Doing well in classes

Yea, I'm doing just fine in class and the profs seem to like me. A few particularly nice things have happened of late, including one professor asking whether I planned to seek a doctorate and playfully offering to mentor me if I choose to do so. I said I should try to get through the masters program first. It was a very sincere and well received compliment.

Two-Stage Theory of Counseling – Parallel Not Serial

Two-Stage Theory of Counseling – Parallel Not Serial

David Bottorff

Loyola University of Chicago

18 March 2010 Abstract

This essay argues that although effective therapist leadership and client action require the product of good encouragement, listening and following, and although listening and leading require different skills, these two therapeutic energies are co-occurring and inextricable.  The therapist’s challenge is to manage the ongoing dialogue between these curative forces throughout the entire counseling relationship.

Keywords: stage counseling theory Egan Rogers Meichenbaum cognitive behavioral therapy CBT humanistic-existentialist therapy

Two-Stage Theory of Counseling – Parallel Not Serial

On the one hand, it appears axiomatic and a priori that psychotherapy cannot progress prior to investigation.  That is, so-called Stage II counseling skills designed to solve problems and elicit change in thinking and behavior requires the counselor-client dyad first work through Stage I rapport building and fact gathering.  And yet, curative vectors surely exist from the moment a client walks through the door with intention to seek help.  Deepak Chopra is credited with saying, “Love without action is meaningless and action without love is irrelevant.”  The tension expressed in this statement finds corollary in the therapeutic process:  Client problem resolution requires thought and feeling data, and yet the process of eliciting such information is in itself curative.

Stage I therapy is characterized as a process of introspection for the client and listening for the therapist.  Stage II therapy is characterized as a move toward objective understanding for the client and leadership for the therapist.  I propose these two “stages” are interdependent and synergistic processes that fit together like hypotenusally mated right-triangles, forming a complete rectangle, a whole therapeutic process.  At one end we see an almost exclusive emphasis on Stage I introspection by the client, while toward the end of therapy we see an almost exclusive emphasis on Stage II action.  Yet at every point along the way, some component of each can, and should, be accessed.  The delicate balance between the point at which the therapist should primarily follow (Stage I) or take the lead (Stage II) is intimately connected with each discrete moment in therapy. 

No where is this continuous interaction between self-exploration/following and action/leading more clear than in the person-centered therapy of Carl Rogers.  By carefully attending, encouraging and paraphrasing, Rogers elicits actionable crumb after actionable crumb from the client, eventually culminating in a patient-supplied solution to the presenting problem.  After all, “nondirective therapy” was the original name for Rogers’ method, migrating eventually to “person-centered therapy.”  Although originating from the psychoanalytic school rather than the humanistic-existentialist school, Donald Winnicott (1991, p. 116) said, “[I]f only we can wait, the patient arrives at understanding creatively and with much joy … . The principle is that it is the patient and only the patient who has the answers.”

In the now famous psychotherapeutic session with Gloria (Psychological & Educational Films, 1965), Rogers at first appears to only be listening and encouraging, but he also paraphrases in ways that lead and drive the conversation forward, e.g., “You are acting from guilt,” or, “If you’re not comfortable with yourself, how can she possibly be comfortable with you.”  At one point in the Gloria session he steps too far and too fast.  He proposes that what she wants is to “seem” perfect, but she rejects that characterization.  The challenge, and her reply, deepens her progress toward problem resolution, even though he is solidly in the middle of learning the first few things about her.  [As an aside, I was particularly taken by Roger’s statement during the post-session debriefing.  “Transference and counter-transference completely misses the point of the immediate I-thou experience,” he said (Psychological & Educational Films, 1965).]

Summarizing Gerard Egan (2009), Thomas Gorey wrote, “Self-exploration is not a goal in itself, but a means to an end – action, action that leads to more effective living on the part of the client.  … Vague solutions to vague problems never lead to effective action.”  I agree completely with this argument.  Further, “The goal of Stage II is to help the client achieve the kind of objective understanding of himself, his problems, and his world that leads to effective action.”  Again, this is a statement of essentially indisputable truth.  The dialogue between Stage I and Stage II, however, is brought to the fore when Gorey paraphrases Egan in saying, “Stage II skills represent ‘stronger medicine’ than Stage I skills.”  The operative word is “stronger.”  There is, in fact, some “medicine” in Stage I client introspection, and there is further introspection and enlightenment in the action-oriented Stage II – the two forces form an alchemy of therapy.  In the same way the analyst and the analysand merge to form the so-called analytic third, Stage I and Stage II dialogue create a therapeutic gestalt environment.

Thus, and not to sound too equivocal, although the stages are not completely separate, and although they do not completely follow one another in time, there is a gradual progression from learning to doing, from Stage I to Stage II.  In this respect, I take respectful issue with the proposition that the stages are distinct and succinctly chronological.

The skilled therapist should be able to toggle from moment to moment between following the client as she is encouraged to divulge her thoughts and feelings to leading the client as she steps back, looks more objectively at her life, and takes corrective action.  Although following and leading clearly do require different skills, it would be inappropriate to dedicate one session to one goal and a different session to the other goal.  These forces, like yin and yang, are married and intertwined.

The five-stage theory of counseling articulated by Allen Ivey et al (2007) substantiates my argument of continuity and gradual progression from introspection to action, as opposed to a quantum shift from one mode to the other.  With the exception of the introductory Stage 1 “Hello,” each step poses questions to the client.  The client’s ability to answer the questions brings her closer to her own solutions, as though gradually assembling a jigsaw puzzle.  The client may see the picture even before the puzzle is complete, allowing her to take incremental action.  Although the last step involves the most succinct leadership gesture, e.g., “Will you do it?” each step plays a crucial role in eliciting the solution from the client herself.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) takes a more pro-active stance on therapist leadership.  This is evident in the style of Donald Meichenbaum, who appears ready and willing to use confrontation and direct talk when he feels the enough information has been gathered and the client trusts him enough to accept his leadership. 

Yet, again, my sense is that each act of leadership leads to more honest introspection on the client’s part, and vise versa.  There is a symbiosis through the course of the session, even though CBT allows for more direct leadership of the client than do other schools, including humanistic-existentialist and psychoanalytic therapy.

Coda

In the process of educating new counselors, it may well be essential to clearly differentiate between “following” and “leading” roles during psychotherapy.  In practice, however, the line between these two modalities is fuzzy at best.  Although the skills needed to listen undoubtedly differ from those needed to guide, the clever therapist should always be ready to switch from one to the other lest an opportunity for client growth escape.

References

Egan, G. (2009). The skilled helper: A problem-management and opportunity-development approach to helping. London: Wadsworth.

Ivey, A. E., D'Andrea, M., Ivey, M. B., & Simek-Morgan, L. (2007). Theories of counseling and psythotherapy: A multicultural perspective. Boston: Pearson Education.

Psychological & Educational Films (1965). Three Approaches to Psychotherapy. Retrieved 17 March 2010 from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBkUqcqRChg

 Winnicott, D. (1991). Playing and reality. London: Routledge.

Monist Pantheism Proves Viable Response to Addiction-Induced Theological Crisis

Monist Pantheism Proves Viable Response to Addiction-Induced Theological Crisis

David Bottorff

Loyola University of Chicago

25 February 2010
Abstract

Drug and alcohol addiction forced me to search for a “power greater than myself” to provide an overarching framework for recovery.  After re-examining my spiritual and theological convictions, I shifted radically from pure agnosticism to a monist pantheism, distinct from panentheism, that provides succor while preserving my intellectual integrity. This theology also allows me to appreciate the eloquence of other theological traditions as potential sources of support.

            Keywords: addiction God monist pantheism panentheism Alcoholics Anonymous recovery

Monist Pantheism Proves Viable Response to Addiction-Induced Theological Crisis

Many factors contribute to substance abuse addictions, including genetics, epigenetics, psychology, society, and the environment (NIDA, 2009).  While some of these factors can be addressed through hard science, the most popular addiction recovery programs focus on spirituality as both a cause and a cure (Alcoholics Anonymous, 1939).  Monist pantheism, dove-tailed with Buddhist philosophy, proved a flexible and intellectually coherent response to the need for spiritual direction in my addiction recovery.

As a young adult I made substance abuse a way of life.  I defined myself in terms of what I was not – a good boy, an academic, a hard worker, a functioning member of society, etc.  I felt comfortable at the edges of society.  Recovery was only possible with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Upon seeking sobriety in 1994, I was challenged to identify with a “power greater than myself” for guidance.  Basic 12-step theory holds that addictions represent self-will run riot, and that recovery only emanates from a system of meaning-making that supersedes the ego.  This wisdom is reflected in the words of Dennis Ford (2007):

Alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual obsessions, and adventurousness – in which meaning remains, but only while engaged in extreme and risky activities, including violence – have all been attributed to misguided and finally self-destructive attempts to suppress the question of meaning by drowning in instinctual behavior.

I do not believe our respective faith perspectives should be identical or even synchronistic.  Yet, there is something inside me that insists on a theology that both explains my transpersonal and metaphysical experiences, and accommodates the beliefs of others.  The bottom line is, I still have difficulty stepping back and accepting mystery on its own terms.

This frustrating need for an over-arching and unifying theology was spawned from a tumultuous religious upbringing.  I hardly remember attending Methodist church as a child.  I do, however, remember adults exhibiting hardscrabble resourcefulness and independence.  They were people of the land and practicality ruled the day.  As an only child in Ann Arbor, I was introduced to hippies and free love, alcohol and marijuana, African Americans and Latinos, and to the extended family in Unitarian Universalism.  When my mother married an Episcopal minister, I became briefly interested in Christianity and was confirmed as an acolyte at a small church in Vermilion, Ohio. 

At university I adopted agnosticism, then graduated to secular humanist utilitarianism.  It was during these years I came to embrace Modern Movement theories about the power of science to answer all questions.  I agree with Karen Armstrong (2009) when she argues the advent of Modernism encouraged the contemporary sense of agnosticism and atheism.

I came to believe no person or institution had a monopoly on truth, spirituality was subjective, and each individual had to find a framework of understanding that suited them.  Although in some ways this desire for open-mindedness echoes Robert Kegan’s highest level of moral development (Dombeck, 2007), it also leaves my spiritual shopping bag empty.

The crisis of addiction forced me to find other answers.  Challenged to find a functional and relevant theology, I leveraged the kind of spiritual pragmatism William James (1897) described in “The Will to Believe.”  Later I found guidance through Native American paganism with the help of Blackwolf Jones (1995) and the Mankind/New Warrior Project, where I worked on archetype modeling as described by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette (1991), Robert Bly (1990), and Richard Rohr (1990).  In recent years I took a postmodern approach to life while studying Buddhism and Religious Science (a.k.a. Science of Mind) (Holmes, 1938).  I revel in the Transcendentalist musings of writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and their contributions to the American New Thought Movement.

Today, I feel comfortably at home with monist pantheism, which is the belief that God and the universe are one in the same.  While taking exception to his tone, I largely concur with John W. Grula (2008) who states, “By reestablishing the natural sciences’ metanarrative, even as it asserts the divinity of the material universe, pantheism simultaneously demotes postmodernism and reconciles science with religion.”  Pantheism is intimately linked to many Eastern theologies, including Buddhism, Taoism, and even Hinduism.  The brevity of this essay does not allow me to fully explicate how pantheism is commensurate with such world religions as Judeo-Christian monotheism.  Suffice it to say the theology gives me ample intellectual room to appreciate the subjective spirituality of people emerging from these and other great traditions.

In modern times, I embrace what I might call post-postmodern philosophy, in which subjectivity of experience is respected while harmonizing communal influences are honored.  That said, I am challenged yet entertained by the predominantly Judeo-Christian teachings at Loyola of Chicago.

Frankly, I have trouble thinking about faith, meaning and especially spirituality as separate from myself.  This uncomfortable feeling is most obvious when I try to discuss the nature of God in the third person.  For me, God is a state or quality of connectedness and unity.  It is the fundamental creative path of all things.  It is a verb that can only be understood in terms of my manifestation in, and interaction with, the world.  I am inseparable from this phenomenon called God.

I derive meaning from the notion all things – ideas, emotions, objects, actions, people, animals, plants, whatever – are in a constant state of change, and therefore impermanent and fundamentally empty.  My sense of reality – transcendental or mundane – is a product of an illusion I am separate from all other things.  A constant stream of cause-and-effect relationships underlies the principle of perpetual creation, a seamless process of simultaneous construction and destruction.  Individual experience can never be accurately communicated with symbols or rituals.  All such endeavors are merely referential and gesticular.  Each person comprehends and internalizes their unique relationship with the worlds of sense and transcendence using both logos and mythos.

Here is the fundamental challenge: All things, regardless of how defined, are constantly changing.  The implication is that meaning can be derived at any instantaneous point during a thing’s birth, life and death, but meaning ultimately is ephemeral, and the final purpose of all things is to change into something else.  Just as the Hebrew Bible describes God bringing order out of chaos, it also returns order to chaos.  Comfort stems from accepting and embracing life’s dynamics.  Nothing is static. As Heracleitus said in Cratylus (Plato, c. 300 BCE), “[A]ll things flow and nothing stands.”

My attempts to rationalize “sin” are rendered thus: Specific things have positive or negative meaning to the degree they advance or retard the underlying fluidity; things can be “good” or “bad” in an ethical sense but not in a moral sense.  A thing that facilitates creativity reduces pain while a thing that destabilizes change causes suffering.  “Letting go” enables God’s grace to work unimpeded.  So, for me, God is the process by which a block of stone is turned to a statue, whether beautiful or ugly.  The sculptor facilitates this process of transformation while the vandal inhibits it.  We call the artist “good” and the thug “bad.”

I tend to embrace a Gestalt approach to life, in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  Aristotle (c. 350 BCE) described holism in Metaphysics, Book VIII, Part 6, saying, “In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something beside the parts, there is a cause.”  This observation applies to the cosmos, to Earth, to plants and animals, and to me.

Today I perceive a “self” or “soul” similar to that described by Richard Schwartz in his Internal Family Systems Model (1995), or perhaps like Buddha Nature (Buddha-dhatu).

I believe our collective dream – the sense ego is separate from the external world (Thetford, 2007) – is harmonized by the lessons and expectations into which we are born, as with the modern concept of nomos and the concomitant notions of externalization, objectification and internalization. The subjectivity of our experience, especially of our transcendent world, means Baal and Thor and Elohim are equally real to those who believe, and should be respected as such. The individual must ask, “How is my concept of transcendent reality working for me?”

Compassion is the only emotion I feel when accepting the idea we all are of the same stuff – a benign creative force – and operating under the same delusion of binary thinking – me and it, I and thou.  My mission is to create a world of unity and belonging through creative compassion.  I want that mandate to drive all decisions I make and all actions I take.  In this respect, the following wish brings me great comfort: “May all beings abide in great equanimity, free from attachment and aversion to things near and far.”

Coda

I would not have been able to traverse the chasm between adamant agnosticism and monist pantheism without the help of many very patient people, including the recovery community, my academic and spiritual teachers, the loving congregations who took me in, and my various mental health professionals. It has been an exciting journey that continues to this day.

References

Alcoholics Anonymous (1939). New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services.

Aristotle (c. 350 CE). Aristotle - Metaphysics - Book 8 - Part 6. Retrieved February 24, 2010, from Classical Library: http://www.classicallibrary.org/aristotle/metaphysics/book08.htm

Armstrong, K. (2009). The case for god. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf.

Bly, R. (1990). Iron John: A book about men. New York: Perseus Books.

Dombeck, M. (2007, January 20). Robert Kegan's awesome theory of social maturity. Retrieved February 24, 2010, from Essays and blogs concerning mental and emotional health: http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=11433

Ford, D. (2007). The Search for Meaning: A Short History. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.

Fowler, J. (1981). Stages of faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. New York: HarperCollins.

Grula, J. (2008). Pantheism reconstructed: Ecotheology as a successor to the Judeo-Christian, Enlightenment, and postmodernist paradigms. Zygon, 43 (1), 159.

Holmes, E. (1938). The science of mind: A philosophy, a faith, a way of life. New York: R.M. McBride.

James, W. (1897, June 1). The will to believe. Retrieved February 24, 2010, from James Madison University: http://falcon.jmu.edu/~omearawm/ph101willtobelieve.html

Jones, B. J. (1995). Listen to the Drum. Minneapolis: Hazelden.

New revised standard version bible (2006). San Francisco: HarperCollins.

Understanding drug abuse and addiction: What science says (2009, July 27). NIDA Publications. Retrieved February 24, 2010, from National Institutes of Health - NIDA: http://www.drugabuse.gov/pubs/teaching/Teaching3/Teaching.html

Plato (c. 350 BCE). Cratylus and the origins of names. Retrieved February 24, 2010, from Roangelo: http://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/cratylus.html

Rohr, R. (1990). From wild man to wise man: reflections on male spirituality. Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press.

Moore, R. (1991). King, warrior, magician, lover: Rediscovering the archetypes of the mature masculine. New York: HarperCollins.

Schwartz, R. (1995). Internal Family Systems Therapy. New York: Guilford Press.

Thetford, H. S. (2007). A course in miracles. San Francisco: Foundation for Inner Peace.

Robert Bly’s Iron John, a Review

Robert Bly’s Iron John, a Review by David Bottorff

Bly, R.  (2004).  Iron John: A book about men.  Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press

In Iron John: A book about men, Robert Bly summarizes male developmental psychology in terms of collective unconscious themes and archetypal pattern myths.  It would be unfair to summarize Bly’s thoughts as simple reiteration of Jungian theory, although Iron John can be analyzed in those terms.  The Jungian hermeneutic perspective does not do full credit to the complexity of Bly’s analysis.  As a man of letters, Bly reaches far and wide to find eloquent traction between a simple fable and mankind’s complex theories of existence.  Reading Bly’s Iron John feels like a fast motorcycle ride over rolling mountain roads of male psychology.  This book is filled with passion, with masculine energy, and with the spirit of self-discovery.  Iron John is about growing up fully alive and fully male, emerging from the chrysalis of boy psychology into the wild excitement of manhood.  He crafts an eloquent and seminal interpretation that is well worth the read, especially for those interested in what makes a man.

To articulate his developmental theories, Bly leverages the “Iron John” fairy tale published in the early 1800s as Eisenhans by German authors Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (The Brothers Grimm).  The “Iron John” fable, which dates back in one form or another to at least the 1500s, commonly is seen as a parable about a boy becoming a man.  As Bly retells the story, he interjects analysis of the people, places and things depicted in the narrative.  Behind these symbols he finds numerous references to the collective and universal, yet often unconscious, realities by which humans have lived through the millennia.  The fable contains no literal truth but is rich in metaphoric wisdom.  “The metaphors in the ‘Iron John’ story refer to all human life, but are tuned to the psyches of men,” Bly says (p. 55).  As with most fairy tales, ‘Iron John’ is dense with implication, moving quickly from lesson to lesson.  Thus, in his explication, Bly expands a story that takes some 10 pages to tell into roughly 270 pages of fascinating insight.

Although Bly’s Iron John can be critiqued as a response to the Western feminist movement, others see the men’s movement that this book helped launch as an amplification of, not a contradiction to, key feminist principles, including respect for the individual in communion with society writ large.  Bly notes that in the 1970s women developed the ability to really say what they wanted, and that men must now learn to do the same.  Whereas patriarchy is an indefensible and perverse manifestation of boy psychology acting out through adult bodies, the mature masculine psychology is a feminist’s friend.

As Bly writes, he operates under the premise that modern Western men have become sensitive but weak.  “The journey many American men have taken into softeness, or receptivity, or ‘development of the feminine side,’ has been an immensely valuable journey, but more travel lies ahead,” Bly says (p. 4).  These “soft” men can say, “I can feel your pain,” but they cannot speak up for what they need, the author explains.  “Men are suffering right now – young men especially.  Now that so many men have gotten in touch with their grief, their longing for father and mentor connections, we are more ready to start seeing the Wild Man and to look again at initiation,” Bly says (p. 27).

In Iron John, Bly’s explicit goal is to empower men to recognize their sadness and shame, and find new power through a balance of King, Warrior, Magician and Lover archetypes.  A good review of the processes by which key boy archetypes – Divine Child, Hero, Precocious Child and Oedipal Child – develop and transform into mature masculine archetypes is provided by Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette in King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the archetypes of the mature masculine. 

In terms of developmental psychology, cultivation of these archetypes can be interrupted at many stages, leaving the adult male under the influence of “shadow” archetypes.  The “Iron John” fable creates numerous liminal spaces through which the boy successfully passes.  In terms of moral development, for example, the boy transitions from heteronomous to autonomous morality as he at first acts only in his self interest to secure his gold ball, then fears formal punishment and runs away with the Wild Man, and eventually learns to sacrifice himself for the greater benefit of the kingdom.  We can examine the story in terms of the boy’s development through a psychosocial crisis, learning how to balance the guilt he feels over disobeying his father’s order to not release the Wild Man against the imperative to take initiative in the world. Or, subsequently, learning to balance the cognitive, behavioral and affective components of industriousness against feelings of inferiority for having disappointed the Wild Man.  Bly carefully notes many such liminal moments, often stretching a bit far afield to make his point.

In this reviewer’s opinion, the key to understanding the “Iron John” ferry tale, and to following Bly’s insightful analysis, is to view each character as a different aspect of one’s psyche, not as discrete players in a linear narrative.  As the story concludes, the boy, having internalized Warrior and Lover archetypes, becomes a King.  The Wild Man, having been freed to work his Magician energy, also becomes a King.  The king, having regained control of his fiefdom, is re-anointed in his King energy.  Ultimately, the boy prince emerges as heir to the thrown, securing the eternal feminine princess at his side.  All these developmental dynamics, plus many others, can be interpreted as happening simultaneously within the reader’s mind.

The greatest weakness of Bly’s Iron John is its incomplete treatment of spiritual or metaphysical developmental patterns.  Although spirituality is addressed in several respects, a traditional monotheist may find themselves a bit out of sorts.  Such subsequent men’s movement authors as Richard Rohr do an excellent job contextualizing male developmental psychology for those with more traditional spiritual beliefs.

In men’s work, retelling the “Iron John” fable often concludes at the point the boy charges off into the wilderness with the Wild Man he freed using a key from under his mother’s pillow.  For me, the main fulcrum or liminal threshold occurs shortly thereafter, when the boy fails to protect a golden well Iron John charges him with guarding.  The guilt and shame associated with failing to meet a father figure’s expectations is huge and can greatly influence a boy’s development for years to come.  But Iron John’s assignment is essentially impossible to fulfill, especially for a young boy.  What no one explained to me as a child, is that disappointing one’s self and those we admire is part of the descent and ascent pattern that allows a boy to break free from his mother-father bonds and emerge in his own right as a balanced man.  Failure is part of the game – a key component behind recognizing my humanity, internalizing my humility, and accepting my role as part of the human race.

Correlation of Juvenile and Adult Attachment Styles

Correlation of Juvenile and Adult Attachment Styles for David Bottorff

David Bottorff

Loyola University of Chicago

31 January 2010
Abstract

This paper explores juvenile and adult attachment patterns for David Bottorff using an adult attachment interview and extrapolating backward toward childhood.  The evaluation concludes I exhibit a borderline Fearful/Dismissing attachment style, presenting both possibilities and challenges for pastoral counseling.

Correlation of Juvenile and Adult Attachment Styles for David Bottorff

Juvenile and adult attachment styles are related yet different.  Using the results of an adult attachment interview, I worked backward in time to examine my early attachment style, particularly in relation to Guinevere – my mother and primary attachment figure (AF).

John Bowlby (1988) postulated the existence of three attachment styles for children: Secure, Anxious/Resistant, and Anxious/Avoidant.  Building on the work of M. Ainsworth, M. Main added a fourth category: Disorganized/Disoriented.  Having never been subjected to Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Protocol, I do not know my childhood attachment style but find clues in my adult attachment style.

Childhood attachment styles were projected into adulthood by such researchers as K. Bartholomew and L.M. Horowitz (1991), who identified four basic attachment styles: Secure, Anxious/Preoccupied, Dismissive/Avoidant, and Fearful/Avoidant.  These styles roughly correspond to the Bowlby/Ainsworth infant classifications (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991).  The four adult attachment styles are determined using measures of anxiousness and avoidance, which in turn correspond to the client’s Model of Self and Model of Other.

Using the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) Adult Attachment Questionnaire, developed by R.C.  Fraley, N.G. Waller, and K.A. Brennan (2000), and based on Bartholomew’s work, I fall on the border between the Dismissing and the Fearful attachment styles.  On a scale of 1 to 7, I score 4.0 for anxiety and 4.5 for avoidance.  Dismissive/Avoidant adults are said to seek independence while avoiding attachment.  They may suppress feelings and deal with rejection by distancing themselves.  Meanwhile, the Fearful/Avoidant style is characterized by feelings of unworthiness and ambiguousness toward close relationships, both desiring and fearing intimacy.  Individuals exhibiting either Dismissive or Fearful attachment style tend to avoid intimacy and suppress their feelings (Bartholomew, 1991).  I see both Dismissive and Fearful attachment styles exhibited in my life.

The adult Dismissing attachment style is associated with the Avoidant juvenile attachment style, thought encouraged when the AF shows little response to the distressed child, discourages emotional display, and encourages independence.  Meanwhile, the adult Fearful attachment style is associated with the Disorganized juvenile attachment style, said encouraged when the AF exhibits inconsistent care, shifting from intrusiveness to withdrawal, or perhaps exhibiting maltreatment.  It is entirely possible my AF exhibited these qualities. 

My internal working model (IWM) is characterized by fierce personal independence and a general distrust of attachment figures.  I have worked to mitigate this psychology through Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA), a 12-step program similar to Alanon and based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), to which I belong.

Attachment Style, Ministry and Calling

As an AA “sponsor,” I see myself standing somewhat aloof from my “sponsees.”  I have trouble sympathizing or empathizing with their problems, and I tend to offer intellectually sound yet emotionally barren guidance.  Because AA is a form of lay ministry and/or counseling, emotional distancing is encouraged for the protection of all parties involved. 

Conversely, while stoicism appears to work at some level in AA, it does not serve me well in my men’s group.  The work within Mankind Project frequently is intense and my venire of emotional detachment tends to crumble.  It is not uncommon for me to become emotionally disoriented, whether working on myself or working with another man.  I find myself exhibiting a well-established pattern: longing for close attachment but afraid to trust.

From a personal perspective, becoming more familiar with my attachment style will help me focus my own psychotherapy on the weakest aspects of my personality.  My last relationship dissolved after 10 years largely because I exhibited dismissing and fearful attachment patterns, never moving into a position of trust with my romantic partner, always both seeking and rejecting intimacy. 

From a professional perspective, knowing my attachment style will inform counter-transference while supporting my calling to counsel through meaningful and trusting connections with clients.  Further, knowing my attachment style will help me understand my client’s attachment style.  Ultimately, my attachment style will play a crucial role in the way I bond with peers, romantic interests, young, old, and the ill.

Spirituality

Although not a required element of this essay, I would like to briefly discuss spirituality attachment style as postulated by James Fowler and described by Andrew Starky (1999).

Fowler, building on the work of H. Richard Niebuhr, identifies three major types of faith identity relationship, which somewhat resemble the three childhood attachment patterns identified by Bowlby and Ainsworth.  In particular, he states polytheist belief resonates with the Anxious/Ambivalent attachment style, henotheist belief corresponds with the Avoidant attachment style, and monotheist beliefs are linked to Secure attachment style.  I suppose agnostics and atheists fall in the Fearful attachment style, although this conclusion is not found in his writings.

Although unprepared to offer a formal academic challenge to Fowler’s assertions, I will argue correlating the ostensibly superior Secure attachment style with monotheism looks like a transparent attempt to bolster monotheism’s credentials as the more enlightened theology.  Two observations make me bristle.  First, one’s attachment style vis a vis another human versus attachment style vis a vis God only works in the context of God as noun and not a verb – God as a thing and not a process.  Again, it is unclear as to what agnostics and atheists are to make of this theory.  Secondly, one of attachment theory’s strengths is its universality.  Fowler’s argument that interpersonal and spiritual attachment patterns run parallel stands in contradiction to universality in that he implies huge segments of the Earth’s population – Buddhists, aboriginal peoples, Shintos, etc. – simply lack secure attachment styles.  Were they secure, they would adopt monotheism, I infer.  If his theories are meant only to apply to those who believe in God or gods, and therefore only valid within that construct, then his ideas are functionally useless for roughly half of the people living on this planet.  Starky concludes, per Fowler, Bowlby’s concept of a “secure base” might be helpful in pastoral counseling, but mainly as a mechanism for driving clients toward monotheism.  Fowler’s a priori assumptions beg examination.

Conversely, Fowler’s stages of spirituality – intuitive-projective faith, mythic-literal faith, synthetic-conventional faith, individuative-reflective faith, conjunctive faith, and universalizing faith – do resonate with me. 

Although observers may differ, I see myself exhibiting Stage 5 faith (Fowler, 1981): Religiously, it knows that the symbols, stories, doctrines and liturgies offered by its own or other traditions are inevitably partial, limited to a particular people's experience of God and incomplete.  Conjunctive faith, therefore, is ready for significant encounters with other traditions than its own, expecting that truth has disclosed and will disclose itself in those traditions in ways that may complement or correct its own. (Page 186)

Humorously, yet not unexpectedly, my God attachment style appears to reside solidly in the Dismissing or Avoidant quadrant.

References

Bartholomew, K., and Horowitz, L.M. (1991). Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 226-244.

Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment and healthy human development. London, England: Routledge.

Fowler, J. (1981). Stages of faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. New York: HarperCollins.

Fraley, R.C., Waller, N.G., and Brennan, K.A. (2000). An item-response theory analysis of self-report measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 350-365.

Starky, A. B. (1999). A theological application of John Bowlby's psychoanalytic theories of attachment. American Journal of Pastoral Counseling, 2(1), 15-47. doi:10.1300/J062v02n01_03