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Friday, 23 May 2008
Vine swingers
Roses wants to know what happened at the all day training workshop last weekend. Well lots of things happened. One was that I did a presentation on different attachment styles. I got the participants to do a questionnaire to see what attachment style they used in their relationships. Afterwards most were silent and did not want to report what they got to the group. That is always a good sign that the exercise worked.
The other thing that I did was talk about the vine swinger. That person who is the tarzan of human relationships. They grab hold of the next relationship before they have let go of the last one just like tarzan did as he swung through the jungle from vine to vine. Why would they do such a thing? There are a number of reasons and one is shown in the diagram below.
The wife in the second diagram has a very big problem. She has a strong attachment to a person who is now deceased. Never underestimate the importance of human attachment. If one perceives such an attachment to be breaking down then that can make people do very strange things even to the point of murder and suicide.
The wife is about to suffer considerable pain. It is called grief or bereavement which can last for many months. If she does her bereavement well then she will finally get to the place of the last diagram. Because it is so painful then people will do all sorts of things to avoid it and one of those things is to become a vine swinger.
Some people find this a very difficult place to be in. Alone.
Hubby is now dead so she quickly grabs onto another one. Some times called the rebound relationship. And it works. It does lessen the pain of bereavement. The new person and the new relationship does take away some of the pain of grief about Hubby.
The downside of this is that it disrupts the grief process and thus she does not get to the third diagram. This can then result in:
1. The person stops living in the here and now. They are living in the past
2. The child part of them is thinking magically in that it believes at least partly that the person is still with us and they will behave at some level like the person is.
3. The attachment is not freed up so subsequent relationships are disrupted by that.
Unfortunately the old adage applies in such scenarios. Short term pain for long term gain. Have the pain of bereavement and thus the gain is less affected relationships in the future. Alas the vine swinger ends up with short term gain but long term pain.
One way people can formalize human attachment.
I might do more on the vine swinger in another post.
Graffiti
16:25 Permalink | Comments (20) | Email this
Comments
Hi Tony,
I'm really interested in attachment, not so much as you've written here but in the affects of things from childhood. I did an essay on attachment for my Children and Counselling unit recently. I've just requested a book from the library that's supposed to be good by Robert Karen on attachment as well. It is interesting how we attach to people, the reasons why and what draws us to certain people and not others.
Cheers..........KazzaB
Posted by: KazzaB | Friday, 23 May 2008
Yes KazzaB
it is a most interesting area of human psychology. Certainly volumes and volumes have been written on it.
Why we attach is also an enigmatic area of study. I have some ideas on that which are not usually said and I might say it later tonite, but I am just about to shoot out to the local boozer with a mate of mine and I am not too sure how long I will be there.
Tony
Posted by: Tony | Friday, 23 May 2008
Hi Tony,
What a wonderfully graphic name..
Vine swinger?
I wish I had been in the workshop so I could have done the questionnaire? Is it on the web?
Hope you have a good few ponys !!!!
Posted by: kahless | Friday, 23 May 2008
Haven't you heard that one before Kahless?
Vine swinger.
No I would doubt that that attachment questionnaire is on the web as I got it from a psychological research paper.
Not too sure about the 'ponys' as I am going to a pub called JB O'Reilly's. So it will be pints of Guiness.
Graffiti
Posted by: Tony | Friday, 23 May 2008
I'd love to hear more Tony. It's an interesting area and particularly of interest to me. I also hadn't heard of the term Vine Swinger.
Enjoy your pint(s) of Guiness!!
Posted by: KazzaB | Friday, 23 May 2008
Cool. I guess you can't really binge with Guiness as it is too heavy!
Hi KazzaB,
Freud wouldn't have come up with such a cool name would he?
Posted by: kahless | Friday, 23 May 2008
I reckon my uncle is a vine swinger. He is an american living in oz. Within months of splitting with his wife, he was with my aunt. She died after many years with him and within 2 months was living with another woman.
He was a cool dude. And he was tall like Tarzan. And liked wearing not a lot like Tarzan.
Posted by: kahless | Friday, 23 May 2008
I found this on the internet http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl
It's a questionaire on what your attachment style is. Is it similar to yours Tony? Only thing is that it's a romantic one and I'd like a general one. I still did it and got fearful/avoidant I think it was. Something like that.
Hi Kahless, It's a cool name. LOL My pop did the same as your uncle, within months of my nanna dying he had married another woman. This was before I was born but I believe my Aunty never forgave him. It caused a lot of ill feeling in the family.
Posted by: KazzaB | Saturday, 24 May 2008
This one has other more general ones on attachment
http://www.yourpersonality.net/
I'm wondering what you think of these types of questionaires Tony?
Posted by: KazzaB | Saturday, 24 May 2008
Hi KazzaB,
Regarding the first link you provide to the attachment questionairre. The author of that claims it comes from a journal article they wrote in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. If that is true then that is a reputable journal. It means it would have passed a comprehensive editorial process and thus it has a significant level of scientific merit.
So if it is true that it has been published in that journal then it has the backing of science. Does that make it a better questionairre? Is a debatable point.
Tony
Posted by: Tony | Saturday, 24 May 2008
I don't know Tony, re backing of science. It's interesting though and I think with anything like this there are a lot of variables. I take them with a pinch of salt but it is surprising how accurate they've been so far. LOL
Posted by: KazzaB | Saturday, 24 May 2008
Good name for a rock band "vine swingers" or perhaps a kinky winery Grafitti?
kenoath
Posted by: kenoath | Saturday, 24 May 2008
That is probably the best way to assess any psychological questionaire KazzaB,
What does the result mean to you? And if you get something from it then good
Tony
Posted by: Tony | Saturday, 24 May 2008
Good thought kenoath,
the name for the rock band.
Many years ago I used to go and watch a rock band at the local pubs called - Freudian slip.
Graffiti
Posted by: Graffiti | Saturday, 24 May 2008
It must be really difficult for some one who had a person to hold to suddenly not have anyone so close. Even if that person is ill and in need of care - if you as a couple has been all that's known then, i just can't imagine someone staying single for long. On the other hand though, it must be amazing to be single, in that it's got to be a whole different life compared to being in a relationship forever.
If i out live my hubby, i question greatly if i would ever even think of beginning another relationship again.
The elderly... that's got to be tough. I can understand a fast attachment in the case of an elderly person finding themselves alone after some years of marriage/relationship.
Kazza, i'm going to give those thingys ago. Ooo! I'm all excited now!
roses
Posted by: roses | Saturday, 24 May 2008
According to your questionnaire responses, your attachment-related anxiety score is 1.45, on a scale ranging from 1 (low anxiety) to 7 (high anxiety). Your attachment-related avoidance score is 2.89, on a scale ranging from 1 (low avoidance) to 7 (high avoidance).
http://www.web-research-design.net/cgi-bin/crq/crq.pl
I don't know if it will show up or not but that's then answer to my question and answer to the first url Kazza. I hope i didn't get all confused on which was which.
Thanks for that Kazza. Cheers
Posted by: roses | Saturday, 24 May 2008
You're welcome Roses. The first URL is more a questionaire on romantic attachment and the second URL is a series of general ones. They're interesting to do.
Posted by: KazzaB | Saturday, 24 May 2008
"According to your questionnaire responses, your attachment-related anxiety score is 1.22, on a scale ranging from 1 (low anxiety) to 7 (high anxiety). Your attachment-related avoidance score is 2.61, on a scale ranging from 1 (low avoidance) to 7 (high avoidance)."
I did on the second url Kazza, the one where you choose your own adventure and it turned out almost exactly the same?????
That seems a bit sus to me. How could i end up so close to the last score when the questions were do different?
Is this site rigged or something. Gosh it was fun though. Thanks for that. I want to go back and do all the others but i guess one at a time. Maybe like a garlic tablet - one a day?
Happy weekend!
roses
Posted by: roses | Saturday, 24 May 2008
KazzaB,
I got different answers on the two questionnaires. One focussed on my parents so I scored high anxiety and high avoidance. The other focussed on my partner so I got low avoidance low anxiety.
Are we saying we all dont have one attachment style but vary according to the person?
Posted by: Kahless | Saturday, 24 May 2008
I got Fearful/Avoidance with the relationship one and the partner one I just guessed really.
I don't know, re the different attachment styles varying according to the person. That's an interesting question. So you mean I'll have a different attachment style with a friend than with my parents? Yeah, I guess that would be right. What do you think Tony?
Posted by: KazzaB | Sunday, 25 May 2008