Dancing Elephants – how our unconscious minds interact
“Humans are 90% chimp and 10% bee.” Jonathan Haidt
Connection
What is attachment?
The old concepts are about babies bonding to their mother or baby animals “imprinting” on a human and following them around. But we are increasingly realising that attachment is everywhere.
Attachment is just connection over time. It happens in both the emotional (unconscious) brain and in the conceptual (linguistic) brain. Your dog instantly recognizes you and remembers. In our conscious brains we hold our story about the other person which comes up a bit more slowly but is still powerful.
Adult attachment (aka connection)
Adult attachment with our significant other
Adult attachment with friends
Adult attachment with colleagues, clients, and customers
Attachment in groups (membership and hiving)
We can have a connection with a group or just with a group dynamic.
We can have a connection with a tribe (a collection of groups or families).
“Hiving”
The dynamics of attachment
Feedback loops
Attachment security
Expectations and stories in our head
Attachment types
Our multiple Selves in attachment
Chaos theory and (the madness of crowds and the wisdom of crowds)
Sidebars:
- “What is our deal?” “Where do I stand with you? You with me?” The hidden power of “win-win.”
- Jung, Meyers-Briggs, Strengths Finder
- The mathematics of connection, attachment, and feedback loops, in pairs and systems (the fractal “chaos theory” of group dynamics (elephant dancing).
Work this iPad update into the above:
Connection and attachment
“Humans are 90% chimp and 10% bee.” Jonathan Haidt
What is attachment? Connection happens here and now. Attachment is the dynamic of connection over time.
Updating older concepts of attachment:
Infant bonding and imprinting
The study of adult attachment is recent even not widely known.
Attachment is actually everywhere.
We need a Gottman to study and describe the dynamics of work relationships.
Safety
Adult attachment (aka connection) – what it looks like and how it works:
Adult attachment with our significant other
Adult attachment with friends
Adult attachment with colleagues, clients, and customers
Attachment in groups (membership and hiving);
We can have a connection with a group or a group dynamic.
We can have a connection with a tribe (a collection of groups or families).
“Hiving,” the tribal dynamic of attachment: community, patriotism, sports fans.
The dynamics of attachment
Reciprocity and feedback loops
Attachment security
Our expectations and the stories in our head
Attachment types (anxious, avoidant, mixed, disorganized)
Our different selves in attachment
Groups
Sidebars:
• Attachment in the languages of business. “What is our deal?” Note not a deal in the sense of a transaction, but our mutual understanding of where we are with each other: “Where do I stand with you? You with me?” It includes the awesome but often undervalued power of “win-win.”
• The unconscious. Jung, Meyers-Briggs, and Strengths Finder.
• The mathematics of connection and attachment; feedback loops in pairs and systems, resonance; the chaos (including fractal) mathematics of group dynamics (elephant dancing).
• the madness of crowds and the wisdom of crowds
From Dancing Elephants – How Our Unconscious Selves Interact
Elephants and Economics 