I absolutely appreciate the concept of lens in this context. I first started thinking about this after I imagined what exactly happens when an infant first starts building the scaffolding for symbolic meaning. There is a wildly complex array of sensory and somatic layers that build up over many months.
It seemed like there was a similar thing going on. When someone gestures care or performs caring acts I don't have an internal reaction or even recognize it because I haven't 'learned', in a deep embodied way, what care looks like or what safe looks like or what home looks like.
All that to say, my metaphor is language but language in the sense of translating external gestures to internal states. To me it seems identical to the lens you are talking about. In both versions, people assemble this perception/translation as an adaptation to their developmental environment.
Yes, I think this is an important metaphor. Care isn’t always self-evident from the inside. A gesture can be caring in intention, but whether it registers as care depends on the meanings, expectations, and bodily predictions someone has learned over time.
That’s what I like about attachment as a lens: it helps us ask not ‘what type of person is this?’ but ‘how did this person come to experience care, safety, distance, or need this way? It sounds like you’ve given a lot of thought to yours.
"How did this person come to experience care, safety, distance, or need this way?"
Can we maybe give a person a new experience that would over time install a new lens or maybe slightly expand the lens?
I imagined a modified tea ritual that could be conducted in a clinical setting. It would attempt to recreate some of the conditions a day zero infant experiences when it is being fed. I have no idea if it could work, but my intuition is telling me that if we create the right conditions, something very interesting and maybe healing will happen.
I 100% think we can. :) It's central to the way my fave therapy model works. I'm usually trying to choreograph a corrective experience between two partners, but it can absolutely be done between a person and a therapist, or a person and their inner kid self. The key, in my model anyway, is a vulnerable ask and a loving response. Do that enough times and you change the wiring.
I absolutely appreciate the concept of lens in this context. I first started thinking about this after I imagined what exactly happens when an infant first starts building the scaffolding for symbolic meaning. There is a wildly complex array of sensory and somatic layers that build up over many months.
It seemed like there was a similar thing going on. When someone gestures care or performs caring acts I don't have an internal reaction or even recognize it because I haven't 'learned', in a deep embodied way, what care looks like or what safe looks like or what home looks like.
All that to say, my metaphor is language but language in the sense of translating external gestures to internal states. To me it seems identical to the lens you are talking about. In both versions, people assemble this perception/translation as an adaptation to their developmental environment.
Yes, I think this is an important metaphor. Care isn’t always self-evident from the inside. A gesture can be caring in intention, but whether it registers as care depends on the meanings, expectations, and bodily predictions someone has learned over time.
That’s what I like about attachment as a lens: it helps us ask not ‘what type of person is this?’ but ‘how did this person come to experience care, safety, distance, or need this way? It sounds like you’ve given a lot of thought to yours.
"How did this person come to experience care, safety, distance, or need this way?"
Can we maybe give a person a new experience that would over time install a new lens or maybe slightly expand the lens?
I imagined a modified tea ritual that could be conducted in a clinical setting. It would attempt to recreate some of the conditions a day zero infant experiences when it is being fed. I have no idea if it could work, but my intuition is telling me that if we create the right conditions, something very interesting and maybe healing will happen.
I 100% think we can. :) It's central to the way my fave therapy model works. I'm usually trying to choreograph a corrective experience between two partners, but it can absolutely be done between a person and a therapist, or a person and their inner kid self. The key, in my model anyway, is a vulnerable ask and a loving response. Do that enough times and you change the wiring.