‽istis reclaims (re-)building blocks? (weekending July 25th 2020)
‽ …with a new baby in the extended family, born in
difficult ‘lockdown’ circumstances;
‽ with speculation about fertility levels and population
growth or decline[i];
‽ with the
contested value of talk about the need for ‘grown-ups in the room’;
‽ with world leaders with new babies or young
children (parents for the first time or most recent time);
‽ with at least one world leader sometimes
portrayed as a baby or petulant toddler;
‽ with books that perhaps link current behaviour
and attitudes with early life, family and formative experiences - and which may remind us of the potential value of seeing the public figure in a deeply personal
and biographical context;
‽ with children and young people standing up,
marching and shouting out;
‽ with mothers taking to the streets and facing the
power and the tear gas and the batons of the state, singing out not to be shot;
‽ with an apparent fresh rise in sectarianism, ‘tribalism’
and division perhaps with roots in matters of identity, inequality and injustice, inclusion
or exclusion, advantage or exploitation - past and present;
‽ with apparent claims of ‘world-beating’ responses
to a pandemic that seem to require the language and graphs of competition more
than co-operation;
‽ with so many people having to navigate the
challenges of managing relationships (positive or not so; super-intense or
fractured; enhancing and fulfilling or abusive, or somewhere in between; distant
or virtual…) with family and friends in extra-ordinary times…
…‽istis reclaims what perhaps could be a
vital account and ideas to possibly help us think about who and how I am
as I am - and who and how we are and have come to be as we are. ‽istis has
watched yet again a clip of film with Dr Bruce Perry presenting an overview of
a story-board that develops progressively with links from building-block to building block[ii] and which potentially takes
us:
·
from attachment:
where a ‘secure’ attachment is rooted in a loving relationship with a care-giver
or care-givers, that meets needs
·
to regulation
of feelings and emotions and responses, perhaps managed for us, then with us, then
internalised and self-managed
·
from affiliation:
recognition of connection with others, separate but together
·
to awareness
of similarities and differences perhaps arising from a sense of our
respective ‘uniqueness-es’
·
from tolerance
as similarities and differences are recognised, accepted and respected, maybe rooted
in our common-ness,
·
to recognition
that we are all perhaps part of a larger whole, a web of co-dependency, where
diversity is beneficial and necessary, where we are connected.
And there are many other relevant talks, lectures and
interviews to pursue (with/by Perry and others)[iii] if these ideas, and the
research that has informed them, perhaps helps me and you and us to make sense of our own experiences,
individually and together; if they possibly help us to find, recognise, encourage or support strengths; and if maybe they could even provide some
firm foundations and secure bases to (re-)build on – in theory and in practice.
© Pistis
NB: further reflections linked to this week’s theme
and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily
indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’: @Pistis_wonders
[i] https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-07/tl-pss_1071320.php
Six Core strengths for Healthy Child
Development (The Child Trauma Academy Channel)
[iii]
E.g: Social and Emotional Development in Childhood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkJwFRAwDNE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkJwFRAwDNE;
Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6kDeBaJi0M
and the related book by Maria Szalavitz and Bruce D. Perry
