The Foundation's Giving Philosophy

by Frederick Leonhardt

My apologies. This section of the Foundation's web site has remained unfinished for far too long. Even though the board and staff have done a good job putting together a strong mission statement (click on the MISSION link to the left to read our mission statement) it is often hard to articulate the philosophic (and paradigmatic) position that gives context and support to that mission. As fate would have it I recently picked up a book to give it a second read. It has been two years since I first read this book and I thought it was time to revisit the information. The book is entitled “Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self” by Peter Fonagy and his colleagues (2002) (click on the RESOURCES link to the left for the full reference).

As I read the introductory pages, it occurred to me that the philosophy espoused by Fonagy et al. is very similar to our Foundation's giving philosophy. In the next few paragraphs I will introduce you to the philosophy of Fonagy et al. as a way of concretizing our Foundation's giving philosophy. I will end with a few passages from a book by Edwin Hutchins entitled, “Cognition in the Wild” (1995) (click on the RESOURCES link to the left for the full reference) because, in my opinion, Hutchins' work in the area of embodied cognition allows us to see that when we observe (or engage in) attachment behavior, we are observing (or engaging in) a “wild” form of cognition, which is very different from the “captive” form of cognition that traditionally occupies the cognitive scientist's laboratory as a primary object of interest.

In the first few pages, Fonagy et al. mention the early days of Skinnerain learning-theory research back in the 1940s and 1950s. Fonagy et al. suggest that this type of research “would have been of little help to psychodynamic therapists at that time” because this cognitive-behavioral approach to psychology and social change was “less concerned with meaning and the person than with behavior and the environment” (p. 1). The Foundation's giving philosophy is likewise focused in on “meaning and the person” and is less concerned with cognitive-behavioral approaches to psychology and social change (the so-called captive forms of cognition). We are, however, realists in that we recognize that cognitive-behavioral modalities (at least in the US) dominate the psychological landscape. We also realize that cognitive-behavioral and learning-theory sensibilities inform much of public policy, and, as a consequence, public policy is primarily informed by captive cognition. We hope that through the Foundation's giving philosophy we will create a space in which “meaning-centered” and “person-centered” approaches to mental health and public policy development can flourish. We hope that a balance of wild and captive (adaptive and technical) cognition can come to inform public policy development. It is for this reason that the mission of the Foundation is centered on attachment behavioral theory (with its focus on adaptive, embodied, and socially distributed cognition) as a theory of social change.

I believe that the following quote by Fonagy et al. most accurately embodies the Foundation's giving philosophy:

We apply a philosophy-of-mind approach [to our work] in order to capture and specify the process by which infants fathom the minds of others and eventually their own minds. The notion that we fathom ourselves through others has its source in German idealism.... The use of philosophy of mind in this way is common in the field of social cognition. What differentiates our approach is the attention we give not to just cognition but to affects as well. In this regard, we rely on attachment theory, which provides empirical support for the notion that an infant's sense of self emerges from the affective quality of relationship with the primary caregiver. (p. 2)

To paraphrase Fongy et al., the Foundation applies a philosophy of mind to its grantmaking activities. Our Foundation is very concerned with how minds come to know other minds (out in the wild so-to-speak). Indeed, the giving philosophy of the Foundation is informed by German idealism (click on the “short history of the Foundation” link to the right) and its focus on the idea that “we fathom ourselves through others.” The Foundation's giving philosophy holds that not only do we come to know ourselves through others, we come to know (that is to say, form computational models of) the world around us through others. As Frith and Frith write in the edited volume “The Neuroscience of Social Interaction” (2004) (click on the RESOURCES link to the left for the full reference), “What determines our behavior is not the state of the world [an objectivist view] but our beliefs about the state of the world [an experientialist view]” (p. 67). The Foundation holds that our beliefs, as well as our goals, inner models, and desires, are developed, maintained, and expressed within a social milieu. We hold that a mind is developed and maintained within a social milieu (an experientialist view) and cannot exist in isolation (an objectivist view). The giving philosophy of the Foundation breaks away from the objectivist notion that the “state of the world” and its relationships can come to take precedence over the relationships within and to other bodies.

Our Foundation embraces attachment theory as a theory of social change because, as Fonagy et al. suggest above, our sense of self is developed, maintained, and expressed within a social milieu. To quote R.J.R. Blair (again writing in “The Neuroscience of Social Interaction”), “If there is no observer, [an] emotional display will either not occur or be considerably muted” (p. 242). (May I suggest that Tom Hank's character in the movie “Cast Away” created a witness in the form of Wilson—a volleyball with a painted face—so as to preserve his emotional wellbeing.) It is for this reason that the Foundation maintains a focus on what we call the “witnessing modalities” of mental health and social change. True, giving a person an antidepressant drug may elevate emotional experience and display in the short term, however, this type of intervention will not necessarily address the longer term issues of social bonding and being witnessed. As social commentators (such as Erich Fromm, Jacques Ellul, Juliet Schor, and Robert Bly) are quick to point out, US culture's focus on technological advance has seen to it that the role of the witness—whether mother, father, grandparent, step-parent, family, adoptive family, or community—is greatly diminished if not eliminated wholesale. As Hutchins reminds us, any cognitive task has two central components: 1) “the computational dependencies [that exist] among the various parts of the computation” and 2) “the social organization [that] structures the interactions among the participants to the computation” (p. 186). Even a lone mathematician working in his or her laboratory works within a historical and social milieu. As Fauconnier and Turner point out in their book “The Way We Think” (2002) (click on the RESOURCES link to the left for the full reference), it took over three hundred years for the culturally constructed and culturally mediated concept of complex numbers to gain widespread acceptance.

Fonagy et al. point out that Cartesian sensibilities are particularly powerful (and are able to dominate the US cultural landscape) because of their focus on “first-person authority that claims direct and infallible introspective access to intentional mind states...” (p. 3). Sadly Fonagy et al. go on to point out that both “psychoanalysis and developmental science have often adhered to the Cartesian tradition in their assumption that the experience of mental agency is innately given.” The giving philosophy of the Foundation breaks away from dominant Cartesian sensibilities, with its mythic (and almost delusional) focus on mind separate from body, and embraces the idea that mind is embodied and innately relational (a position that can be found in the philosophy of Spinoza). We agree with Fonagy et al. when they tell us that “mental agency may be more usefully seen as a developing or [relationally] constructed capacity” (p. 4). Vittorio Gallese (writing in “The Neuroscience of Social Interaction”), in my opinion, succinctly describes the essence of attachment theory as a theory of social change when he says that

The quality of our lived experience ... of the ‘external world’ and its content are constrained by the presence of other subjects that are intelligible, while preserving their otherness. (p. 176)

John Bowlby, arguably the father of attachment theory, writes in “Separation” (the second volume of his trilogy on attachment), “Paradoxically, the truly self-reliant person when viewed [within attachment theory] proved to be by no means as independent as cultural stereotypes suppose” (1973, p. 359) (click on the RESOURCES link to the left for the full reference).

Let me end with a few quotes from Edwin Hutchins' book “Cognition in the Wild.” Hutchins writes:

When we concentrate on the product [emphasis in original] of the cognitive work, cultural technologies, from writing and mathematics to the tools [used in navigating the world], appear to amplify the cognitive powers of the users. When we shift our focus to the process [emphasis in original] by which cognitive work is accomplished, however we see something quite different. (p. 153)

By focusing in on attachment behavioral relationships, I would contend that we are shifting our focus from the “products of cognition” (an objectivist, technical perspective) to the “process of cognition” (an experientialist, adaptive perspective). When we witness a mother and infant engaged in a “cognitive dance” as a part of a Strange Situation assessment, we have the distinct privilege of witnessing the process by which “cognitive work is accomplished” (or impeded) within a decidedly social milieu. Hutchins alerts us to the possibility that “every complex cognitive performance requires the application of a number of component cognitive abilities.” In developing his theory of attachment, John Bowlby was very much concerned with how (and why) various behavioral systems are developed, coordinated, and organized—the work of an effective, secure attachment relationship. Sounding very much like a follower of Bowlby, Hutchins tells us that “the application of these [behavioral] abilities must be ‘organized’ in the sense that the work done by each component ability must be coordinated with that done by others.” Through effective, secure attachment relationships, a child comes to learn about cognitive tools in the external world in such a way that

these mediating technologies do not stand between the user and the task. Rather they stand with the user as resources used in the regulation [and coordination] of behavior in such a way that the propagation of representational state that implements the computation can take place. (p. 154)

“Since the attachment work of the mother-infant team is a computation, we can treat this as a computational system—born from the attachment behavioral relationship—and treat the social organization of the mother-infant team as a computational architecture,” to paraphrase Hutchins using an attachment theory perspective (p. 185). Within the wilds of a Strange Situation laboratory, we witness the attachment work of the mother-infant team, we witness the computations that take place, we see the “propagation of representational state” (from inner to outer and back again), we acknowledge the existence of a computational system, and we can come to appreciate the development of a computational architecture that includes both mother and infant (neither stands alone according to D.W. Winnicott). In essence, we come to appreciate the embodied and situated cognition that arises from a safe and secure attachment behavioral relationship. To draw upon terms introduced by Hutchins, the giving philosophy of the Foundation holds that cognition primarily takes place within “distributed problem-solving systems,” (such as the infant in the womb, in the arms, and eventually under the supervision of her mother). By adopting attachment as a theory of social change, the Foundation seeks to understand and, if need be, facilitate change within the representational and “computational properties of social institutions” (to quote Hutchins one last time).

(For an in-depth look at the Foundation's giving philosophy, click on the CONTACT link above and request a copy of the Foundation's Study Guide to an article by Dr. Pistole on Attachment Theory and Teen Pregnancy.)

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