A - Our experience engaging in philanthropy here in the New Mexico area has revealed a number of interesting patterns:

• There is a high personnel turnover rate within many organizations
   
• Different organizations will call or email the Foundation asking a similar type of question
   
• On occasion organizations will request funding for a program or project that is already being operated in the same area, serving a similar population
   
• Comments by organizations often suggest that there is a lack of knowledge about other organizations working on a similar problem or issue
   
• Multiple requests for funding will come from the same organization in a way that suggests that “one hand doesn't know what the other is doing”

After a considerable amount of deliberation among the board and staff, it was decided that web-based collaborative tools might help to mitigate or lessen some of these problem areas. For instance, if the program director at an organization that is administering a grant from our Foundation, is replaced, hopefully the new program director can be brought up to speed by visiting the Project Tracking module. The Project Tracking module records information about a project such as when it started, how long it should run for, what the purpose and goals are, who is in charge of handling what tasks, and any problem areas that may have cropped up. This is invaluable information for a new program director to have at her or his fingertips.

In their article entitled “Leading Boldly,” Ronald Heifetz and his colleagues tell us that technical problems “are well defined: their solutions are known and those with adequate expertise and organizational capacity can solve them.” In contrast, according to the authors, adaptive problems “are not so well defined, the answers are not known in advance, and many different stakeholders are involved, each with their own perspectives [with respect to the adaptive social problem at hand].” Because of the multicultural nature of New Mexico, our Foundation decided that an “adaptive” (as opposed to technical) approach to philanthropy would work best in this area. For a copy of the “Leading Boldly” article by Heifetz et al., click on the CONTACT button above and send us a request, or navigate to the following link:

Q - Can we receive a Level One “look see” grant, decide against using attachment theory, and still be considered for further funding?

A - Yes. There may be certain environments where a focus on attachment theory is not appropriate. If after administering a Level One grant your organization discovers that a focus on attachment theory is not appropriate for your particular environment, then that is an important discovery. As long as your organization explicitly states why a focus on attachment theory is not appropriate at the program (or even project level), then you are engaging in a form of attachment theory advocacy. Applying attachment theory to the world of philanthropy is a relatively new endeavor (at least in the US). Knowing the extent to which attachment theory can be applied in real world situations (especially at institutional or organizational levels) will benefit all organizations considering adopting an attachment theory perspective.

Q - We're confused. There appears to be more than one theory of attachment floating around out there. How do we know which one to use?

A - Although there are many “flavors” of attachment theory, there are two main schools of thought (as we see it)—a British school and an American school (not unlike American Object Relations Theory versus British Object Relations Theory. The traditional British school can trace its roots back to the work of John Bowlby and is psychoanalytically oriented. The American school can trace its roots back to B.F. Skinner and is influenced by cognitive behavioral theories. Bowlby went to great lengths (using ethology—the study of animal behavior—as a backdrop) to show that manifest behavior results from the development of and interaction between a number of behavioral systems. As Bowlby tells us in the first volume of his trilogy on attachment, “The behavior that results when two incompatible behavioral systems are active simultaneously is of a kind that suggests pathology” (p. 97). The British school of attachment theory is very concerned with how various behavioral systems develop, interact, and ultimately come to express themselves. By contrast, the American school of attachment theory is less concerned with identifying and understanding discrete behavioral systems. The American school tends to look at behavior as arising from one overall behavioral system. The philosophical decision to recognize only one gross behavioral system is in large part a fatalistic one. Writing in “Finding Solutions to Social Problems—Behavioral Strategies for Change,” behavioral analyst Bruce Thayer tells us that “the prospect for an effective welfare policy is considerably enhanced when the focus is on establishing appropriately reinforcing environments in which people work, live and love, rather than on amorphous efforts to alter feelings states directly, about which we know very little.” The British school of attachment is concerned with the individual and the individual's relationship to caregivers. The American school of attachment is concerned with the mass and the individual's relationship to policymakers. The Foundation takes a British approach to attachment theory (although we do recognize that the American approach dominates the US landscape).

Through our research efforts here at the Foundation (which are a part of the adaptive process look at above), we have found a passage that seems to eloquently speak to the issue of why there are in essence different approaches to attachment theory. In their book “The Way We Think,” Fauconnier and Turner (click on the RESOURCES link to the left) write that conceptual blending—blending perceptual information, either in part or in whole, from two or more input sources to create a new, and often novel whole—

imaginatively transforms our most fundamental human realities, the parts of our lives most deeply felt and most consequential. Meaning goes far beyond word play [the central domain of cognitive behavioral modalities and theories of social change]. Meaning matters, in ways that have relevance for the individual, the social group, and the decent of the species. Human sexual practices are perhaps the epitome of meaningful behavior [meaningful behavior that most concerned Bowlby] because they constitute a deeply felt intersection of mental, social, and biological life. It is remarkable how different they are from the sexual behaviors of the most closely related species [again, a topic that Bowlby looked at closely]. This realization has been central to the theories of the unconscious such as Freudian psychoanalysis [or, for that matter, attachment behavioral therapy], but curiously, it is almost taboo inside cognitive science. Even though modern cognitive science emphasizes the embodiment of the mind, philosophy in the flesh [emphasis added; note: this is the title of a book by Lakoff & Johnson], it deprives itself of sexuality as a source of data and as a laboratory of analysis [a mistake that Bowlby did not make]. Yet the role of meaning construction and imagination in the elaboration of human sexual practices is phenomenal and has direct, real-world social consequences. From the Odyssey to Ulysses, with Othello in between and Lolita after [note: all have a male bias mind you], the world's literatures explore the febrile and exquisite sophistications of [predominantly male] mental sexual fantasies and their grave consequences in reality. This fundamental theme in [male] literature—the connection between the mental apprehension of sex and the historical patterns of war, rape [two predominantly male domains], suicide, alliances—merely reflects our everyday [male dominated] reality. These practices, which intertwine psychology, biology, and social life—through which we, as individuals and as cultures, define ourselves [mostly men]—are unique to our species [and possibly to the male gender]. We believe this pervasive aspect of [male] human life has the richness and complexity it does because of the imaginative processes of [conceptual] blending. (p. 28)

Hopefully the above passage will allow the reader to begin the process of sensing that psychological and social theories of change tend to fall along a continuum defined in large part by the domain of sexual behavior. As Fauconnier and Turner point out, many forms of cognitive science tend to shun any discussion of sexual behavior or to see it as a “deeply felt intersection of mental, social, and biological life.” Freud, and consequently psychoanalysis, did look at sexual behavior, but in a way that tended to place sexual behavior into the undifferentiated, amorphous blob of the id. Differentiation came about then as the amorphous blob was transformed, across human development, into socially acceptable forms of love, work, and play. Psychopathology resulted when a particular slice of the blob was not fully transformed, or, perhaps, transformed along socially unacceptable pathways. John Bowlby came along and, in effect, said, “Hey, I've studied animal behavior in great depth, and sexual behavior is not an amorphous blob. In fact it appears to be comprised of attachment, caregiving, and sexual behavioral systems.” Bowlby in essence came along and suggested that attachment behavior—behavior that across human development intertwines attachment, caregiving, and sexuality—creates an inner model that then is used as a guide to direct the confluence of psychological, biological, and social life.

In our opinion, Bowlby's theory of attachment has been somewhat socially threatening because it has the potential to “genderize” Freud's otherwise genderless id. Through Bowlby (and, in fairness, there have been others like D.W. Winnicott), the decidedly (and arguably) feminine realm of attachment and caregiving (as revealed through animal studies) was elevated to a place that equaled sexual behavior. Unfortunately, you probably will not (overtly) read about the intertwining of attachment, caregiving, and sexuality in books like the Odyssey, Ulysses, Othello, and even Lolita. So, while Fauconnier and Turner might query, “Where's the sexuality in human meaning?” (which is a darn good question) Bowlby and his attachment theory seem to be going a step further by asking, “Where's the conceptual blending of gender in the making of human meaning?” Maybe it is being raped, “war”-ed, “suicide”-ed, or “alliance”-ed to death. Using the work of Jacques Ellul as a backdrop (click on the RESOURCES link to the left) it might be said that whereas Freud was concerned with the human condition, Bowlby was concerned with human nature. B.F. Skinner was clearly concerned with institutional nature. Our Foundation embraces attachment theory because it is decidedly (and arguably) one of the more gendered psychological theories available, one that seems to adequately deal with human nature while (at the same time) keeping an eye on the human condition within institutional settings. For this reason (and in our opinion), attachment theory has the potential to be an adaptive theory of social change.

Q - Can you give us a “quick and dirty” definition of attachment behavior?

A - Bowlby (again writing in the first volume of his trilogy on attachment) tells us that attachment behavior “is the result of the activity of behavioral systems that have a continuing set-goal, the specification of which is a certain sort of relationship to another specified individual” (p. 140). Bowlby goes to great lengths to point out that “set-goal” is different than “goal.” According to Bowlby, a goal is usually the end point of a process. The purpose of a set-goal is to setup an environment or gestalt (consisting of such elements as size, distance, space, texture, time, etc.—all elements that are the hallmark of conceptual blending) that has the potential to hold or facilitate a process. Figuratively speaking, a set-point is the myelin that allows for the transfer of information, to use concepts drawn from neurology. In effect, the need to coordinate a number of behavioral systems gives rise to the formation of a set-point (or gestalt) and, in turn, the set-point provides information back to the various behavioral systems indicating how well the coordination process is going. Attachment behavior can thus be looked at as the process whereby set-points (or behavioral gestalts) are coordinated between two people through an attachment relationship. Coordination of set-points through attachment relationships allows for the expression of social emotions like sympathy, embarrassment, shame, guilt, pride, and jealousy (according to neurologist Antonio Damasio). As Bowlby reminds us, “Instinctive behavior is never intelligible in terms of a single individual but in terms of a greater or smaller number of individuals collaborating” (p. 141). Again, I hope the reader can begin to get a sense for the adaptive, collaborative nature of attachment theory.

Q - I've read over your document entitled Mentalization Factoids (click on the RESOURCES link to the left) and I basically get what mentalization is, but is this really a part of attachment theory? Do we really have to be concerned with mentalization? And what does mentalization have to do with societal change?

A - Much of Bowlby's work was prophetic in nature. Bowlby presaged the newly emerging field of cognitive science known as “embodied cognition” by almost 25 years. Mentalization is very caught up with the idea of “minds knowing minds” or, as some cognitive researchers call it, “mindreading.” Consider the following passages by Bowlby (contained in the first volume of his trilogy on attachment) wherein he effectively talks about mentalization (although he doesn't use this term):

The truth is that to frame a plan the set-goal of which is to change the set-goal of another's behaviour requires a good deal of cognitive and model-building competence. It requires, first, a capacity to attribute to another a capacity to have goals and plans; secondly, an ability to infer from such clues as are given what the other's goals may be; and, thirdly, skill in framing a plan that is likely to effect the desired change in the other's set-goal.

Although to be able to picture [mentalize] others as being goal-directed may perhaps be fairly well-established by the second birthday, a child's competence in grasping what another's goals actually are is still embryonic. A main reason for this is that, in order to grasp what another's goals and plans are, it is usually necessary to see things through the other's eyes [to know their mind through your own]. And this is an ability that develops only slowly. (p. 352)

Part of the focus of the Foundation is to look at how society sets up “set-goals” at the mass level that have the capability to influence or change behavior at the individual or familial level. In addition, we try to look at the difficulties that may arise (as revealed through patterns of attachment behavior) when an individual attempts to “know the mind of” or mentalize the disembodied mind of mass consciousness. As Erich Fromm reminds us, “Beyond a certain order of bigness, concreteness is necessarily lost and abstractification takes place; with it, the sense for reality fades out.” (click on the RESOURCES link to the left)

Q - Why has the Foundation taken a British approach to attachment theory as opposed to the American approach?

A - In their book “The Way We Think,” Fauconnier and Turner (mentioned above) go to great lengths to describe how we use “frames” and “identities” (or characters) to create conceptual blends. According to the authors, most thought arises from and is concerned with the use of conceptual blends (a topic that concerned Bowlby—more on this below). Metaphor researchers Lakoff and Johnson go so far as to suggest that the mind uses the biomechanical processes of the body to not only create conceptualizations but also to guide the formation of conceptual blends. To understand how frames and identities interact, Fauconnier and Turner ask us to consider the frame of air travel. The authors write: “We can think of the frame of air travel without any essential attachment [emphasis added] to the character [or identity] of the traveler....” The authors continue by pointing out that our language “gives us words like ‘passenger’ to pick out the frame with no reference to the character [or identity of a particular individual].” The word “traveler” allows us to invoke the frame of air travel without having to invoke the identity or character of an actual individual human traveler. Traveler is an abstraction from the human realm that allows us to think about air travel in (almost) completely mechanical or inhuman ways. Traveler is a “test dummy” if you will that allows us to fully engage the frame of air travel (you have to have travelers or air travel makes no common sense). Consider this passage by Fauconnier and Turner:

We can think of a character like Bob Hope (who traveled a great deal) without essential attachment to the frame air travel, and of course the language gives us the name “Bob Hope” to pick out that identity with no reference to any frames at all. If we refer to Bob Hope as “passenger,” we are abstracting away in the direction of the frame [of air travel]; if we call him “Bob Hope,” we are abstracting away in the direction of the identity. But in fact, one can never abstract all the way in one direction or the other [either all identity or all frame]. (p. 262)

The authors “bottom line it” for us by stating that “there is no limit to the amount of detail in frames or identities, and at the neurocognitive level of activations, frames and characters are always intertwined.” (In our opinion, the intertwining of frames and characters is at the heart of attachment theory, an opinion that can be found in Alan Fogel's book “Developing Through Relationships.”) (click on the RESOURCES link to the left)

Using the ideas of frames, identities, and conceptual blending as a backdrop, the Foundation views the American school of attachment as an approach that encourages an emphasis on frame (especially institutional frames) to the exclusion of individual or group identity (or character). In essence the American school asks us to abstract ourselves away in the direction of frame. To quote Bruce Thayer from above, the American school maintains a focus on “establishing appropriately reinforcing environments [e.g., appropriate frames like air travel] in which [abstracted] people work, live and love [and travel].” To paraphrase Fauconnier and Turner from above, the American school tends to consider the frame of a societal structure without any essential attachment or thought given to the character or identity of actual individual people (like Bob Hope) or groups of people. The American school “judges” individuals, whether alone or in a group, on how well they are able to transcend individual or group identity and attach to abstracted roles such as generic traveler, lover, worker, etc. The American school attempts to encourage us to move to the “frame” end of the identity-frame continuum. The British school maintains that “frames and characters are always intertwined,” and, equally, the end members of frame and character are ideals that can never (nor should be) achieved. In terms of attachment theory, secure attachment will (hopefully) allow for creative and flexible blending of frame and identity. Insecure forms of attachment tend to push the individual (and groups) in directions of “all frame” or “all identity.” The American school tends to spend most of its time adding detail to frame and very little time adding detail to identity. In contrast the British school tends to spend most of its time adding detail to both frame and identity. The Foundation does not support any approach to attachment that encourages any individual, group, or community to abstract themselves in any one direction—frame or identity—to the exclusion of the other. Again, for more information on how frames and identities are formed within the mother-infant dyad, see Alan Fogel's book “Developing Through Relationship.” (click on the RESOURCES link to the left)

Q - What about attachment or holding therapies that seem to act to crush the will of the child or adult?

A - The Foundation is indebted to Jean Mercer for bringing the issue of Attachment Therapy (also known simply as “AT”) to our attention. Therapists who use an AT perspective will often hold (or encourage a parent or guardian to hold) a child until they comply with the wishes of the adult. AT is often used to “treat” children who have been diagnosed with Conduct Disorder (CD) and/or Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD).  In her book “Attachment Therapy on Trial—The Torture and Death of Candace Newmaker,” Jean (along with her colleagues) details how Attachment Therapy resulted in the death of a young girl, Candace Newmaker (click on the RESOURCES link to the left). Many AT practitioners believe that young children consciously (and maliciously) “choose” to defy the wishes of adults. In addition, many AT therapists hold that young children consciously “decide” to defy parental figures (and their authority) by not forming attachment relationships with them. In his paper on infant mental health (click on the RESOURCES link to the left), Gerard Costas describes the process whereby caregivers project and attribute mental states to infants and young children that simply are not there. Costas calls this process “baby or child as transference object.” In reality these projections or “attribution errors” (Edwin Hutchins calls them “confirmation biases,” more on this below) often come from the difficult childhood backgrounds of the AT therapists, the parental figures, or both. Many AT therapists hold that the child can be “redeemed” by going through a rebirthing (or re-nurturing) process—one that involves holding or restraining the child for long periods of time—that will ultimately deliver the child to a new (more compliant) attachment relationship with the parental figure.

In their book (mentioned above) Fauconnier and Turner talk about the conceptual blends that usually take place in an environment where redemption is the focus. Fauconnier and Turner alert us to the possibility that “redemption is a matter of entering or in fact creating a latter situation that counts as equivalent to a prior situation in which one failed.” In terms of AT therapy, the failure (the one that Fauconnier and Turner speak of) is framed as a “failure to attach.” AT therapists then create a new situation—the rebirthing or re-nurturing event—“that counts as equivalent” to the prior failure, again, the failure to attach. The idea behind AT therapy is that as a result of the rebirthing or re-nurturing event, the therapist and/or parental figure “succeeds in the latter situation,” to quote Fauconnier and Turner. When confronted with a redemption narrative or process, Fauconnier and Turner tell us that

we do not take such a plot as the story of a person who failed once and succeeded once, with equal weight given to the two events. Instead, we take the second event [in this case, the AT therapy session] as the one that reveals the essence of the protagonist and proves that the first [the child's failure to attach] was a fluke. The success [of the AT therapy session] does not neutralize the failure [to attach], setting the scale back to zero. It restores the protagonist's identity [be it child, therapist, or parent] making him “whole” “once again.” Objectively, it is odd that any later performance [i.e., a rebirthing or re-nurturing event] should have an effect on the evaluation of an earlier performance: The failure cannot be changed [emphasis added] and none of the terrible consequences [for the child, therapist, or parent] that provide the [social emotion of] guilt or shame and so fuel the need for redemption can be changed in the slightest detail. In the input spaces [the deviant past and the compliant future] no redemption is possible. But in the blend, the two situations become one, and the character (if not the [compliant] behavior) of the protagonist comes from the later input, thus providing in the blend and in the generic space [i.e., big “R” Redemption on a societal level] a stable and good [in this case “compliant”] character from which the earlier input space [of failed attachment] is merely an unfortunate deviation. (p. 259)

In essence AT therapy depends in large part on the conceptual blending that can only take place within the “cultural category of Redemption” to quote Fauconnier and Turner. According to Fauconnier and Turner, Vice-President Al Gore, during his 2000 presidential campaign, responded to a question about what should happen to a professional baseball player (accused of making racist comments) by boldly stating: “America is all about redemption.” Fauconnier and Turner continue by saying, “With this comment he [Vice-President Gore] transfers redemption from the character of the individual to the character of the nation.” AT therapists attempt to redeem the failed character of the child by getting him or her (and the parental figure, and the therapist) to attach to the cultural category and frame of Redemption via a rebirthing or re-nurturing event. As stated above, the Foundation does not support any approach to attachment that encourages any individual, group, or community to abstract themselves in any one direction—frame or identity—to the exclusion of the other. An AT approach to attachment encourages abstraction in the direction of frame by drawing upon and making great use of the cultural category of Redemption. Whereas the American approach to attachment encourages abstraction in the direction of frame in general, the AT approach to attachment encourages abstraction in the direction of one specific frame, namely Redemption (and a very specific, often Biblical category of Redemption at that). For more information on Attachment Therapy, please visit the following web sites:

www.ChildrenInTherapy.org

www.KidsComeFirst.info

			Click here to return to the top of the page

Q - In your Study Guide to the paper by Dr. Carole Pistole on attachment and teen pregnancy, you mention that attachment theory could be looked at as a theory of situated or embodied cognition. Can you give me an example of what you mean by “situated or embodied cognition?”

A - Allow me to answer that question. This is Frederick Leonhardt, president of the Foundation speaking. I wrote the Study Guide to Dr. Pistole's article. Let me give you an example of situated or embodied cognition based on a personal experience of mine. Late at night last month (February) I heard a loud “pop” noise while I was sleeping. I roused barely enough to notice the noise and then quickly fell back to blissful sleep. Why didn't this noise alarm me and cause me concern? Maybe someone was trying to break into my house and had “popped” open a window. The answer, as it turns out, is situated and embodied (as was my cognition). Let me give you some background information.

Before moving to New Mexico from the northeast, I had never lived in a house or apartment with a flat roof. Today I live in a dwelling that has a flat roof covered with tar and gravel. Suffice it to say that houses with flat roofs can make strange noises more so than their pitched-roof brethren. Now, there's a seasonal aspect to these strange, flat roof noises—they tend to happen more often in the winter when temperatures drop below freezing. For you see, tar and gravel flat roofs will “pop” when the water held in the spaces between the gravel aggregate (known as interstitial water—sorry, it's the geologist in me coming out) freezes. Ahhh, now you have another important ingredient in the “popping noise” recipe—the presence of water in the interstices of the gravel aggregate. Back to our story of embodied and situated cognition.

Hopefully the reader is beginning to sense that the calm I felt after semi-consciously hearing a loud popping noise late at night came as the result of a confluence of implicit information, both internal information (information coming from within my body) and external information (information coming from the situational and contextual world at large). Even though the right side of our brains tends to process information using parallel pathways, lets step through the confluence of information sequentially (it's hard to use linear word structures to accurately describe a parallel process involving multiple information pathways). In no particular order, here are the various information processing steps involved (based on my experience):

1. The direction from the noise to my body (to my ear) is discerned. The right side of my brain determines that the pop noise is above me with respect to the directional reference system that my body holds implicitly. My brain holds a schematic model that it codes “house.” As I go to sleep, my brain pulls the house schematic to the fore because it implicitly knows that I will be sleeping in a house (my house) until morning (I hate when it pulls the “power boat” schematic to the fore just prior to sleep). The house schematic model places the windows and doors on a plane that is horizontal (again, with respect to my internal directional reference system, which has to be adjusted for my prone sleeping position) and at about chest height. In the blink of an implicit, right-brain flash, the direction of the pop noise is oriented with respect to the house schematic and the following implicit message is generated: “pop noise not from windows or doors.” At this point though, my implicit alarm systems should be getting revved up because even though the windows and doors are “quite,” there's still no reason for a pop noise to be coming from above. Before we move on, notice that an explicit event—the popping noise—created an implied counterfactual (more on counterfactuals below), namely, “the doors and windows are quite.” My calm came in part from something that does not explicitly exist—quiet doors and windows. The right brain is primarily in charge of creating implied counterfactual realities (see the book by Fauconnier and Turner mentioned above).
    
2. The roof context is discerned. I really cannot begin to say where the “roof context” is stored—maybe it's a part of the house schematic—but it's stored somewhere. The implicit memory systems begin pulling out information on “what's above” once the direction of the noise is determined to be “above me.” At some point the implicit message “tar and gravel roof” is generated. Hopefully the reader can begin to gain a sense for why it often takes a night or two (at least it does for me) for one to feel comfortable sleeping in new surroundings (like a hotel or a friend's house boat). Personally I always sleep like a baby when I go camping in part because I can dispense with the “house schematic” (although my implicit right brain does pull the “wild animal” schematic to the fore while I sleep). The “tar and gravel roof” context in and of itself doesn't go far enough towards giving me a sense of calm. The right brain digs deeper.
    
3. The seasonal context is discerned. In large part because of diurnal cycles (those cycles recurring every day), our body normally has a pretty good sense for what time of the year it is. If earlier in the day you had to put on a heavy coat and scrap ice off the windshield of your car, the seasonal context may be reinforced by these events basically through a self-talk muttering of, “yup, it really is winter out here.” Such was the case on the day I heard the pop noise late at night (on that day I had to don a heavy coat and scrap windshield ice). The seasonal context was further refined by a weather report on the ten o'clock evening news (which I watched) that called for freezing overnight temperatures. But what of that critical ingredient, water?
    
4. The short-term personally relevant context is discerned. I often get a sinus headache when a weather front moves in and it starts to rain. My doctor tells me it's the combination of a change in barometric pressure and humidity level that triggers the sinus headache (lucky me, I'm a walking weather station). Earlier in the week, a front did move through dropping a bunch of much-needed rain (making February 2005 one of the wettest months on record for New Mexico). And, yes, I did get my weather-related sinus headache. In essence, my body stored the impression the rain made on my body (in the form of a sinus headache) within the short-term implicit memory system. When my right brain put out a request for information—“got water?”—my short-term implicit memory system generated a message: “weather-related sinus headache within the last few days, could mean water.” At this point, the implicit right brain systems are coming up with a pretty good picture of what the pop noise might mean: “water-saturated gravel on the roof above me is freezing resulting in a loud popping noise, a popping noise that is not the doors or windows.” But there's one more piece (as far as I can discern).
    
5. The personally relevant historical context is discerned. When I was a child growing up in the northeast, I would often walk or skate around on frozen lakes during the coldest months of the year. If you have ever walked or skated around on frozen lakes or ponds when it is really cold out (single digits for sure) then I don't have to describe the kinds of eerie, strange pops or cracks the ice can make when it shifts or expands. The popping noise that shifting or expanding lake ice makes is truly unique. There's a concusive quality to it, like the sound a bullet makes when it is shot into a body of water. That was the sound I heard above me, the same sound that occupies my personally relevant historical past. If anything, there was a familiar quality to the pop noise coming from the roof above me on that fateful night. There's no other sound quite like it, and all of the other implicit impressions (some counterfactual in nature) created a local embodied and situated context that rendered the pop noise in a calming, non-threatening way.

When I eventually became semi-consciously explicitly aware of the loud pop noise, a symphony, a concerted effort consisting of implicit information integration had taken place. No single impression or piece of implicit information told the whole story, which ended in an implicit message to the left brain: “nothing to be alarmed about, just popping ice noise on the roof.” If I was prone to personifying my implicit brain, I probably would have said something along the lines of, “Thanks for pulling all of that embodied and situated (and even counterfactual) information together into a gestalt—a whole greater than the sum of the parts—and coming up with an ‘all clear’ message.” Had any implicit piece of information been different, the resulting message would probably have been different. For instance, if all the pieces had come together but it was summertime, I probably would have jumped out of bed half expecting to encounter a burglar. And if it were summertime, my childhood impressions of popping lake ice may have never come to the fore anyway. This is the nature of embodied or situated cognition. It is very context, situation, and personal narrative dependent, and until all the pieces have come together, it would be hard to predict with any certainty what the overall impression (the gestalt) will provide in terms of meaning. It is only after the fact that I can use left brain explicit cognitive tools (like word play) to describe the implicit ice pop gestalt I experienced on that cold winter night. Although Edwin Hutchins is describing interpsychic “computational procedures across a social organization,” I believe the following quote could provide insight into how the implicit right brain of an individual integrates multiple pathways of information within an intrapsychic context:

The meanings of statements and questions are not given in the statements themselves but are negotiated by the participants in the context of their understandings of the activities underway. The participants use guesses [a form of mentalization] about one another's tasks to resolve ambiguities in communication. Particular meaningful interpretations for statements are simultaneously proposed and presupposed by the courses of action that follow them. The evidence that each participant has of successful communication is the flow of joint activity itself. (p. 237) (click on the RESOURCES link to the left)

I would suggest that Hutchins nicely tracks Bowlby's theory when we hear Bowlby (as quoted above) tell us that “instinctive behavior is never intelligible in terms of a single individual but in terms of a greater or smaller number of individuals collaborating.” For more on embodied or situated cognition, you may want to read the book by Lakoff and Johnson entitled “Philosophy in the Flesh—The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to western Thought,” the book “The Way We Think”  by Fauconnier and Turner, Edwin Hutchins book (mentioned above) entitled “Cognition in the Wild,” or my summary of Dr. Allan Score's workshop on “Attachment Theory and Affect Regulation” (click on the RESOURCES link to the left).

Q - OK, ok ... I basically get the idea of embodied or situated cognition, and also the idea of something only being there by tacit implication, but what does this have to do with attachment theory?

A - Frederick Leonhardt here again. Allow me to answer this question as well. As mentioned above in the context of mentalization, Bowlby was ahead of his time (bordering on prophetic) in many regards. As another example (mentalization being the first), Bowlby repeatedly stated that early mother-infant attachment relationships had the potential to give rise to what he called inner working models. Today, second generation cognitive scientists, such as Andy Clark, Antonio Damasio, Edwin Hutchins, and Daniel Wolpert (click on the RESOURCES link to the left) make regular use of inner working models to explain how the brain is able to create, maintain, and make use of consciousness. Andy Clark tells us that (in the near future) we will interface with technology, such as cell phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), and “heads up” displays (already in some cars), by extending the body maps that the brain stores. Antonio Damasio tells us that the brain runs “as if” scenarios by making use of “bodies in the brain.” Athletes will prepare themselves for a particular athletic performance by putting their body in the brain through a visualized virtual rehearsal (a process that “primes” the actual biomechanical system). Edwin Hutchins talks about “internal schemata” and one's ability to “explore alternatives within an interpretation space.” Daniel Wolpert draws upon the idea of “body maps” to explain why we cannot tickle ourselves. Apparently when we make a move to tickle ourselves, our “virtual body in the brain” knows it is us before we do, and, unfortunately, tells the brain to turn off the tickle response just prior to actual contact by the real body. As Fauconnier and Turner (mentioned above) remind us, “human beings [unlike other higher order animals] are exceptionally adept at integrating two extraordinarily different inputs [like real body vs. virtual body in the mind], which result in new tools, new technologies [i.e., Clark's new cell phones], and new ways of thinking.”

Second generation cognitive scientists (like Damasio and Clark) will often point to body maps in the brain as a way of explaining the phenomenon of “phantom limb.” Even though the actual limb may be gone, the body in the brain is still intact. When an actual body moves (say, one that has lost a limb), the virtual body will track these movements and ready itself to run “as if” scenarios if need be. When the virtual body is called upon to run an as if scenario (say, one designed to effect an escape from a threat) it will echo or mirror back to the real body a sense that the body is still whole (which, in the “mind” of the virtual body, it is). This makes sense from a survival standpoint because if a lion (heaven forbid) bites off a person's foot, the virtual body must be kept intact so that it can guide the real body toward a new biomechanical coordination that accommodates the lost foot and (hopefully) affords an escape—a virtual escape plan that children prior to the age of eight are not able to formulate, according to trauma researcher Robert Pynoos. Trauma researchers such as Francine Shapiro, speculate that traumatic reliving experiences may in part come from body maps that (for whatever reason) have become damaged, or (again, for whatever reason) may have never had a chance to become fully formed in the first place. I will argue that in human beings attachment relationships in large part provide for an outer container or womb in which body maps can be nurtured, formed, integrated, and maintained (which tracks Margaret Mahler's idea of psychological birth). Unfortunately, body maps or inner working models cannot be accessed and repaired (hopefully) using explicit means. In what can only be called a “cognitive tongue twister,” virtual body maps can only be tacitly healed by what's not explicitly there (by what's implied). This is a good lead-in to another of Bowlby's future thinking concepts (or “Easter eggs” to use computer parlance)—safety as a complex conceptual blend.

The idea of a conceptual blend is looked at above in connection with the work of Fauconnier and Turner (click on the RESOURCES link to the left). Suffice it to say that conceptual blends typically blend together “what is” with “what is not” (the virtual foot with the foot that has been lost). Most of experimental science depends on the idea of “what is not” or counterfactuals (a culturally mediated conceptual blend, developed over the centuries, that allows us to get at “what is” by looking at “what is not”). Experimental scientists will usually begin a research project by assuming what they call the  null hypothesis, a hypothesis which holds that nothing that will be looked at (experimentally) exists, implying that a) a nothingness now exists (a zero if you will), and b) the nothingness now is contained. At the risk of oversimplifying experimental design to the point of libel, something is shown to be statistically significant (yet another culturally mediated conceptual blend developed over the centuries) through comparisons to counterfactuals or to that which does not exist. According to Bowlby (as well as Fauconnier and Turner) our sense of safety comes from comparisons made between what exists and its counterfactual (or, possibly, a variety of counterfactuals)—what does not exist or what must be implied. Writing in “Separation” (in a section entitled “Need for two terminologies”) Bowlby tells us that

the original meaning of the English adjective ‘secure’ is ‘free from care, apprehension, anxiety or alarm’ (Oxford English Dictionary). Historically, therefore, ‘secure’ applies to the world as reflected in feeling and not the world as it is. By contrast, the original meaning of ‘safe’ is ‘free from hurt or damage’. As such it applies to the world as it is and not to the world as reflected in feeling. The distinction is neatly illustrated by a seventeenth-century saying, quoted in the OED, ‘The way to be safe is never to be secure’, namely feel secure.

By using the terms in their original senses, it is possible accurately and without ambiguity to make statements such as:

—although the situation was safe enough he became very frightened, or
—I could see the situation was dangerous but somehow the captain's behavior made us all feel secure. (p. 182)

A bit further along, Bowlby cautions:

It must be emphasized that a secure base, however much it may lead someone to feel secure, is no guarantee of safety, anymore than a natural [fear] cue [such as isolation, darkness, sudden movement, or the approach of a strange animal], however frightening we find it, is a certain indicator of danger. As a guide to what is safe and what is dangerous the kind of feeling a situation arouses in us is never more than rough and ready. (p. 183)

A good way to conceptualize Bowlby's idea of “two terminologies” is to think of the ostrich with it's head in the sand—even though it may feel secure, the reality (as viewed by an outside observer) suggests that it is still not in a position of safety. Never one to reinvent the wheel, allow me to quote at length from Fauconnier and Turner's book “The Way We Think” (all italics in original; my comments in brackets) as they talk about the various terminologies of safe:

Even very simple constructions in language depend upon complex blending. It is natural to think that adjectives assign fixed properties to nouns [an objectivist viewpoint], such that “The cow is brown” assigns the fixed property brown to cow. By the same token, there should be a fixed property associated with the adjective “safe” that is assigned to any noun it modifies. Yet consider the following unremarkable uses of “safe” in the context of a child playing at the beach with a shovel: “The child is safe,” “The beach is safe” “The shovel is safe.” There is no fixed property that “safe” assigns to child, beach, and shovel. The first statement means that the child will not be harmed, but so do the second and third—they do not mean that the beach or the shovel will not be harmed (although they could in some other context). “Safe” does not assign a property but, rather, prompts us to evoke scenarios of danger [i.e., run “as if” scenarios a la Damasio] appropriate for the noun [the explicit] and the context [the particular situation]. We worry about whether the child will be harmed by being on the beach or by using the shovel. Technically, the word “safe” evokes an abstract frame of danger [which, in my opinion, is Bowlby's “rough and ready”] with roles like victim, location, and instrument. Modifying the noun with the adjective prompts us to integrate that abstract frame of danger [which is implied] and the specific situation [e.g., we are situating the cognition] of the child on the beach into a counterfactual event of harm in which child, beach, and shovel are assigned to roles in the danger frame. Instead of assigning a simple property [Fonagy et al.'s “psychic equivalence”], the adjective is prompting us to blend a frame of danger with the specific situation of the child on the beach with a shovel. This blend is the imaginary scenario in which the child is harmed [“virtually harmed” so that the occupant(s) filling the various roles of victim, location, and instrument can be ascertained]. The word “safe” implies a disanalogy between this counterfactual blend and the real situation, with respect to the entity designated by the noun. If the shovel is safe, it is because in the counterfactual blend it is sharp enough to cause injury but in the real situation it is too dull to cut. (p. 25-26)

I realize that the above description of the complex blend of “safe” is a bit much too take in, however, simply put, the child's shovel is perceived to be safe because the counterfactual event of harm is implicitly imagined, and, most importantly, never comes true over and over again. Something that repetitively does not happen (e.g., the shovel breaks and creates a sharp object) creates a sense of safety. It is the counterfactual event that allows for us to gain insight into (to mentalize) the roles of victim, location, and instrument. As we assess for safety, we are running virtual “what if” scenarios such that the relative valences (values) of victim, location, and instrument can be kept within an inner working model. As an example, a mother watching her child on the beach may shift her sense of safety in response to her child getting up and beginning to run toward the water. The various roles of victim, location, and instrument are now all actively in play. Will the child trip and fall hurting herself on the beach (and not on a broken shovel, or maybe a piece of glass) before reaching the water? Only a dynamically created, integrated, and maintained inner working model—one that has the ability to create and assess what is not there—can help us answer a question like that. Maybe that's why our parents told us to not run around the house with scissors—they didn't want to devote the necessary brain power to run the “as if” virtual counterfactual events required to track our potentially dangerous movements. Or maybe they ran the necessary “what if” scenarios and came back with the same result over and over again: “the kid gets hurt—no complex inner model needed.” I tell you all this because in my mind (and I would argue that Bowlby felt the same way) secure attachment relationships do not lead to active exploration of the environment in the same way we assign brown to cow, but in a way that allows us to create, integrate, maintain, and make use of inner working models—bodies in the brain, body maps, virtual bodies, or “as if” scenarios (take your pick).

As Edwin Hutchins reveals to us, “the problem with confirmation bias [mentioned above in the context of holding therapies] is that it prevents an organism from exploring a wider range of possible interpretations” (emphasis added). In my opinion, secure attachment does not allow us to just “explore,” but to explore for “a wider range of possible interpretations,” even interpretations based on that which does not exist. Hutchins continues by saying that “although the first interpretation encountered may well be the best, a search of the interpretation space (emphasis added) may reveal another one that better fits the available evidence.” Again, in my opinion, secure attachment allows us to build, maintain, and make use of an interpretation space (Bowlby's Inner Working Model) that has the potential to hold a wide range of possible interpretations based on “what if” or virtual scenarios. Lets face it, mentalization (and it's close cousin empathy) is a what if, as if, virtual process that typically blends together “what is” with “what is not.” I would also suggest that an interpretation space is socially created. I think Hutchins gives us the “bottom line” when he states:

The performance of cognitive tasks that exceed individual abilities [which will be the case for a developing young child] is always shaped by a social organization of distributed cognition [emphasis added]. Doing without a social organization of distributed cognition is not an option. The social organization that is actually used may be appropriate to the task or not. It may produce desirable properties [such as mentalization or empathy] or pathologies [like certain forms of “magical” or teleological thinking]. It may be well defined and stable, or it may shift moment by moment; but there will be one whenever cognitive labor [i.e., the “labor” associated with psychological birth] is distributed, and whatever one there is will play a role in determining the cognitive properties of the system that performs the task. (p. 262)