about what I call “borrowed secure” attachment.  I have some work to do to dig out the material I need for the workings of my own mind, so more about this later….)

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I had NOBODY to help me.  Coupled with the truly PSYCHOTIC mental obsessions that spawned Mother’s terrible abuse of me was the part of her psychosis that forced her to keep me in isolation and solitary confinement at all times when she could throughout all 18 years of my childhood from birth.

I did not EVER exist as a person in Mother’s psychotic mind and she did everything in her impressive power to make sure I existed in nobody else’s mind as my own person, either.  I was to be EVERYONE’S BAD CHILD – everyone’s.  That is how her severe mental illness with her psychosis operated.  (Long story begins here.)

I am, I know, a version of a cross between a closet and a wild child.  My story is complex (I did go to school – Mother interfered with my relationships there.  I did have siblings.  She interfered with those relationships.  She moved us to Alaska from Los Angeles when I was five to separate me from Grandmother, etc.)

I had NO ONE on my side, but I did have the Alaskan wilderness.  I do not believe I fit the profile of “earned secure” attachment.  I believe I operated as I raised my three children from a “profile” of BORROWED SECURE attachment.  I have written elsewhere on the blog about this – but mention it here because as I pursue a broader understanding of Siegel’s thoughts and concepts I am looking for his statements regarding the shared MIND in relationship between humans and “the planet.”

I may know more about that connection than anyone could imagine.  But I am looking for the attachment lingo that might let me communicate with others about what I know.

++++++++++++++++++

I see that I have reached a point in my thinking where I am running into the “having too much information” segment of my trauma-based personal information.  I am tempted to begin the writing of another blog post that would run concurrently to this one rather than sequentially so I will now END this post and begin another entirely separate post that will link to this one.

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I posted this note in 2006 from Siegel’s The Developing Mind book:

+SIEGEL – EARNED SECURE ATTACHMENT

++++

Here is our first book out in ebook format.  A very kind professional graphic artist is going to revise our cover pro bono (we are still waiting to hear that he has accomplished this job) – what a gift and thank you Ben!o Click here to view or purchase: 

A STORY WITHOUT WORDS

It lists for $2.99 and can be read free for Amazon Prime customers.  Reviews for the book on the Amazon.com site are WELCOME and appreciated!

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment

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