Thoughts and Encouragements for Wounded Helpers Joined to a Healing God

2003-06-29

Part 1. Connectedness and the Attachment Concept

In the article on the goal of our life I talk about relationship and connectedness with God playing a vital role in our life.
In this article, I will illustrate our deep need for connection from the literature. Many diligent psychologists and other researchers studying human behaviour and the dynamics behind it have come to the conclusion that interconnectedness plays indeed a vital role "from the womb till the grave". Over the past few decades, many people from different angles have recognized that we are somehow 'made for relationship'.

Introduction: the 'disconnected' context we live in

A few thousand years under the influence of Greek thinking, and a few hundred years under Cartesian or 'enlightenment' humanist thinking, which both emphasized our own mind and our mental faculties have left their traces in our society. Relationships have been narrowed down to functions. Life should be controllable. The uncontrollable was denied. And so also God was denied. Unknowingly, also love, tenderness, the arts were banished or reduced to the functions they had in society. There has come a split between our head and our heart. In reaction, the 1960's - the time of the hippies - have seen a proliferation of 'soft' things: 'flower power', a fight (sic) for peace, et cetera. But, as our reference system had become reduced to materialism, love was reduced to having free sex; peace was reduced to the absence of the military: bombs, rifles and the sort.

A split between our head and our heart has arisen - and it has grown wider and wider. In this climate, psychology and psychotherapy developed a distant and intellectual stance and a medical/materialistic mechanical model of the person. The real person was not seen anymore, let alone truely listened to. Generally applicable intellectual models and classifications became more important than subjective first-hand experience.

In these days, many of us feel we are missing something. It's as if in this business of preserving life and health, life itself has evaporated. We see the consequences of chasing material wealth only: the environment suffers, we seem to be no longer able to maintain healthy relationships. Marriages suffer greatly - if not under divorce than under lack of commitment and intimacy. As a consequence, children grow up without the basic safety that I illustrated in the essay on family life and personality development. In reaction again, there arises a new awakening for the spiritual and for the unity or wholeness of the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual sides of our beings and of life itself. Many are drawn towards new age and eastern religions that emphasize or appeal to the emotions or to this wholeness. We simply do not know anymore how to connect - connect with our Creator God, connect with ourselves and connect with each other. This disconnectedness is not what we were created for. As a consequence, society becomes ill. Many people cannot handle basic life-preserving functions anymore. Fear and confusion rage in their hearts while at the outside they may still hold on to the 'we are in control' -stance.

What's at the heart of all this? Leanne Payne, a world-renowned speaker and minister in the area of pastoral care ministies, points to the broken connectedness as the main source of psychopathology. John Bowlby, the development expert, traces many issues in psychopathology back to a lack of adequate attachment in early childhood. Henri Nouwen, the Roman Catholic priest and writer who gave up his scholarly life for a life among the mentally handicapped, says this generation suffers from a lack of connectedness, and from a historical dislocatedness.

Some Christian writers on connectedness

One of the first authors through whom I became more aware of our disconnectedness here in the western world, was Anna A.A. Terruwe. Though not very well known internationally, the Dutch Roman Catholic psychologist Anna A.A. Terruwe has inspired me greatly.
She observed the condition of our impersonal 'modern' society giving rise to what she called: 'frustration neurosis'. This is a condition in which people feel detached, sometimes depressed, sometimes regressing to childish ways of attention seeking, etc.
She introduced a concept she called 'restrained love' (i.e. love, that does not force itself upon another in a way that the other cannot appreciate or receive). This kind of love helps us out of the impersonal condition of our society.
Several of her easy to read books comprise her gentle teachings on encouraging and empowering one another (I learned about this from Larry Crabb and Dan Allender as well). The way she combined psychological insights with her faith in God also was most inspiring to me.

Larry Crabb made a big turn in his life as a christian psychologist when he wrote his book on connecting. His concept of connecting includes empowering the good (that which is of or in line with God) in each other. He came to see it as a new and more effective way of counseling than many traditional psychotherapeutic approaches.

So, why don't we turn to a man who became famous for his life work on human attachment:

John Bowlby

When talking about attachment being studied in psychology, first of all, I should mention the developmental psychologist John Bowlby (1909-1990) and his his co-workers and later adherents. Bowlby was one of the first to study the interactions between babies and their primary caregivers - in particular their mothers. He discovered how many problems can be traced back to 'imperfections' in our first attachments - those with our parents and other significant caregivers in the very first years of life. Though this is not often seen this way, he was among those who layed the ground work for a relational view on identity and the self (which is much in line with the Biblical worldview but not with the most common 20-th century 'modernist' view). What Bowlby et al observed during many hours of sitting with these newborns and their mothers in healthy families, was that right from those very first moments, mother and child are engaging in a mutually very enriching and comforting two-way relationship. (This observable fact was in general denied by traditional psychology, which saw the infant-mother relationship as mainly a one-way thing, dominated by the mother feeding the child and the child utterly dependent and incapable of actively engaging in a two-way relationship, thereby also neglecting the child's powerful influence on the mother in this stage.)

What Bowlby et al further observed, was the behaviour of a baby or small child that feels safe and secure in the care and attentiveness of his or her mother or other significant caregiver (apologize me when I just write of 'mother' most of the time, meaning the most significant caregiver). From this secure base experience, such a baby or child will generally behave joyfull, social and easily exploring the world around. Bowlby named this behaviour secure base behaviour.

Should the child not feel the mother's care or attention, it experiences some form of anxiety (the most fundamental form of what has been known as separation anxiety). It then stops the secure base behaviours, and starts a type of behaviour directed at regaining the attention of the mother. For a baby, the only way may be to cry for her attention, later the child may also start seeking, or physically cling to the mother when she wants to leave the room. This behaviour was termed attachment behaviour, since it is directed at re-establishing the attachment as experienced before.

In case the mother insistantly fails to respond to this attention-seeking, the child may become thoroughly discouraged and even distract itself completely. It may then go to a passive avoidant behavioural style, with inhibited emotional expression (though other functions may be present seemingly uninhibited). Even when the mother returns, the child who is in this condition will not allow her to console - the child may even do as if the mother is not recognized, and reject her and her avances to re-establish the relationship.

All this is summarized in the following diagram:

Later, Bowlby's successors refined the theory and came up with a forth type: that of disoriented or undirected attachment. This can also be seen as a variant of the anxious ambivalent attachment.
In summary, we can distinguish four types of attachment style (including affect and behaviour):

1	secure attachment with associated secure base behaviour: the person feels safe in existing attachment or connectedness, is free to explore the world around him or her, is spontaneous, sociable; often the parents were secure themselves;
2	anxious-ambivalent attachment; the person seeks more than the existing (often: limited) attachment, but often is also afraid of it or even resisting it; affects are often under-regulated; often the parents were overly involved or unpredictable;
3	avoidant attachment (or: detachment); the person avoids all attachment, seemingly at ease without deep attachments, is often rather passive and/or indifferent in relationships from the early disappointing experience, often perceived by others as 'cold' and not in contact with affects (affects are under-regulated) to the point of dissociation; often the parents were rejecting or neglecting;

4/2a	disorganized or disoriented attachment; a more chaotic variant of 2; very alert to the affects of others; often the parents were very unpredictable in attitude and behaviour - with big extremes (e.g. gently caressing one minute, spanking too hard the next).

Of course, practical cases will almost never fall in one of these 'pure' categories.

More information can be found in Bowlby's most easy to read books: A Secure Base, or: The Making and Breaking of Affectional Bonds, (Dutch translation: Verbondenheid).
A good introductory treatment of the original work on Attachment Theory by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth can also be found in the paper by Inge Bretherton, Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth ( document in PDF-format that can be read with Adobe Reader™; the original article appeared in: R. Parke, P. Ornstein, J. Reiser, C. Zahn-Waxler (Eds.), A Century of develomental psychology, Ch.15, pp.431-471).

The 19th century 'Bowlby': Alfred Adler

Though John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth have become most famous for their work on the attachment concept, many have prepared the way before them - e.g. already in the end of the 19th century Alfred Adler introduced his concept of 'Gemeinschaftsgefühl' (feeling of community). He coupled this to notions like sociability and an ability to feel and show empathy with others. Those are things from the heart. He himself was socially engaged and - quite contrary to Sigmund Freud - devoted to help the poor. (Unlike Freud as well, he was less out to find fame for himself - possibly a reason why many people today still remember Freud's name, and not Adler's.) Personality development he saw as connected to the development of connectedness. The larger someone's ability to connect him- or herself with others, the more that person is able to learn from them and develop him- or herself. Many problems he saw as the result of inadequate connectedness to others. Idealisticly, he suggested, if people would really understand and experience connectedness, there would be no war, no prejudice or discrimination, etc. He also saw connectedness as a bridge to past and future. And he connected this to the contribution we provide to society - to be useful or useless (in this, he apparently was a 'modern' and highly 'functional' thinker).

His psychology has received the name Individualpsychologie. This German word has sometimes been misunderstood. It does not refer to the individual versus the connections and social structures he or she lives in, but to the fact that Adler saw everybody as a unique individual. One cannot treat a human being like a simple and cheap machine. You cannot treat him or her with general rules. You have to do justice to everyone's uniqueness.

In the relation with others, the concept of power plays a big role. We can feel powerless against the will of others, or because we are not able to do as we want to. Adler spoke in this context of 'inferiority feelings' - again a concept that is actually a not so good translation that started a life on its own. Over and against these 'inferiority feelings', or rather: feelings of powerlessness, we form an idealized picture of what we would want. Adler perceived that this ideal became less real to the measure we cannot deal with the reality of our daily life, as if we want to compensate practice with our ideals.

The causes of inadequate development of connectedness he sought in the first years - especially the first five. Children who are neglected, turned down or abused, have not experienced love and co-operation. They therefore do not know what it means to experience deep connectedness with others. As a result they feel isolated and become distrustful. When they encounter problems, they overestimate these and underestimate their own possibilities to do something about them. This way, anti-social tendencies slip into their personality, Adler said. They demand that others are there for them, without being available for others. Spoiled as well as neglected or abused children demand that others care for them. The former because they are used to nothing else, the latter as compensation.

Contact, understanding and encouragement are central in Adler's vision on counseling.

For a further introduction on Adler's vision, see Henry T. Stein & Martha E. Edwards, Classical Adlerian Theory and Practice, in: Paul Marcus & Alan Rosenberg (eds.), Psychoanalytic Versions of the Human Condition: Philosophies of Life and Their Impact on Practice, New York University Press, 1998; and the Stages of classical Adlerian Psychotherapy diagram in Providing the Missing Developmental Experience in Classical Adlerian Psychotherapy, by the same authors, on the site of the Alfred Adler Institute of San Francisco.

Note that Adler's theories are still the basis for 'encouragement training seminars' given in various countries.

Some significant quotes from the former article (emphasis mine):
"... The feeling of interconnectedness among people is essential not only for living together in society, but also for the development of each individual person. ..."
"If people have developed social interest at the affective level, they are likely to feel a deep belonging to the human race and, as a result, are able to empathize with their fellow humans. They can then feel very much at home on the earth -- accepting both the comforts as well as the discomforts of life. At the cognitive level, they can acknowledge the necessary interdependence with others, recognizing that the welfare of any one individual ultimately depends on the welfare of everyone. At the behavioral level, these thoughts and feelings can then be translated into actions aimed at self development as well as cooperative and helpful movements directed toward others. Thus, at its heart, the concept of feeling of community encompasses individuals' full development of their capacities, a process that is both personally fulfilling and results in people who have something w orthwhile to contribute to one another. At the same time, the concept denotes a recognition and acceptance of the interconnectedness of all people."
"... Remarkably, both pampered and neglected or abused children may have similar expectations as adults. The first group expects the familiar pampering to continue; the other demands pampering as compensation. Both may feel entitled to everything and obligated to nothing. ..."
"... Individuals can use safeguarding devices in attempts both to excuse themselves from failure and depreciate others. ..."
"... Three factors distinguish mild psychological disorders from severe disorders: the depth of the inferiority feelings, the lack of the feeling of community, and the height of the final goal. ..."
Former pain and trouble or trauma can be healed, for "... Adler emphasized that it was not just the objective facts or influences that had an impact on the child, but the interpretation the child gives to them. Children who are discriminated against ..., may find maintaining a positive sense of self difficult. But doing so is possible if someone provides sufficient contact, understanding, and encouragement. ..."

Other sources

Various other people have recognized the relational structure of our being.
One of the streams of thought where the relational is re-descovered is in feminism. At Wellesley College, Janet Surrey and Jean Baker Miller have suggested an alternative development psychology, under the heading self-in-relation theory. Kathryn Cohan - one of their adherants - says of it:

Perhaps the most important underlying assumption [of self in relation theory] is that psychological development is motivated not by desire for separation, but yearning for connection. This is in complete opposition to other models of human growth and development, was first thought to have special application for women, and is now being researched and shaped to accommodate and understand men.
...
Connection occurs in relationships where there is "mutual empathy". Mutual empathy is not empathy being shown back-and-forth, it is a "feeling with" between two people; two people joined with the quality of "mutuality". There is also, equally, the notion of "mutual empowerment". Borrowing from material presented later in the course I'd say that an aspect of mutual empowerment is about being "listened into 'voice'". "Voice" has played and continues to play an important role in women's developmental theory ... in this instance "voice" is a crucial element in "authenticity". Authenticity is the position of being genuine in our relationships, of revealing who we really are.
Jean Baker Miller posits that there are "five good things" about connection:

1. Zest: increased energy or vitality
2. Action: empowerment to act beyond the relational moment
3. Increased knowledge and clarity about one's own and other's feelings
4. Increased sense of worth (based upon another hearing and responding empathetically)
5. Desire for more connection.

...
Problems in relating can and will occur, and these are called "disconnections". A disconnection is or is produced by any relationship that is not mutually empowering or mutually empathic.
There are five bad things about disconnection:

1. Diminished energy
2. Disempowerment
3. Confusion
4. Diminished sense of self-worth
5. Isolation and avoidance of relationships

I am struck that this reads, to me, like the main characteristics of "depression".
Relationships in connection are motivated by the desire to participate with other people, versus the desire for gratification by other people. Not "getting", engaging and being engaged by.
Repeated serious disconnections result in confusion, terror, rage. As a direct result of the experience of disconnection, we learn to leave important parts of ourselves out of connection in order to try to keep the connection available to us. This is known as the "central relational paradox".
Also this decreases our authenticity; our availability to be fully present in relationship. Decreased authenticity appears to effect a change in the quality of connection we can experience, but is a necessary, learned (although probably unconscious) strategy. This is known as a "strategy for disconnection".
...
Assisting people in uncovering their strategies for disconnection in order to solve the central relational paradox and become more authentic in relationship with improved connection is the work of therapy in the relational model.

Another area where relationships and connection are rediscovered is that of postmodernism, in social constructionism and narrative therapy, and the people studying communication:

"discourse is not the possession of a single individual. Meaningful language is the product of social interdependence. It requires the coordinated actions of at least two persons, and until there is mutual agreement on the meaningful character of words, they fail to constitute language. If we follow this line of argument to its ineluctable conclusion, we find that it is not the mind of the single individual that provides whatever certitude we possess, but relationships of interdependency. If there were no interdependence - the joint creation of meaningful discourse - there would be no "objects" or "actions" or means of rendering them doubtful. We may rightfully replace Descartes's [sic; AL] dictum ['Cogito ergo sum'; AL] with communicamus ergo sum."

"I am conscious of myself and become myself only while revealing myself for another, through another, and with the help of another . . . every internal experience ends up on the boundary . . . The very being of man (both internal and external) is a profound communication. To be means to communicate . . . To be means to be for the other; and through him, for oneself. Man has no internal sovereign territory; he is all and always on the boundary . . ."

"Truth is not to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction."

And Jameson talks about 'classical modernism' [sic; isn't this term a contradictio in terminis?] as belonging to the past. And with it, individualism too, which, according to him, only had an ideological basis. And he continues to argue that the 'modern' individualistic view can in fact be seen as a kind of self-deceit (literally, he speaks of philosophical and cultural mystification), meant to quiet the longing for uniqueness and value. (F. Jameson, Postmodernism and Consumer Society, in: E. A. Caplin (Ed.) Postmodernism and its Discontents, Verso, London, 1988; pp.13-29; quoted in A. Lock: Draft outline for a course on identity and self.)

I'd like to add to that, that if we leave the Source of our value - our God, the Creator - we will allways search for other gods (idols) that will give us a (possibly fictitious) sense of security.
In the last section "Cartesianism surpassed" of one of his articles, Daniel D. Hutto concludes:

"If this is correct then the main implication of the 'narrative proposal' is that until we can interpret others as having a perspective on things there is no room for the idea of our having a perspective. The very notions of perspective, ownership, etc. and all that belongs to the concept of self must depend on ability to see ourselves as a person in a world of persons. My claim is therefore that there is good reason to think that our self-development is contingent on our ability to appreciate narrative and to imaginatively simulate the mental life of others."

He then concludes that our identity and mental health is closely tied to our connectedness (with God and others, I add) and our relationship skills.

Some of my conclusions

Do I endorse everything the people cited above have said and done? No, like every created human being, they were fallible and have made their mistakes, just like you and I. However, I refuse to dwell on the faults and see what I - and anybody involved in counseling - could learn from them.
And I learned a lot. From the writings as briefly introduced above, in Part 2. and from the material presented in my essays on our ultimate life goal and on family life and personality development, combined with my own experience, I have concluded a.o. the following:

	Bowlby's observations with regard to the innate attachment mechanisms, the influence of having a 'secure base', etc. I consider very valuable for pastoral counselors. From this and the narrative and social constructionist school of psychoanalists and practitioners, I learned to value and appreciate the extreme importance of connectedness in our life - both my own and my counselee's;
	There is a good mechanism of attachment-seeking build into us (we are all longing for that secure attachment figure that will be there when we need him), which we can bless to promote its healthy flourishing;
	As we are little, God has meant us to have loving parents to fulfill this role. As we grow up, He likes to be our ultimate Attachment Figure, though not at the exclusion of others. People who have good attachments to God and others recover much faster from trauma than those who do not have this security;
	In case this mechanism has been frustrated and avoidance has set in, that is not without cause; this too, can be a survival mechanism (strength) that can be praised and blessed, such that the heart of the peronality becomes stronger and can slowly begin to trust sufficiently again in order to seek proper attachment and connectedness (with God first);
	Fear and separation anxiety play an important role in disconnectedness; so, there is a great need for empathic affirmation (verbal and nonverbal) and safety and consistency;
	Sometimes this separation anxiety leads to rejection and behaviour that looks like hostility or enmity; we can 'counter' this by God's steadfast (consistent) love and affirmation, at an appropriate level - not forcing our love onto the other, but with humility offering it - cf. Anna Terruwe's concept of 'restrained love' (Dutch: 'weerhoudende liefde');
	Normally, parents should lead a child in building up connectedness skills, and model the safety experienced in the connection with God. In case people have missed this due to early abuse or neglect or the like, Jesus can work through the counselor and fill in or heal the missing links. In this, a christian counselor can also perform a great function in modelling and skills building. Being aware, that this is a preparatory or introductory task, and not the permanent or ultimate one (only God can be our ultimate attachment figure), can prevent unhealthy attachment patterns to develop between counselor and counselee as well as prevent burn-out in the counselor.

For further reading and websurfing

An extensive list of books and web-articles is given at the end of Part 2. That list includes basic materials on connectedness, attachment and relationship, as well as materials on getting connected and helping people find connectedness again.

home

or  back to the article index

More information or suggestions

For more information, or your reaction to the above, you can contact me via e-mail: andre.roosma@12accede.nl.

© André H. Roosma , Accede!, Zoetermeer/Soest NL, 2002-09-05 / 2020-01-02; all rights reserved.