Transcript Elspeth McAdam - Love

LOVE
Elspeth McAdam
STOK Conference.
13th November 2009, Denmark
Love
If music be the food of love, play on
Shakespeare
All you need is LOVE
Beatles
Lingugram of love
 Ocean of meaning in a drop of
grammar!
 Meanings emerge as we the word
is used
 In 2s or 3s explore meaning and
narratives of love and what it
entails what actions, what stances
Love is biological
Love is the source of
human socialisation
- Humberto Maturana
Maturana’s thoughts on love
 Stickiness/Love is the spontaneous dynamic condition of
acceptance by a living system of its coexistence with
other living systems: a reciprocal fitting, a happening
that takes place or does not

Love is a biological phenomena, and requires no
justification;
 If love occurs there is socialisation if it does not then
there is not.
 Love is the fundament of social phenomena and not its
consequence.

Social phenomena only last as long as love lasts in that
domain.
Socialization
 Love is the source of human socialisation
 What is especially human is what we do in love
as humans
 This is an invitation to respect the biological
condition that is the basis of humanity.
 Without love as a spontaneous biological
phenomena there is no socialisation
Language
 Can only develop as a mutual dance between people
 To be conserved over time involves dramatic
increased complexity of relationships to be maintained
where love, care respect is lived
 Conversations are an entwining of emotion, language
& action
 Language now living and perpetuated but
appropriation/ownership culture – competition,
hierarchy, negation valued and love/humanness
incidental
 But still live love based childhood then competition
and patriarchy come in in adolescence.
 Schism of world of humanness coexisting with world
of inhumanness
Love is a healer!
 Love is a fundamental condition of
being a human being
 When the biology of love is interfered
with we disappear or become ill and
are cured by love
 New beginnings always start in love –
new respect and dignity couplings
An Invitation
 Maturana is offering us an invitation to
respect the Biological condition that is the
basis of humanity. Without love as a
spontaneous biological phenomena there is
no socialisation
 Without socialisation there's no language,
no reason, no self consciousness, no
awareness of emotions, so without love we
are not social beings. This is not trivial and
has huge implications.
Value of Maturana’s ideas of
love as Biological
 Really important in this day and age as
there are so many wars, tyranny and
ideology that the rationalisation justifies the
loss of socialisation. We no longer have
love that accepts and enjoys the
differences.
 How we are treating our children can be
seen as a loss of the biological
ideas/narrative of love.
 Press talk about children as monsters or
wild animals but Govt beginning to listen
Mirror neurones
Daniel Stern
Children do not use spoken language until 18 –24
months but understand and communicate clearly.
 They learn very early to respond via mirror
neurones (MN) to carer’s communication – smile
they smile, anger they withdraw or cry
 There are also intention neurones (IN) that pick
up and anticipate others’ intentions.
 MN & IN – GROW IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE Huge and difficult to put into words Eg LOVE
“
“The intuitive mind is a
sacred gift and the
rational mind is a
faithful servant.
We have created a society
that honours the servant
and has forgotten
the gift.”
- Albert Einstein
 Love is experienced in the whole body
as are all emotions
 Non-verbal expressions are seen and
sensed even though we do not
appreciate we are showing them.
Meetings
 Zone of Tranquillity
Peaceful, open, reflective, in dialogue
and open to change
 Zone of Fight and Flight
Defensive, deny, justify, aggressive
Melissa Griffiths, Glenda Fredman
Implicit Knowledge
 Children and vulnerable people are very sensitive to
this implicit communication, responding fast to any
sense of criticism moving into a fight and flight mode,
 So when we meet people we need to make sure we
are in a Zone of Tranquillity to help people feel safe.
 We also need to enhance our listening to our own
mirror and intention neurones
Neurobiology:
Types of Affect Systems

Paul Gilbert
Types of Affect Systems
Content, safe, connect
Drive, excite vitality
.
Affiliative focused
Incentive/resource
focused
Soothing/safeness
Seeking and behaviour
activating
Opiates (?)
Dopamine (?)
Threat-focused
safety seeking
Activating/inhibiting
Serotonin (?)
Anger, anxiety disgust,
The Contentment System
 When animals are not threatened and not
seeking resources they become content
 Contentment associated with positive
affect, and sense of calm and well being,
enabling signals of caring and kindness to
have soothing qualities, that activate
positive affect, safeness and social
connectedness. – the social safeness
system.
 The contentment/social safeness system is
wired to act as a regulator of the threat
protection and drive systems.
Threat Protection System (TPS)
 All living things have evolved threatdetection and protection systems
 Stimuli impinging on organisms must be
checked out for potential threat
 Mammalian defences include a menu of
behaviours – fight, flight, freeze; emotionsanger,anxiety,disgust; stories
 TPS have evolved to be attuned to certain
kinds of threats and operates a better safe
than sorry policy
continued
 Sensitivity and response to specific threats
results from interaction between genes and
learning
 Response options may conflict and create
confusion
 Brain state choreographed from threat
protection can bias other processing
systems ambiguous events read negatively
 Over and under development of
sensitivities in threat protection underpin
many psychopathologies
Cortisol
High cortisol negative outlook & view of life
 active Right brain – high emotions
 low activity in Left brain- limited cognitive
processing
High Anxiety in pregnancy is predictor of CD in child
Normal –L Brain more active than Rt Brain- positive
feelings, cheerfulness & sociability
The Drive System
 This system motivates and directs us to important
resources
 It is a source of anticipation and pleasure
 It underpins the development of desires and some
goals – both materials and those linked to self esteem
– eg seeking status or fame
 It is an activating system highly stimulated by certain
drugs
 Positive emotions flowing from this become focus of
Western philosophy and materialistic cultures
Imagery
 Imagination can stimulate any of these
pathways or systems – v biological
 Read a good menu and you salivate
 Ballerina post surgery
 Imagining caring loving thoughts or
memories or loving, caring, content
futures encourage contentment pathways
to grow.
 Imagine success and dreams of a
successful career, sport etc grow the drive
pathway.
What is love?
Love is reciprocal and relational
 Cannot do it alone
 Anxious mother or mother who needs
mothering herself often not available
to her child
 Withdrawn, unresponsive baby less
likely to encourage mother’s warmth
 Ideally Love and responsiveness need
to flow in both directions
Attunement- Being in Tune
 Being present to your child
 Using mirror neurones to respond to child in way it
wants
 Observe when temporarily withdraws– withdraw to
give child space
 Peek a Boo games – led by child’s anticipation
 Entering their grammar
 Putting language on their emotion
 Seeing emotion and behaviour as an invitation – “You
seem cross, you want all Mummy’s attention, I
understand and know… but sometimes Mum has to
give attention to your brother, I know you do not like
it … but I do have to show him love too. Love you”
Setting limits
 Some Cortisol facilitates growth of nor adrenaline in
orbito frontal cortex which develops regulatory/inhibitory
behaviour
 Eg When told to STOP/DANGER- temporary loss of
attunement – helps child fit social norms
 Change from sympathetic to Para sympathetic arousal
 Shame is experienced- important part of socialisation.
 More important is the recovery from shame – with
restoration of attunement.
Delight and pleasure at other’s
achievements
 Genuine delight and pleasure when
someone you love achieves
something from smiles to first steps
to passing exams, getting a job,
getting married etc
 Stimulates sense of value and self
esteem that allows person to be
confidently motivated
Bowlby, 1951,
The Early Systemic Therapist
Just as children are absolutely
dependent on their parents for
sustenance, so in all but the most
primitive communities, are parents,
especially their mothers, dependent
on a greater society for economic
provision. If a community values its
children it must cherish their parents.
Secure Attachment Story










Resilient to stress and trauma
Mother present and attuned to baby MN
Co creative gaze holding and letting go IN
Any rupture of affirmative relationship with well attuned mother –
fast reparation MN
Games of anticipation and expectation –peek a boo IN
Respond to baby and led by their response MN
Boundaries develop with the withdrawal of affirmation and fast
restoration of relationship MN & IN
Communication thru eye contact helps brain to grow, Mother’s
sympathetic system aroused –dilated pupils MN
Implicitly child knows mother is there for it MN
Attuned parents grow a social brain
Mirror Neurones MN & Intention Neurones IN – GROW IMPLICIT
KNOWLEDGE - HUGE AND DIFFICULT TO PUT INTO WORDS Eg
LOVE
Insecure attachment
 Baby does not experience being cocooned by protective
mother
 Mirror neurones and intention neurones pick up hostility
and aggression, inconsistency and lack of attunement,
over-involved play
 Baby overstressed – stress response active prematurely.
Cortisol receptors flooded and shut down. So free
floating cortisol – sense of stress/inhibits endorphins,
dopamine and pleasurable feelings
 Cortisol stimulates adrenaline -) fight and flight and
increased arousal
 Cortisol highest when loss of power/control
Ambivalent
 Mother inconsistent, intrusive & dismissive
 Child becomes enmeshed, child is
compliant, desperate to please, mother
feels eaten up and pushes away
 Child terrified of Abandonment so does not
explore
 Child swings between safeness and
fear/threat protection systems. Little of
drive system develops
Avoidant Attachment
 Mother functional, pushing away, child does
not feel valued or engaged with
 Child becomes terrified of contact,
rejection, dismissive of others, poor
historian, poor story line, poor self
awareness. Wariness of others
 Cortisol stimulates adrenaline -) fight and flight
and increased arousal,
 Cortisol highest when loss of power/control
Therapeutic implications
Whatever story we tell of formative childhood experiences
perhaps need to understand the biological
consequences of what we do and ensure we can create
opportunities for “love.”
How do we help children stand on this tripod of the
Healthy Affective Circle
So much of this comes to the biology of love and creating a
robust safety system
Social Construction

We create our worlds through language and tell stories

Active process depending on what stories are told, to whom and in
what context

Words create: meaning and action, intentionality, emotion and
morality

Language is future orientated

Change happens simultaneously as we caress people with our
words

Language we use is a moral issue. Questions create a world for
people to live with dignity
Appreciative Language –everyone wants
to be a HEROINE
 We all grow with being valued
 Positive stories allow people to have a
choice to change
 Tell one of the untold stories
 Give people genuine dignity and
respect
 Perfect system –coherent with their
values and morality - Maturana
Criticism, blame and shame
 Invites people to justify their
actions and create explanations
to repeat the “unwanted”
behaviour
 It encourages denial and
defensiveness
 If fast reparation may help child
conform to social norms
As professionals we are:
 Responsible for creating a morally
respectful, dignified world
 Stories are prioritised differently for
everyone in different contexts + different
relationships
 Our own stories bewitches us – they fit
OUR morality
 So difficult to make sense of/understand
another’s morality when people do things
you feel are wrong
Questions are Fateful
 What you ask is what you get
 Ask questions that will give energy to the
desired outcome and engagement in the
conversation –connect thru love!
 Enquire about high points or success stories
as this is when most abilities are evident
energizes people. Abilities become
resources
 Appreciate the richness of an episode- by
asking questions to bring out all the details.
 Every PROBLEM is a FRUSTRATED dream –
question and work with the dream
Identity
“We get to know ourselves
through the detour of the
other.”
Identity is created by the
stories others tell of us.
We exist in the worlds of
others
Paul Ricoeur
Identity
Identity is constantly inflow. A mosaic. Multiple
stories depending on context and relationship
 What stories would you like told?
 What would you have to do to get those stories
told.
 What actions live the identity?
Identity
Identity is more usefully
thought about as a
process of identifying
the abilities of the self.
Identity is constant
inflow as new abilities
are recognized and
used
-Dewey
Identity cont
 Ability spot and encourage abilities to
flower and blossom in different
contexts so they become values &
resources for future use
Ability Spotting
 Ask about high points/moments of pride or
joy, SPOT abilities whilst fulfilling these
actions – spot abilities as they emerge
 By getting into the details of the other’s
story, the abilities emerge through the
stories told.
 These emerge through detailed exploration,
sharing, and co creativity of stories lived.
 They are accepted, as the evidence is
before you in the story told.
Working with the FUTURE
“We are always in
the PROCESS
OF
BECOMING”
-Vygotsky
Hope
 Focusing on becoming creates hope
– I can be something different
 Creating possible futures is part of
love as it takes as a stance that life
holds riches for the future that are
yours. It shows a belief in
someone’s abilities and strengths to
go on, survive and live a full and rich
life.
Working with the future
 The future is in the present.
 In the Future meaning grows, the meaning of events emerge.
 Meaning is crafted in the consequences of an action as it is
lived out in the future in relationships.
 The future creates present action

Dewey talks about
END - in – VIEW
 Vygotsky -- We are always in the PROCESS OF BECOMING
Martin Luther King
I have a
dream
Dreaming
 Use DREAMING instead of solutions as different language
game.
 Dewey – Reflexive Imagination which increases choices for
living. Don’t think of just one future, think of 4/5 when
values and relationships are harmonised
 Creates Zones of Proximal Development where people can
experiment with a different identity and life trajectory
 Imagery stimulates the oxytocin pathways
Dreams are:

Often Unrealistic, Idealistic – hopeful and create possibilities

Energising & Fun & Playful –life giving

Emotion is positive, enthusiasm, person feels valued

Everything is possible

Can’t fail

Values are lived

Fragmentary
Dreaming the future therapeutically

Go 10 – 15 years hence – gets away from as yet unsolved
problems

Talk about future in present tense.

Tell a reassuring story – you are a mature adult leading a
really happy competent life, suggest all problems gone so
how are they now relating to family/friends etc.
 Be as unrealistic / creative as desire, enjoy the metaphors
 look at meaning in metaphor.
Curiosity about the future
 So it is 2020 … where are you living which
community/country? What sort of house/apartment?
What does it look like? Are you married , do you have
children? Etc etc What job are you doing?
 Great detail – like a video – 3D experience
 Create the details of dreams by asking lots of detailed
questions
 When person located in living the future as now
 Back light – work slowly back to the present -- Ask
about how managed to get there as they have already
solved difficulties and created a future.
 Continue dreaming right up until the present day so
they know what to do tomorrow.
Witnessing and attesting

We now call our Network Meetings FUTURE PLANNING
MEETINGS

We invite all those who are concerned about the FUTURE of
the young person – family/schools/police/SS
Ask about moments of pride
compliant, desperate to please
Ask about moments of pride and look for abilities



Focus on abilities even in unwanted behaviours – what abilities
are needed to be a good thief? – observant, fast,
courage,daring, network

ASK NETWORK when else noticed these abilities-GIVE EGS –
when shown courage or loyalty
Conclusions
World View – need to consider love and
socialisation as love that accepts and
enjoys the differences.
Societally - Care for our “mothers” and our
children so they are given the love and
safeness they need to develop all 3 bits of
their affective systems. This means from
conception on.
Mothers is used generically as a relational care giving role –
fathers,teachers,siblings,peer groups etc
How – just a few ideas!
 Pregnancy – reduce stress, violence,
support, education, skills and emotional
awareness.
 Societally to create narratives of success
and survival in press
 To see people’s competences and comment
on them
 To give everyone hope and a future
 Support parents and children at risk of
developing CD
Thank you for listening
!!
[email protected]