A Positive Voice Can Counter-Act Our Negativity Bias 
You’ve probably heard we humans have a “negativity bias.” We easily notice and take in negative or threatening things and information, just as we scan the environment for possible dangers. This bias serves survival well, but it isn’t very helpful in other ways. Not only does it lead us to see dangers, it also inclines us to hear and take in negative comments and criticisms about ourselves much more readily than positive or . . .

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Adult Attachment Style Questionnaire

short version

Instructions: When completing this questionnaire, please focus on one significant adult relationship. It does not necessarily need to be a romantic relationship, but must be the individual with whom you feel the most connection. Who is your primary “go to” person if you’re sick, in trouble, want to celebrate, call with news, etc.? When responding, consider how strongly you identify with each statement. Using the scale below, respond in the space provided.This is not meant to be a diagnostic tool, but a starting point for you to begin to explore your attachment style.

Disagree 0      Sometimes Agree 1     Mostly Agree 2    Strongly Agree 3

SECTION 1  

1. I feel relaxed with my partner most of the time.
2. I find it easy to flow between being close and connected with my partner to being on my own.
3. If my partner and I hit a glitch, it is relatively easy for me to apologize, brainstorm a win-win solution, or repair the lack of attunement or disharmony.
4. People are essentially good at heart.
5. It is a priority to keep agreements with my partner.
6. I attempt to discover and meet the needs of my partner whenever possible and I feel comfortable expressing my own needs.
7. I actively protect my partner from others and from harm and attempt to maintain safety in our relationship.
8. I look at my partner with kindness and caring and look forward to our time together.
9. I am comfortable being affectionate with my partner.
10. I can keep secrets, protect my partner’s privacy, and respect boundaries.

Total Section 1 = _________

SECTION 2

1.  When my partner arrives home or approaches me, I feel inexplicably stressed – especially when he or she wants to connect.
2. I find myself minimizing the importance of close relationships in my life.
3. I insist on self-reliance; I have difficulty reaching out when I need help, and I do many of life’s tasks or my hobbies independently.
4. I sometimes feel superior in not needing others and wish others were more self-sufficient.
5. I feel like my partner is always there but would often prefer to have my own space unless I invite the connection.
6. Sometimes I prefer casual sex instead of a committed relationship.
7. I usually prefer relationships with things or animals instead of people.
8. I often find eye contact uncomfortable and particularly difficult to maintain.
9. It is easier for me to think things through than to express myself emotionally.
10. When I lose a relationship, at first I might experience separation elation and then become depressed.

Total Section 2 = ________

 SECTION 3

1. I am always yearning for something or someone that I feel I cannot have and rarely feeling satisfied.
2. Sometimes, I over-function, over-adapt, over-accommodate others, or over-apologize for things I didn’t do, in an attempt to stabilize connection.
3. Over-focusing on others, I tend to lose myself in relationships.
4. It is difficult for me to say NO or to set realistic boundaries.
5. I chronically second-guess myself and sometimes wish I had said something differently.
6. When I give more than I get, I often resent this and harbor a grudge. It is often difficult to receive love from my partner when they express it.
7. It is difficult for me to be alone. If alone, I feel stressed, abandoned, hurt and/or angry.
8. At the same time as I feel a deep wish to be close with my partner, I also have a paralyzing fear of losing the relationship.
9. I want to be close with my partner but feel angry at my partner at the same time. After anxiously awaiting my partner’s arrival, I end up picking fights.
10. I often tend to “merge” or lose myself in my partner and feel what they feel, or want what they want.

Total Section 3 = _____________

 SECTION 4

1. When I reach a certain level of intimacy with my partner, I sometimes experience inexplicable fear.
2. When presented with problems, I often feel stumped and feel they are irresolvable.
3. I have an exaggerated startle response when others approach me unexpectedly.
4. My partner often comments or complains that I am controlling.
5. I often expect the worst to happen in my relationship.
6. Protection often feels out of reach. I struggle to feel safe with my partner.
7. I have a hard time remembering and discussing the feelings related to my past attachment situations. I disconnect, dissociate, or get confused.
8. Stuck in approach-avoidance patterns with my partner, I want closeness but am also afraid of the one I desire to be close with.
9. My instinctive, active self-protective responses are often unavailable when possible danger is present – leaving me feeling immobilized, disconnected, or “gone”.
10. Because I am easily confused or disoriented, especially when stressed, it is important for my partner to keep arrangements simple and clear.

Total Section 4 = _______

Scoring:

For each section, add up your responses and record your total number. The section with the highest number will likely correspond to your attachment pattern. You may find a single dominant style or a mix of styles.   Both are fine and can help you become more aware of your experiences and patterns in important relationships. In fact, we can also view our patterns as a continuum in each of the categories.

Section1: Secure Attachment

Section 2: Avoidant Dismissive

Section 3: Anxious/Ambivalent/Pre-Occupied

Section 4: Disorganized/Avoidant/Fearful

This questionnaire is not meant to be a definitive label or diagnosis. It is only intended to suggest tendencies. You may want to further explore or to seek guidance from a qualified professional. Adapted in part from Fraley, R. C., Waller, N. G. & Brennan, K. G. (2000). An item response theory analysis of self-report measures of adult attachment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 350-365., and from Diane Poole Heller, Ph.D. Louisville, CO.

Attachment Styles of Adults Are Similar To Those Of Children

In 1987 psychologists Cindy Hazen and Philip Shaver made the first attempt to identify three patterns of attachment in adult romantic relationships, projecting from the patterns described by Ainsworth for infants. They used questionnaires to identify relationship security and the ways individuals rely on their partner as a a kind of secure base, while at the same time maintaining confidence and independence as individuals . . .

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Moving through life involves shifting through different roles, taking on new ones and stepping out of old ones.

You are someone’s child, you may be a sibling, you may be an athlete, a musician, an artist, a tinkerer, someone who enjoys social media, someone who meditates. You were once a student, but you may no longer have this role. You very likely have the role of someone with a career. Each role brings with it a set of activities, goals, expectations, skills and other components. Who we are is very much a function of the roles that we have and how we enact them. One of the ways we evaluate ourselves is considering how well we fulfill our various roles. Most people have a higher sense of self esteem in some roles than in others.

Taking on any new role, or losing a familiar one, brings a personal crisis. Although it may be exciting and very welcome, role changes require us to reconstitute ourselves. Each role shift marks a point and opportunity of personal development. Our roles give meaning to our lives, and for the most part, our days involve moving through the activities and purposes of our many roles. Each role change, whether adding a role or dropping one, involves an adaptation.

The role shift represented by becoming a parent is of course huge. Clearly it involves a change from being an independent adult, to becoming an adult with full-time responsibility for another very small person. For many people, it involves a shift from being a couple to being a couple with a baby, to eventually being a family. Becoming a first time parent includes both dropping a former role (being a couple or being an independent adult) as well as assuming an enormous new one.

The transition brings with it some changes that are not always obvious or easy. New parents who are familiar with infants and young children have learned and absorbed information about how infants behave and how to care for them. Regardless of previous experience, all parents grow into their new role with practice as they develop their skills and as they get to know both their infant and themselves.

New Ways of Evaluating Oneself

Becoming a parent, particularly becoming a mother, involves more than building new skills. It includes developing new ways for evaluating oneself as a mother, rather than as a working person, and requires different ways of structuring the environment and using time. Prior to parenthood, measures of self worth often center on effectiveness in the workforce. In these, there is high value in efficiency, multitasking, quick learning, eliminating unnecessary or redundant tasks, sticking with a timeline, and so on. All skills that are the antithesis of what is needed in caring for an infant. The first months of motherhood are a slow waltz. They require energy conservation, flexibility and learning to recognize and understand your infant. It inevitably means slowing down to an infant’s tempo for nursing, sleeping and being out in the world. It also means getting to know who you are now.

♥  Applying old forms of evaluation to the new role of parent can lead to a diminished sense of worth or a sense of being out of control.  These familiar forms of self-evaluation aren’t relevant.

The transition to new parenthood, particularly new motherhood, extends from biological changes due to hormonal shifts, to building a new sense of identity that includes new ways of valuing oneself.  It takes time.

It is absolutely impossible to be a perfect parent. It’s even impossible to know what a perfect parent would be.

Research shows that children thrive with parents’ love, nurturance, consistency and limits.  There is also abundant evidence that having knowledge about children’s development enables parents to have appropriate expectations, greater competence and more confidence. This is especially true today in our modern technological world, in which parents and children have many more options than in the past and require many new kinds of skills.  Even with great knowledge and understanding, we will be less than perfect, yet our children can still thrive and flourish.

Here’ why.

We humans are remarkably flexible, adaptable and resilient. We live in many different kinds of climates on the planet. We have created many different cultures that draw out and emphasize different aspects of our qualities and capacities. We are strong, clever and responsive in the face of challenges. We are keenly tuned into one another and have collaborated to invent and discover an astounding and ever expanding number of things. We are empathetic. We are determined.

♥  Children are endowed with this same astonishing flexibility and resilience. When we build a relationship with our children that is grounded in mutual respect and in love that doesn’t come with qualifications or contingencies, and when we guide our children with the kind of thoughtful attention suggested in the Guiding Principles, they survive our mistakes and imperfections. The good we offer as thoughtful parents is greater than the unskillful that happens.