Becoming Human Again

In Integrating the New Science of Love and a Spirituality of Peace, the contributors explore the intersection between the science of attachment theory and the vision of Anabaptism. What emerges is a deeper sense of what it means to be human and a hope for a different tomorow, inspired by the kingdom of God as preached by Jesus of Nazareth.

"This book is about what it means to be human, and it may not be what you expect. Contemporary neuroscience is rapidly undermining some of our dearly held assumptions about who we are and how we function. This is not another idle academic conversation. These assumptions have been the basis of our educational and legal institutions, and changing them could have far-reaching consequences for how we structure our lives . . .

How we see ourselves is an urgent moral issue. The implications of attachment theory are personal, social, and global, and that is why this book is so important."

Howard Zehr, from the Foreword

Christian E. Early is Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is coeditor with Ted Grimsrud of A Pacifist Way of Knowing (Cascade Books, 2010).

Annmarie L. Early is Professor of Counseling at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Attachment Theory—Understanding the Essential Bond

                    

In 1958, psychologist John Bowlby pioneered "attachment theory," the idea that the early bond between parent and child is critical to a child's emotional development. Since then, scientists have discovered that insecure attachment during formative years can significantly stress both the developing brain and body, resulting in long-term psychological and physical ailments. For example, low levels of attachment security have been linked to diminished levels of cortisol, a steroidal hormone released in response to stress that is critical in reducing inflammation in the body

Anti-Slavery Campaign Interview Series. Annmarie Early (Part 3)

ATTACHMENT THEORY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE

Annmarie Early received her Master of Science and Ph.D. in Marital and Family Therapy and Master of Arts in Christian Leadership from Fuller Graduate School/Seminary. She is licensed as a Marriage and Family therapist in California and Virginia and is in private practice in Harrisonburg offering individual and couple counseling. Her academic scholarship and clinical practice are informed by affective neuroscience and attachment theory, as well as the importance of embodied, experiential practices in creating change. Annmarie has specialized training in depth psychologies and works with dreams, myth and story in her personal and professional life as a way of listening deeply to the song of the soul. Annmarie is a certified Emotion Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) Trainer and Supervisor and continues to offer training, enrichment and supervision from this perspective. Prior to accepting a faculty position at EMU, Annmarie served as Assistant Adjunct professor in the Department of Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Graduate School.

Part 1: Attachment Theory and the Emotional "Bottom-Up" Revolution

Part 2: Attachment Theory and Neuroscience

Part 3: Attachment Theory and Religious Life

Yago: Annmarie, I would like to end this interview with a section related to Attachment theory and the life and service of religious people. One of the pillars of this blog is the belief that deep within we are all interconnected, and this applies to everything, the good and the bad. This means that the energies of enslavement that keeps perpetuating injustices has no limits and can penetrate any institution, even ecclesiastical. Religious people are human first of all. But we have the constant danger to forget our humanity and to be under the risk of committing grave mistakes exercising our ministry. How attachment theory informs us about our attachment relationship to God? How the working models apply to the way we experience God?

Annmarie: How we see God is influenced by our early childhood relationships and context (Kirkpatrick, Mikulancer and Shaver). We are shaped in all ways by our early relational experiences- including our relationship to the church and to god- either positively or negatively.  There is research (see above) on how different attachment styles choose various kinds of churches based on the experiences they do or don’t provide.  It is a very interesting area of research. 

The bottom line is that the more securely attached we are in the world, the more positive our view of God (Kirkpatrick).  Working on our human relationships helps with our spiritual sense in the world.  Another important finding is that God can function as an attachment figure.  That was true in my own personal story.  One’s relationship to a living god- or I would say a spirituality that is alive and embodied- has the safe haven and secure base qualities that build security.

Yago: In our religious formation we take very seriously the issue of self-awareness. We often used methods like the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs. What is the connection between knowing our attachment style and knowing our personality type?

Annmarie: I personally find personality measures very helpful (especially the 16 PF)- the more we self-reflect in helpful, facilitative ways, the greater our ability to own our capacities and limitations. These measures are different than assessing attachment styles however. They can be used in combination, but attachment is addressing an underlying pattern or style of relating that is based on this universal, wired in need for connection.  Maybe I could say it this way, when I go out to speak about attachment theory, people- no matter the context- find it applicable and personally relevant to their lived experience.  When I lecture or use a personality assessment that is based on a theory- it can be a vehicle for insight, but often draws scepticism or lack of fit for at least some who are attempting to apply it.

Yago: Talking about the dangers of roles of a pastor/priest you say that “for as greatest you are, your shadow is cast long behind you”. Specifically for those that we idealize and we put in particular roles, we have to be very mindful and careful. It is a tremendous set-up if we are not careful. Could you expand on this?

Annmarie: We choose our vocation for many different reasons but our unmet attachment needs are certainly one of the often unconscious reasons.  For those in positions of responsibility and leadership, the power of idealization is great and we can believe the projections by others, forgetting the shadow aspects- especially of power- that drive us.  The weight of leadership is a mantle that carries this burden with it.  I would like to see greater emphasis on self-reflective inner work during formational training and ongoing support that addresses the challenges of leadership.  Moreover, we need to cast off institutional patterns of idealization such as the religious leader being perfect or infallible.  It is a set up for the leader and for the congregant.  And, where the power is great, the support for the one in leadership needs to be strong, valuing honesty and engagement. Otherwise, our leaders are being set up for eventual failure and burn out. 

Yago: If we are not healed we can play with God and meaning. Things can become very deceptive. We can exercise powerful violence to people, towards meaning and reality as a whole. What can you elucidate on this?

Carl Jung

Annmarie: Our power to help is matched by our power to harm.  Carl Jung spoke eloquently about the balance of the opposites and that is relevant here.  We must see that we all have the capacity for the greatest atrocities given circumstances that evoke.  When I recognize in me the evil I see in others, I refrain from projecting my “badness” outward and rather own my own inner darkness and companion others in facing theirs.

Yago: The pastor/priest not always can meet the needs of the parishioners. Could you talk about the demanding role of a pastor/priest in the middle of endless expectations of the people? What happen then? What are the dangers?

Annmarie: What comes to me as I reflect on this is to say again that “boundaries provide safety”- a safety for others and for self, both external and within.  Again, if our drive to help is based on unmet attachment needs, we will feel driven to serve beyond our capacity.  Our leaders need to find the wise, implicit voice of caring that knows that love is sometimes in giving and at other times in restraint. 

Also, knowing what really addresses the “Will you be there for me when I really need you?” attachment question is critical.  If you don’t know what meets the ‘true’ need inside, it creates what I call restitutive giving- a kind of patching the wound that doesn’t truly satisfy and actually creates more need that then needs to be filled.  If we can go to the heart of the matter and meet the real need, we don’t have to expend excess energy.

Yago: A pastor/priest lacking “secure base” can fall in all kind of addictions like alcoholism, workaholism, pornography on the internet… What kind of mechanism a Pastor has when he lacks “secure base”? What is the connection between lack of secure base and addiction?

Annmarie: Allan Schore is the one who talks about attachment as emotion regulation.  If we don’t have secure internal working models and/or security in our current relationships, we fill that hole with something that helps us to regulate.  All of the things you mention above are emotion regulators.

I believe that the strong interest in mindfulness and meditation is addressing this deficit.  There are many practices that soothe anxiety or activate a shut down place. I like Richard Davidson’s- the originator of Affective Neuroscience- new book about The Emotional Life of the Brain.  It is a fun read about how our deficits and strengths impact us and he discusses his research when he put the Dalai Lama’s monks in the fMRI and how their brains are different!  We need to do this in related ways as well.

Yago: During the last years tremendous happenings related to child sexual abuse by clergy have been reported. What is the connection between attachment theory and our sexual lives. How our sexuality can be deformed to the extreme of acting in a pure mechanistic way towards another person?

Annmarie: Our sexuality is just another aspect of our embodied selves. Again, there is a lot of research (Mikulancer and Shaver) on adult attachment and the different patterns of engagement based on security and insecurity.  We are sexual, embodied beings and sexuality is one of our inner regulators. My trainer, Dr. Sue Johnson talks a lot about healthy sexuality in her popular book, “Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations fora Lifetime of Love.”  My area of clinical expertise is in couples therapy- Emotion Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) and empirically validated, evidence based treatment for treatment of couple distress. Sexuality that is not functional in some way is a symptom of insecure attachment. In couples therapy, we work with the distress cycle of pursue/criticize, defend/withdraw and help couples overcome the sense of dangerousness that activates distress and create bonding experiences. We create encounter experiences in session that help people to articulate their emotional felt senses in a vulnerable, engaged way directly in moment, to their partner.  Our wired in attachment longings do the rest and create repair where once distress was active. 

We need to create more spaces that allow people to be honest and engaged and speak their fears and longings. 

Yago: What do you mean by activating the “shame system”?

Annmarie: When we feel shame we hide or avoid. The spaces that I mention above override the hiding response and provide a space of honest engagement and truth telling. I think the original pattern for AA gives us the recipe- you can find a group almost anywhere in the world, you only have to give your first name, you speak truthfully what has you trapped and your inability to overcome it on your own, you will be accepted no matter what, given someone to walk with you no matter what.  Whether they realized it or not, it is the perfect attachment script- truly being there when needed.

Yago: Carl Jung would say that we have a male and female inside of us. The key to living whole, your true purpose for being here is to deal with your shadow, the part of yourself that you don’t like and that you have to integrate. The other gender is your teacher and your guide. What are the consequences to the call to celibacy…. Where are the ways that we cut off our connectedness, to the opposite gender, to the earth?

Annmarie: Oh, I’m not sure I am qualified to address this.  There are so many issues involved in the call to celibacy.  What I can say is that it is difficult in our current cultural context to find ways to engage meaningfully if one is not partnered in some way. Our social lives are organized based on the nuclear family and that has enormous consequences for society.  Rodney Clapp wrote a book in the 90’s – Families at the Crossroads- that speaks to the problems of the nuclear family arrangement and our need to broaden our social networks. We need more than our immediate family to be stable and we need to better incorporate those on the fringes- the widow and orphan- not just for their sake but for ours. I believe that people can live deeply meaningful lives while celibate and even work with the other gendered aspect of the self.  What is not tenable is to do it alone outside of a safe haven and secure base social network. 

Yago: What attachment theory can tell us towards a celibate life? How a celibate person can deal with the human need of bonding and belonging?

Annmarie: We need to be meaningfully connected- that is just the way we are wired. Jim Coan’s research (Why we hold hands) discusses that our baseline is social not individual.  This has enormous consequences for those who live alone or live in situations where their basic attachment needs are not being met.  We all need to know that we have someone who is safe and secure that will be there when we need them.  Apart from that, there are all kinds of creative ways to structure our social communities.  I’d like to see greater creativity in reworking some of the current structures that shape us.  I wonder what a true village would look like if birthed among us. 

Yago: Richard Rohr in his last book "Immortal Diamond" says that the emergence of our True Self is actually the big disclosure of the secret ("God's secret, in which all the jewels of wisdom and knowledge are hidden" - Colossians 2:3). He says that, "Such risky self-disclosure is what I mean by intimacy, and intimacy is the way that love is transmitted." Now, how a celibate person can develop an intimate relationship with a person of the opposite sex when still exercising his/her role as a pastor/priest?

Annmarie: Carefully, I imagine. Again, if our structures facilitated this better it wouldn’t be such a challenge.  I would be delighted to see some creative thinking about how to enrich our daily lives, living less isolated and disconnected. Maybe the depression and negative regulatory behaviours would radically decrease if we had more natural ways to be in relationship to others within the pattern of our daily life.  Rich living requires structures that facilitate natural contact.

Yago: You say that it is very important to know our attachment style. This will help us in any kind of relationship in our families, schools, places of work and churches. What is the connection between a conflict and attachment injuries?

Sue Johnson

Annmarie: I believe that all conflict is birthed out of attachment injuries- moments in time that turn a situation from safe to dangerous or mark a situation that has been dangerous as dangerous (Sue Johnson).  Most likely, these injuries happened in a moment of time that if not looked for will be missed.  The consequence is that we misidentify the precipitating incident and consequently miss the way to the heart of the matter.  Conflict then builds upon conflict and the implicit memory of the injury can’t be healed.  Dr. Johnson has done research on how to heal an attachment injury- what needs to be present for the injury to be repaired- in dyads.  I think that this protocol can be applied to other conflict situations which is what we tried to point toward in our article on “The neuroscience of emotion.”

Yago: Finally, you argue that the way we live, we are no longer a village people, to live in nuclear families is unhealthy, it is not sustainable. So it is at all levels that we need to think how we do. Why not to be a pastor/priest in a community that is more village like must be a much healthier existence. Life used to be much more interconnected than it is now. This applies to our religious communities. How do you envision a “religious village community”?

Annmarie: I pointed toward this vision in my response above, and I feel very strongly that this is where we need to move for us to be both healthier and create contexts of peace.  In order to embody most richly and deeply what it means to be human, our contexts have to better facilitate connected living. This vision requires that we give up something- most significantly our autonomy. I know that I feel challenged by this and somewhat resistant. But, even people at the city planning level are addressing these issues because we know something has to change. I believe, however, that it needs to be birthed from the grassroots. We/ I need to capture the vision for what it means to live well in this time and place.  I need to struggle with my own need for autonomy and imagine into a more connected way of living.  We need to understand the power of the land to be our teacher and the importance of staying connected for our well-being and survival. Encounter transforms. Embodied living transforms. Being there when needed transforms. Even for me, my resistant grip is softened when I see the potentials for natural engagement that facilitate honest encounter. It is based on the rhythm of rupture and repair not the untenable utopian vision of perfection.

It honors the natural wired in attachment needs that are universal in us all and harnesses our most basic capacities.  Conflict is not something to be avoided in this space, but an expected result of real living and something to be engaged.  A space where perfection is rejected and the messiness of dirt and earth, conflict and bonding, is weaved in to the fabric of the ordinary. It is in that space, that new transformative potentials are birthed and a new way of being is created.

Yago: Annmarie, thanks a lot for your wonderful contribution to this blog. We have explored liminal spaces in conflict transformation and religious life.

Annmarie: Thanks to you, Yago!

Link to Part 1: Attachment Theory and the Emotional "Bottom-Up" Revolution >>

Anti-Slavery Campaign Interview Series. Annmarie Early (Part 2)

ATTACHMENT THEORY AND NEUROSCIENCE

Annmarie Early received her Master of Science and Ph.D. in Marital and Family Therapy and Master of Arts in Christian Leadership from Fuller Graduate School/Seminary. She is licensed as a Marriage and Family therapist in California and Virginia and is in private practice in Harrisonburg offering individual and couple counseling. Her academic scholarship and clinical practice are informed by affective neuroscience and attachment theory, as well as the importance of embodied, experiential practices in creating change. Annmarie has specialized training in depth psychologies and works with dreams, myth and story in her personal and professional life as a way of listening deeply to the song of the soul. Annmarie is a certified Emotion Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) Trainer and Supervisor and continues to offer training, enrichment and supervision from this perspective. Prior to accepting a faculty position at EMU, Annmarie served as Assistant Adjunct professor in the Department of Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Graduate School.

Part 1: Attachment Theory and the Emotional "Bottom-Up" Revolution

Part 2: Attachment Theory and Neuroscience

Part 3: Attachment Theory and Religious Life

Yago: Annmarie, let us move now more to the field of neuroscience. When we enter into the realm of neurobiology we are exposed to a very complex world. Nevertheless, neuroscience grants us amazing insights towards understanding in a deeper and holistic way the complexity of slavery and conflict as a whole. Neuroscience is helping us to understand how we are wired as mammals; also we are being exposed in unbelievable ways to our deep interconnectedness. Through neuroscience “Attachment theory” is becoming the meta-theory that we are looking through. Why?

Daniel Hughes

Annmarie: Attachment theory has great explanatory value.  In a recent conversation I had with Dan Hughes, an internationally recognized expert on Attachment Based Family Therapy, he reported that there are now over 18,000 studies on attachment theory.  The more we find out about attachment, the greater the support.  In many ways it is not longer a theory.  We now need to apply these basic principles to our work in various contexts which is why the field of conflict studies is ripe to apply the research

Yago: How does a healthy brain function? Could you share with us briefly how the brain behaves in traumatic situations? How does this affect a person in their normal life? What are the risks involved in a person’s behaviour if his/her brain does not come to regular and healthy state?

Annmarie: I’m not sure I am qualified to speak directly to these questions as neuroscience is not my expertise.  But, researchers such as Stephen Porges and Jaak Panksepp discuss the power of trauma to disrupt normal brain functioning.  Porges describes the “window of tolerance” which utilizes social engagement for regulatory purposes being significant in the overall regulation process.  Overarousal leads to flooding and numbing and dissociation shuts down the circuit.  For those who are interested in reading more, they can look to Dan Siegel (The Developing Mind), Antonio Damasio (The Feeling of What Happens), Stephen Porges (Polyvagal Theory), Jaak Panksepp (Affective Neuroscience), Iian Mc Gilcrist (The Master and his Emissary).

Yago: Perpetrators, shut down of empathy, after a crime there is no remorse because that system has shut down. You say that the fear response in the brain has to go down and your sense of safety has to go up. If we are in a state of “fight-flight and freeze” you are not open and receptive to making secure connections. How does it function in the brain of a perpetrator?

Annmarie: Oh, I couldn’t begin to outline what is actually happening in the brain of someone who perpetrates violence.  I might look to the work of Allan Schore or Dan Siegel for information about what might actually be going on.

Yago: The big challenge is how do we create change so that we break the cycle of violence. Relationships are crucial to brain development and neural functioning throughout the life cycle. Siegel would say that “the brain becomes literally constructed by interactions with others. Our neural machinery is, by evolution, designed to be altered by relationship experiences.” You say that you don’t believe that there is a point of no return. Change is always is possible. What is the role of neuroplasticity?

Annmarie: Well, change is often not likely, but now knowing that the brain can change itself is wonderful news (see Norman Doidge).  We are just at the beginning of understanding the implications- both good and bad- for neuroplasticity.  And Siegel states that neurons that fire together wire together.  Therefore that which is connected due to circumstance become intertwined.  Our experiences shape us and the more that we understand that process of change, the more effective our interventions.  Previously, it was as if we were casting our best ideas and intentions toward change.  Now, hopefully, we can use our understandings from neuroscience to create greater precision and evoke more effective and longer lasting change. 

Yago: You argue that it is not always about getting things right that makes the difference. It is about going back and repairing your mistakes when really healing happens. The flow of rupture and repair is the key. Could you elaborate on this?

Annmarie: I mentioned earlier the work of Ed Tronick and the still face experiment. He works with caregivers and infants enacting the instantaneous distress felt by a young child when the mother is not responsive and attuned to the signals of the child. Tronick states that it isn’t the on target attunements but rather the rupture and repair attempts that build attachment security.  This is hopeful news.  If I am willing to go back and repair misattunements the relational bond can be strengthened far beyond what was possible in my getting it right in the first place. The challenge is to own the “getting it wrong” part- staying open and non-defensive- and engaging in the process of repair. It is much easier to repair with those with whom we have a strong bond.  It is much more difficult to extend the hand of repair to those we call enemies. We have to find a way to overcome the danger sense of the other and extend a hand of peace. We also have to more mindfully create spaces- contexts- that facilitate encounter and repair. The surroundings are important in providing a holding space for healing.

Yago: Daniel Siegel in his book Mindsight insists on the importance of “making sense of the past to free the present.” I believe that this is crucial in overcoming the inherited collective trauma our societies still carry from the time of slavery. We have to know and to process the pain done in history. Here we are talking of the “affect narratives” at the collective level. This digging into the emotional collective unconscious will help in the process of reconciliation and healing; indeed healing the historical harms. In the context of the States this applies specially to the time of slavery to Afro-Americans and also to the unbelievable injustices committed to the Indigenous peoples (First Nations). What can you comment on this?

Annmarie: Our memories are far more than about events and circumstances. Whole peoples hold bodied, story memories that are passed down for generations. These wounds work at the implicit level and are often out of our conscious awareness.  We read our context for cues and it is from the place of relational knowing that we learn our surroundings. This is the message of slavery or any kind of racism or discrimination I’d imagine.  It calls each one of us to examine- not just in thought, but in bodied knowing- what biases and judgments we make against those that we call “others”.

Yago: Recently you published an article with Dr. David Glanzer on the American Journal of Psychotherapy. It is about the role of edge-sensing in experiential psychotherapy. You argue that “encounter at the edge, what we call edge sensing, is dwelling in the meeting point between what is known explicitly and what is know in a bodied way.” This is already of extreme difficulty at the interpersonal level in a psychotherapist-client set-up. As we are called to shift from the micro to the macro, how can we extrapolate this in mediation processes in conflict situations?

Annmarie: Maybe one place to begin is to believe that the power of transformation lies in encounter- those magic ‘moments of meeting’ (Dan Stern-The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life) that hold the power of change within them. Edge-sensing is a paying attention to the implicit processes that bubble up and are filled with rich meaning both within and without.  They are the alive place where an implicit felt sense meets an explicit more language place of knowing. Edge sensing is the meeting place of contact that is alive with potentials for change and transformation. Edge sensing values the power of encounter to create transformation- both within- where implicit and explicit meet- and without as we make contact with the world.

As I imagine into relational contexts, I see greater attention being given to the implicit dynamics in the context and surroundings. I see contexts that provide a holding space that moves beyond scripts and programs to transformative moments of meeting. I see practitioners trained well in understanding the power of the implicit and working to identify these potentials in opportunities ripe for encounter. And, I see a valuing of the power of emotion as the vehicle- the driving motivation for change- harnessed.  It’s a risky business though. It demands authentic encounter on our part and a tolerance for ambiguity and messiness.  Rupture and repair- that’s the landscape of transformation.

Yago: To be in touch with the “felt sense” in our bodies is a process of bottom-up that presumes a real process of incarnation top-down from our intellect to our hearts and guts. How this can be applied to groups in conflict?

Annmarie: Too often we attempt to talk our way into change- we apply our best thinking strategies to complex situations. It isn’t that thinking isn’t useful- it organizes and helps us make sense. But, according to Panksepp, our ancestral tools for survival were the automatic appraisals of the felt sensing space. It is only after this accurate appraisal system does its work that we then make sense of what has happened. It comes after not before. 

Many of us have been raised to trust our heads over our guts. I encourage that the more familiar we become with the inner landscape of the felt sense weaving it together with our often well developed thinking mind, the more effective our interventions will be. So, my hope would be that we start using this wise system more as we analyse what has worked and where systems are stuck.  I believe we will be surprised by what is really enacting the experiences of change. It might be something different than what we thought was happening!

Yago: How do we create contexts and safe spaces that hold complexity to deal meaningfully with situations of conflict?

Annmarie: I think this is where we have to do our own inner work. We have to have the ability to hold great complexity within ourselves and have that space accessible and available for others. We have to know our own patterns and history and at least be aware of our own patterns.  We have to have enough regulatory capacity within and ability to co-regulate with others to make safe spaces possible. We have to know and use the felt sensing space in decision making and trust the sometimes messy space of unknowing.  And, we have to value the role of rupture and repair.  Conflict is a messy business and pitfalls are inevitable. Opening ourselves up to these alive potentials is where change is birthed.

Yago: You say that how do we bridge to others is the biggest challenge we have ahead as practitioners. The biggest challenge is how do we apply our new awareness? Could you give us few insights on this regard?

Annmarie: When we engage the implicit and use felt sensing to guide us, we are in landscape that is foreign for many of us.  So, we have to begin to train our practitioners differently.  We need to forgo some of the head learning of the classroom for the experiential learning of the body.  We need to create spaces for alive practice not just analysis.  Here at EMU we talk often about being ‘reflective practitioners’. I believe that reflection is not a head practice but a bodied learning.  Our training models need to become more current and weave in the findings from neuroscience. We need to value a different kind of knowing- one that creates learning experiences from the bottom up.  We need to understand the underlying music of an engagement, not just the explicit parts and pieces that are quantifiable.  We need to train for a new way of seeing using both eyes and our gut- mind.  And, we must create encounter experiments where we explore this new terrain in alive ways.

Yago: Daniel Siegel talks about that the best intervention is prevention. How do our educational systems need to change so that we can be more holistic in the understanding of the wonder to be human?

Daniel Goleman

Annmarie: That is something that Dan Siegel is actively engaging.  I believe that we need to see education as more than head learning.  How would the world be different if we taught children to understand their internal landscape and explore the role of emotion in their interactions with others?  What would happen if we created pedagogy that honored emotional intelligence (Goleman) and helped kids regulate their emotions so that they didn’t use substances or other systems to help them do so?  What would happen if we made educational spaces ones that evoke delight and play where every child was seen and attuned to? The world would become a different kind of place.  There is much we could do!

Yago: Wolfgang Schonecke says that “the great challenge remains to identify our own subtle mechanisms to achieve domination over others.” Emotion can be used outside of our awareness in a coercive way, in a subconscious level. Our current unjust socio-economical system perpetuates itself through subtle mechanisms. We are called to unveil the music, the lyric underneath a system of oppression. Could you give your view on this?

Annmarie: The change really does begin with us. We all have our “others” and we bring our own history into every encounter.  It is a music that often plays deeply within our beings though often unrecognized and owned.  We can’t ask anyone to go where we ourselves have not yet gone and that is a challenging commitment we are faced with. 

Daniel Siegel

Yago: Daniel Siegel again invites us to be aware of our sense of identity and its implications to climate change (Link to the Conference) related issues. He says: “When you have a sense of self that’s separate, what do you do? If you know that are limited resources, you gather them for your family as much as you can. You don’t actually try to help the bigger picture (…) What I want to suggest to you is that if the self is defined as a singular noun the planet is cooked. But if we can be really creative collectively, and find a way to develop in this generation, absolutely the next generation, that the self, in fact, is a plural verb, so that we can allow kids to be raised to know that “I am more than me” and “I am connected to you but I am a member of we,” then we will have a different outcome, because then caring for the planet is not something you have to scare people into doing, it is not the fear tactic who apparently didn’t work in climate change issues, it is not about informing them only…” What can you comment on this?

Annmarie: I find Dan Siegel inspiring when he talks about this because it is about more than living a more fulfilling life.  He is talking about our very survival as a species on this planet.  We’ve bought the enlightenment project and it has almost sunk us.  The time has come to inspire our way back to more basic human roots and I believe science may be leading us there. We are learning that we are interconnected in the most intricate patterns- both our heritage of where we come from and the energy systems that surround us. Dan Siegel calls for moving from ‘me to we’ and I believe that our new understandings about who we are and how we are wired is a step closer to change of the inspiring kind.

Yago: Related to our identity you comment on D. Siegel vision that we live as we are autonomous unified “I” without the recognition of the multiplicity of who we are. That we have the capacity to be different people in different situations. What Siegel is pointing out is flexibility. The capacity to be flexible within the self. Could you expand on this?

Annmarie: Siegel has this grand vision and this wonderful way of speaking complex concepts in vernacular speech.  He is calling us to a new way of being human- one that honors the building blocks of attachment and recognizes the power of the mind-body to create our world- personal and collective.  I believe we have much to learn from nature and our living surroundings.  They can become a teacher for us as we attempt to correct our individualistic, consumptive frame to incorporate a more natural rhythm to our living.

In other people, we see ourselves with mirror neurons

Yago: You say that we are impacted by people in ways that we are just beginning to understand, and the effect and role of the mirror neurons is one of this clear liminal areas of new awareness of how we are connected. The mirror neuron system is now considered the root of empathy. Jeremy Rifkin comments about mirror neurons that “we are soft-wired to experience another’s plight as if we are experiencing it ourselves. We are actually soft-wired not for: aggression, violence, self-interest, utilitarianism; but for sociability, attachment, affection, companionship. And the first drive is the drive to belong. It’s an emphatic drive.” What can you elucidate about this? How does that shows a new horizon of hope in our fight for a just and emphatic Society?

Annmarie: Isn’t that wonderful news! I so enjoyed reading Rifkin’s book and his sweeping account of our development as a species.  My husband Dr. Christian Early is working on a book where he talks about Darwin’s transformation from survival of the species through competition to our basic caring nature.  We are born to bond and that drive—the one that keeps us alive—is the transformative power source we can hook into.

Yago: Another amazing area of what science is telling us about who we are and literally create ourselves is through the discovery of the role of neuropeptides. Candace Pert elaborates this in depth in her ground-breaking book “The Molecules of Emotion.” She argues that our thinking process determines who we are, even at the physical level. Deepak Chopra endorsing her book makes the following compelling statement; “the discovery of neuropeptides was so significant because it showed that the body is fluid enough to match the mind. 

Thanks to messenger molecules (neuropeptides), events that seem totally unconnected- such as a thought and a bodily reaction- are now seen to be consistent. The neuro-peptide isn’t a thought but it moves with thought, serving as a point of transformation (…) a transformation of non-matter into matter.” In this line of thought you comment that whether your relationships are healthy or not, they impact your physical body. And what we are beginning to understand is that localizes in particular places for particular reasons,… our interconnectedness has everything to do with our wellbeing, not only psychologically but in our actual body. Could you comment on that?

Annmarie: The research now demonstrates that our relationship quality impacts our health. Jim Coan’s research “Why We Hold Hands” shows that our baseline functioning is dependent on relationship- our connections to others.  Our very physiology- what we think, how we feel, and our relational matrices impact the very cells of our body.  We are vibrational beings and the energy of the vibration in which we live is who we are.

Link to Part 3: Attachment Theory and Religious Life >>