Assessing Attachment

Since first discovering Attachment Theory three weeks ago, I've become like a small boy with a hammer: everything looks like a nail!  I interpret everything around me in terms of my poorly-grasped understanding of Attachment Theory, from my current learning blocks to plot-lines on EastEnders, from my own childhood experiences, to success and failure in the Network Marketing Industry.

It's time to delve a little deeper.

If a secure base is important, and if insecurities of attachment can have bad effects on us as adults, then we need some handle on "how secure" or "how unsecure" we are.  Which suggests assessment.

Now, traditional assessment is going to be the "men (or women) in white coats with clipboards, peering at us", but, as I said elsewhere in this blog, that's not my style: my style is more co-operative and equal.

However, there's no point in re-inventing wheels, and I'm sure there's LOADS of good stuff in "traditional" AT assessment methods, so I'm going to set myself the task of reading about them, learning about them, and then forming them into a co-operative, "equal" form that we could use.  A form that doesn't need white coats, or clipboards or knowledge of statistics to use, or a university degree to understand.

Stage one is get a list of stuff for me to review.  So, unless you're as fascinated by this "deep stuff" as me, now's the time to turn off!

• Sonkin's introduction to Assessing AT (scroll down to find the assessment bit)
  
• SUNY Stony Brook: Measures for research on maternal sensitivity, secure base use, secure base support, and attachment representations.  Essays and comments on issues and difficulties in attachment assessment.
• Attachment and reflective function: Their role in self-organization, PETER FONAGY AND MARY TARGET (1997), Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London, Development and Psychopathology, 9 (1997), 679–700, Copyright (c) 1997 Cambridge University Press, Printed in the United States of America
• Shaver's Computer-adminstered "Attachment Style" self-assesment scale 
• Your Personality | Free online personality tests and quizes 
• Bartholemew's Research Lab
• Experiences in Close Relationships Questionnaire
  
• Overview of Adult Attachment and Research 
• Self-Report Measures of Adult Attachment
  
  

That's it for now ... I'm off to self-administer the Shaver Attachment Style quiz.  (Hmm.  Pre-occupied, eh!)

James

What's Helping Me Now

I have started using two things which I already think are helping my learning, and they are Pzizz and Resperate.

Pzizz has put me back in touch with my earlier experience of meditation, but in a new and (for me) more positive way.  Resperate reduces stress and lowers my blood pressure, and will, I think, help in a number of areas of my life.

To save having to write about these things in too many places, I've created a new website: www.rewire-my-brain.com.  Let me know what you think (and what you think needs adding).

Creating a Learning Community

Well, this thing is starting to come together, so I think it's time to talk about "research with" and "learning communities".

Traditionally, the word "research" conjures up pictures of people in white coats with clipboards (the researchers) peering at people doing something, probably through one-way mirrors (the subjects).  And they do it to find out "what is".

That's not my style.

I research to find out "what might be" (we call that Action Research).  And we do it together (we call that Co-Operative Inquiry).  My primary research subject is me; I expect yours will be you.  My primary research question is "how can I move forward in some area of my life, primarily in a way that works for me, maybe in a way that could work for you, too, and possibly in a way that could help a number of people".  In other words, the research is "For Me, For Us, For Them".

But if I'm the only person in my research project, then it gets a bit reflexive, a bit incestuous, so it's good to invite others.

I envisage a community of (more or less) intelligent adults, all of whom bring "wants and offers".

For instance, on my "wants" list, there are two learning blocks that currently bug me in my life.

The first concerns my eating habits (I have lost 100lbs this year, so I've clearly learned something, but food is perennially on my mind, and I know that as soon as I've let my guard down, the weight will all pile back, so there's clearly more to learn).

The other concerns my business.  Here, I'm not short of information, or knowledge, or motivation ... but I'm fascinated that my behaviour hasn't changed as much as I would like.  So, by my own definition, there's more learning, of some sort or other, so go.

On my offers list might be a lot of stuff about learning (in 20 years of studying adult learning, I've picked up quite a bit!)

There are a number of people I want to invite to join the group.  A friend and colleague is as overweight as me; we can support each other and research together in this field.  This friend is a master of business skills and business integrity, and could teach me a lot.  But this person is a total neophyte (and, I believe, somewhat resistant!) when it comes to using modern technology.  After 20 years in the IT industry, including running "Computing for the Terrified", I think I have something to offer here.

Another friend and colleague is similarly overweight, and worried about diabetes (which I have cured in myself).  So this person could also be part of this support group.  They know much more that I do about sailing, so maybe we could work together to develop my "Sailing for the Terrified"course that I want to run in the future.

A third, highly, intelligent person, a skilled coach and mentor, clearly has a block about writing clear English; something you'd never guess until reading something they've written, and they've helped me move forward through their coaching skills.

So, if any of this rings any bells for you, then I'd like to hear from you.  If there is some area of your life where you haven't achieved all that you want, and you feel even the faintest frisson of discomfort were I to ask "so what's stopping you?" then, by my definition, I suggest that there may be some sort of inhibitor to some aspect of your learning.

Quite how our learning community might operate, who would be a member, what we would do, where and when, and through what media, we might meet are open to discussion.

In the first instance, follow the blog, post responses, send me an email, give me a call, let's meet over coffee.

Learning in Florida

Discovered Pzizz (www.pzizz.com).  Very interesting.  Packing to return home now, and flying Sunday, and recovering from jet lag Monday (unless pzizz is even cleverer than I think).

So will report more, probably on Tuesday.

What are we Learning?

Well, I don't know what you will be learning ... and I'm interested to work with you to help you overcome your blocks, even if your subjects, and your blocks, aren't the same as mine.

But here's my initial thoughts about my own areas of inquiry.

I attended a one-day training, recently, with Theresa Lawrie-Ashton, of I Can Achieve.  All about setting goals, and setting out on the path to achieve them.  A tool that we used was the "Life Wheel".  It looks something like this.

Well, I found that quite useful, and I came up with a number of areas of my life where I feel I have work to do:

• Improving my business
• Learning to eat healthily
• Extending my knowledge and skills at sailing
• Improving my health
• Getting a better handle on money and finance
• etc

In each of these areas, I could mark my progress as "OK, but could do better".  For instance, I recently lost 100lbs in weight, and look and feel much better as a result.  However, I have another 30lbs to lose, and, right now, eating healthily has never been more difficult.

Six months ago, walking a mile was an achievement; since then I have taken up Nordic Walking, and have probably walked about 200 miles.  But it still isn't a natural, automatic part of my life.

Susan and I have achieved quite an advanced position in our company.  A company that is one of the UK's top-performing companies.  And we are on track for a further promotion within 6 months or so.  But, whilst we know what we need to do to achieve the success we want, we frequently don't do it.  So, in each of these areas, I am not fulfilling my own definition of "total learning".  So, by my own definition, I have a "learning block".

One of the most interesting areas, to me, is learning to eat healthily.  In almost any group of people, if I raise this subject, I will be inundated with "data", "information", and "advice".  I should eat this, or not eat that, or read this book, or that book.

I'm 61 years old.  I've been overweight since I was 21.  I am a reasonably intelligent person, and someone who reads a lot.  And I lost 100lbs between June and October 2009.

I was/am diabetic (blood sugar levels now normal), and used to have high blood pressure (now normal), and I hve a happy life that I want to continue.

So, I have the knowledge.  I have the skills.  I have the motivation, and I have the attitude.  But there's still something to learn.

Back in 1974 I was a moderately heavy smoker.  For the last 30+ years smoking rarely entered my consciousness.  Show me a cigarette, and I don't react to it in any way.  I don't crave it; I don't recoil from it.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with me.  In fact I rarely, if ever, think about my history as a smoker.

"Not smoking" is a totally-learned lesson for me.

While I was losing my 100lbs, food was (and still is) constantly on my mind.  People who know me well are so impressed by the obvious outward manifestation of my weight loss, that they are mystified when I say that most of the work is still to do.

Many of my work colleagues who haven't achieved the promotion status that I have achieved assume that I must know it all.  But I know that if my behaviour was different, I would have achieved the next promotion six months or more ago, rather than in 6 months time.

And if (when) I achieve this piece of learning, I know I can pass it on to our team.

These are some of the things that I want to learn.

What do you want to learn today?

What's this all about?

I had a "Road to Damascus" experience sitting in the loo of the flight VS027 from Gatwick to Orlando on 5th November 2009.  Maybe that should be a "Loo to Orlando" experience.

Many moons ago I was a mature, part-time student at the School of Management, University of Bath, working for a PhD.  Had I completed, the thesis would have been called "Overcoming Learning Blocks in Intelligent Adults".

I stopped for a variety of reasons: the most obvious reason at the time was that the research was supported, both time and money, by my employers at that time, IBM, who made me redundant, so the money stopped, and I needed the time to earn money.

However, one of my major problems (I now see) was that I had no theoretical base for the concept of a "Learning Block".  Such as, what types of block are there, where do they come from, does this relate to anything that anyone already knows about?  I needed a taxonomy of learning blocks, and one that mapped onto some pre-existing theory.

Well, listening to a Radio 4 programme last Wednesday provided me with the key: something called "Attachment Theory".  Basically it looks at what happens to babies depending on how their mums relate to the infants' immediate needs.  It's an interesting theory, backed up, recently, by work that actually uses brain scanning to see what happens to people's physical brains.  Other people have related Attachment Theory to adults.  Turns out that my wife, Susan, knows quite a bit about Attachment Theory, because she studied it for her psychotherapy qualification.  If you're interested, there's a very good overview, by Daniel Sonkin, of Attachment Theory here.  Chris Frayley (U of Illinois) has an excellent article (A Brief Overview of Adult Attachment Theory and Research).

Susan confirmed that Attachment Theory is used a lot to look at the way that clients and therapists relate to each other (Sonkin expands elegantly on that here, and in his blog, here)... but that, as far as she's aware, no-one has looked at it to describe people's experiences at school, and how that affects learning, either as a child, or as an adult.

So, at last, I have a theoretical basis for my concept of learning blocks, and also a practical base for how to deal with them.  Oh, and ... a necessary condition of PhD research is that it contributes something new to the body of learning; I was never convinced (and hence had difficulty convincing others) that what I had previously was anything more than, maybe, a new-ish way of looking at existing material.  I think that the application of Attachment Theory to adult learning would be that necessary "something new".

What is Learning? What is a Block?

For me, a learning block is any impediment to the total process of learning.  The total process of learning goes all the way from:

• "I never heard of this subject before",
• through the unconscious-incompetence, conscious-incompetence, conscious-competence, unconscious-competence, model, to
• "this thing is totally integrated into my existence and I couldn't think of not doing it with all of my being".

There are things I just don't understand ... Can't get the facts to stick in my brain. Tax would be a good example. Thank God for my wonderful book-keeper.

There are things I can't do. I understand the ideas, I've learned the facts, read the books, watched the videos ... But, for instance, I still can't juggle. I've just screened it from my life (but I still have a sneaking feeling that I'd like to be able to juggle).

There are things I understand, and apparently have the skills, but I find I don't do. For instance, there are things I could do which would make my business more successful. None of them are rocket science, but, somehow I just don't do them.

And, although I recently lost 100lbs, and although I know (I have the necessary information) what to eat, I know that I still haven't achieved the state of "easy and effortless healthy eater" (where's that doughnut?)
These are some of my many learning blocks.

Finding them, naming them, discovering their origin, clearing them out of my way. That is my current endeavour.

If this rings any bells with you, please add your comments, and keep reading.

Blogging as a method of collecting and sharing research notes

I am interested in overcoming my own blocks to learning, in a variety of areas, and doing that in community with others who would like to achieve the same, or a similar, outcome.

It suddenly occurred to me that blogging might be a good way to achieve that (another might be to set up a Ning community).

But right now I'm on vacation in my mother-in-law's house in Florida, with no internet access. I could drive 10 miles, and sit in Starbucks in Borders, but they don't open until 10, and it's only 8.55.

So I'm experimenting with the BlackBerry ...

If this works, I'll transfer some of my other notes.