Why do we repeat what we cant remember

1
Why do we repeat what we cant remember?

• The unfinished business of
• our early attachments
• Professor David Shemmings PhD
• Middlesex University London

2
Aims

• how humans acquired an unconscious component
  during their early development
• how this affects and is affected by our early
  attachment relationships

3
contemporary attachment research and the brain

• final development takes place outside the womb
• dependent on our care-giving environment
• whats happening to the brain at this time?
• number of neurons
• see sound, hear colour, etc.
• synaethesia

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contemporary attachment research and the brain

• hardware but no relational or cognitive
  software
• needs a download!
• three ways of keeping care-giver close
• hard-wiring Cornfields
• the unconscious and the right hemisphere

5
contemporary attachment research and the brain

• The successful development of the right
  hemisphere affects future capacity to
• regulate emotion
• manage stress
• appraise others emotional states
• Theory of Mind (around 3/4)
• abusive experiences re-storying

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John Bowlby

• safe haven and secure base
• mobiles on trains!
• Strange Situation and attachment organisation
• disorganised attachment
• 60/40
• not about personality per se
• developed the notion of the Internal Working
  Model of close relationships

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whats it like to arrive too soon - our first
experiences of anxiety

• propelled into outer space without a spacesuit
• need for containment
• non-stop movement
• clothes
• the beginnings of our need to repeat
  unconscious repressed emotions
• pebbles and tin

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the unconscious avoidance of anxiety is
ever-present

• 21st century anxiety - Baumans Liquid Fear
• Bird flu
• Meteor strike
• Yellowstone Park
• Global Warming
• Apocalypse Soon
• unconscious preoccupation with catastrophe
  ultimate rejection played out and repeated
  but not integrated (pebbles and tins again)
• Big Brother eviction rituals
• different to Orwellian predecessor

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stock-take why do we repeat what we cant
remember?

• Our earliest experiences are preconscious and
  anxiety-ridden
• We quickly learn to repress or deny painful
  memories, but which
• re-emerge as memories in feeling
• ? repetitively unproductive behaviour

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social work relationships attachments

• as many human problems have a relational
  component so, therefore, will their solutions
• when emotionally distressed, we relate to others
  in special ways
• psychobiological attunement
• its not painful experiences themselves that lead
  to problems
• A E example

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a research example later life filial attachment

• very little written about it
• bi-directionality and role reversal
• contemporary research methodolog/ies

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Q grid

TRUE FOR ME
UNTRUE FOR ME
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TABLE 2 Q-SORT FACTOR LOADINGS (asterisks
indicate statistical significance at p?.05)
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8 The things we do now will
leave me with many happy memories 1.591 2
I can be myself when Im with my mother
1.448 5 I enjoy the time I
spend with my mother
1.423 31 I never really worry about my
relationship with my mother 1.371 32 The
thought of being without my mother makes me sad
1.370 4 I can talk about almost
anything with my mother 1.284
33 I would say theres no unfinished business
between us 1.260 9 I really respect and
admire my mother 1.105
35 By and large theres nothing Id like to
change 1.010 7 My mother and I rarely
argue 0.935 36
I have so many happy memories as a child with my
mother 0.844 10 The relationship I have
with my mother is a very equal one 0.791
23 If she became dependent Id be happy to pay
for care 0.770 34 Theres still a lot more
my mother and I have to give to each other
0.718 37 As a child I always felt loved by my
mother 0.617 25 My mother
and I rarely bicker about who contacts whom first
0.475 1 As weve got older my mother and
I have got closer 0.407 6 I
miss my mother when weve not been in contact
0.365 28 Im OK about the amount
of time I see my mother . . . but shes not
0.354 22 If my mother became dependent Id be
happy to have her live here 0.263 21 Both my
mother and I are comfortable with the amount of
contact 0.109 13 My mother rarely shows any
physical affection towards me 0.105 3
My mother has always given me a hug when we see
each other 0.063 24 I dont contact my
mother as much as I'd like 0.049 40 The
thought of being without my mother is unbearable
-0.138 29 I often help my mother with
household chores etc. -0.166 43 When I was a
child I never knew whether she loved me
-0.167 12 My mother really irritates me most
of the time -0.431 38 Id love
my mother to get closer to me -0.487 41 Id
love one day to be able to get on better with her
-0.551 17 Id never try and talk to my
mother about personal problems -0.615 16 I
cant have a conversation with my mother
-0.741 20 Whenever I contact my mother she
usually manages to upset me -0.759 39 I feel
angry with my mother for not being a good parent
-0.937 15 I really dislike being with my
mother for any length of time -1.028 30 I
find it a burden to keep in contact with my
mother -1.085 27 I have very little
contact now with my mother -1.283 44 I look
back at my childhood as a time of unhappiness
-1.301 18 My relationship with my mother
seems quite fragile -1.318 11 There seem to
be quite a lot of things that are left
unresolved -1.353 26 I stay in contact with
my mother more out of duty -1.399 14 I feel
guilty about my feelings towards my mother
-1.438 19 My relationship with my mother
has deteriorated -1.558 42 I dont think I
would miss her if I never saw her again -1.971
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patterned subjectivities in later life filial
attachment

• Six factors
• Secure
• CONFIDENT RESOLUTION
• RESOLVED YEARNING
• Avoidant
• DUTIFUL LOYALTY
• DISTANT IRRITATION
• Ambivalent
• UNRESOLVED YEARNING
• ENTANGLED RESENTMENT

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take home message

• not the events themselves
• re-storying the past unlovable/unloved
• I can remember once, coming home from school, I
  stopped with my brother to see a sow who had
  given birth to her little piglets. We were late
  and our parents were probably waiting for us, who
  knows, maybe they were anxious. And my father
  came for us by bicycle and with one of those
  twigs you find in trees, he made our legs turn
  red because of the lashes he gave us as a
  punishment for what we had done we had stopped
  to look at the newborn pigs instead of going back
  home directly.