what exactly is attachment as children
we form bonds with our parents and other
caregivers in different ways most of us
are securely attached this means that we
had parents and other caregivers who
were there for us consistently when it
really counted attachment has just as
much to do with how you view yourself
that’s how you relate to others so if
you’re securely attached you tend to
view yourself in a positive way you
value your relationships with other
people and importantly for our talk you
tend to be more self reflective in a
study done of 14,000 children born in
the u.s. in 2001 60% were classified as
secure 25% were classified as avoidant
meaning their caregivers were sometimes
unavailable and hostile towards them the
child responds by withdrawing and
learning to be more independent as
adults they tend to view themselves as
superior and they often want distance
from their romantic partners because of
gender conditioning many men turn out
this way many girls turn out to be
anxiously attached where their
caregivers were inconsistent and the
child responded by trying to get their
attention adults they tend to view
themselves as unworthy and they can be
clingy and emotionally impulsive
partners the remaining 15% of the
children from the 2001 study were
anxiously attached we’re going to argue
here today that even if you might not be
securely attached you can still learn to
be that way as children you might have
had teachers or extended family who did
support you so you grow up to value
yourself and others as adults we can
also learn secure attachment through
healthy relationships whether platonic
or romantic in terms of romance most of
us do it with one partner at a time
because in our culture we value monogamy
however there are more and more people
who are choosing to do low
in a bit of a different way by exploring
polyamory where you can have more than
one romantic relationship with the
consent of all your partners if any of
you view yourself in a negative way it
might be hard to believe that more than
one person can love you in a deep and
meaningful way however if you
experienced any sort of trauma growing
up which many of us have having loving
committed multiple relationships can
show you what love can really look like
and our culture
monogamy is generally a given either
your parents are still together and
there are only two of them or like mine
your parents split up and sought out
other monogamous relationships
subsequently we go into relationships
thinking that that is what we want we
might even think that attachment is
stronger when there are only two people
involved however there are cultures
where attachment looks a little bit
different and this can depend on the
presence of individualism or
collectivism those two terms
individualism and collectivism the
cultural classification terms the term
individualism or an individualistic
culture is a culture where the emphasis
is on the person so each individual is
seen as unique on the other hand the
collective same culture is one that has
the core unit as the group so the
emphasis is on togetherness and
individuals fit into societal values the
culture you live in impacts how you
attach even past your formative years
for instance I’m from Kenya in East
Africa were a country with a rich
collectivist cultural background
exemplified by our national motto
harambe
which translates to all put together I
developed a secure attachment throughout
my formative years with support for my
parents but as I matured my values
morphed and by the time I moved to
Canada
I’d began embracing the notion everybody
for themselves which is more prevalent
in individualistic societies and
supported by avoidant attachment style
but that contradicts the culture I grew
up in and even contradicts how I was
brought up but contradiction actually
highlights the neurons in cultural
classification research is not
conclusive on what car
impacts what sort of value system what
is clear though is that your immediate
culture impacts how you touch and
impacts your personal values or
psychological values such as what you
think of yourself or your self-concept
we contend that while culture may
influence your values and concept of
self
it must not dictate them knowing that
culture will influence your values in
concept of self is ineffective in
shielding it without action it’s like if
you’ve ever seen a farmer who has fought
a land but never tells it when there is
rain there won’t be much growth how do
we act upon this information to
influence what we think of ourselves
what we need to devise a realistic
strategies and implementable techniques
that will allow us to see the world in
multiple perspectives without losing
sight of our own if we implement this
impact for self reflection techniques we
begin to see the world in multiple
perspectives understanding others and
empathetically accept their actions
these are the values and the qualities
of securely attached dividuals which
based on attachment theory you could
have that from your upbringing but it’s
also clear that a better understanding
of oneself promotes a secure attachment
so what is this better understanding of
oneself that I’m talking about Socrates
argued that to know thyself is the
beginning of wisdom now some of you may
think here well I’m quite sure I know
myself so what’s your point but let me
ask you this the self that you know now
how does that compare to the one you
knew a month ago or a year ago or even a
decade see knowing yourself is a
continuous process we are constantly
experiencing new things we keep changing
whether by chance or choice but we do
not grow from our experiences if we fail
to understand them and adjust based on
what we’ve learned and if we fail to
expand our knowledge based on the
experiences we’ve had our inconveniences
become obstacles the challenges we face
we get stress and anxiety and we fail to
see the simplest of solutions in
situations so knowing yourself requires
a continued evaluation of your values
and concept of self with consideration
for new experiences actually
psychologists have found that human
beings are quite motivated to analyse
their emotions when they experience
traumatic events but decades of research
into the benefits of asking why have
come up with contradictory results so
hear me out on the one hand
self-reflection has been shown to
transform perspectives and has been
shown to lead to a better understanding
of one’s strengths and flaws on the
other hand an assessment of one’s flows
has been sure to lean to rumination
where participants focus on the negative
part of an experience and end up poorly
assessing their own values leading to
diminished sense of self some of us have
actually gone into at some point so the
caveat here is that successful
self-reflection is not about theories
you need to be practical in how you
approach things and understand what
works for you I’ll give you two
techniques that we have come across
through research and I’ve also been
deemed useful from our personal
experiences the first technique is
called Gibbs reflective cycle it’s a six
step model the first step is to describe
what happened and then the second step
is to list down your feelings or what
you are feeling during the event and
then the third step is to evaluate the
good or the bad of the event these first
three steps require your objectivity
because you’re recollecting an event
that you went through traumatic or not
then the fourth step is to analyze the
event
now when I say analyze I mean what do
you make of the event and this is
arguably the most important step because
what you think about something is based
on your values and self-concept or how
you view yourself and then the fifth
step is to conclude by listening down
what could have been done differently to
lead to a better outcome and the final
step is to devise an action plan for
future events if you ever faced that
similar event now quite clearly if you
are recollecting a traumatic event it
might be challenging to be objective
about the details of the event so to
circumvent that you can apply the second
technique which is called self or
psychological distancing some of you
might have heard of the statement take a
step back so what this technique
proposes is instead of revision izing
the experience as though you were going
through it again you take a step back
and observe yourself from a perspective
of a fly-on-the-wall this technique has
been likened to getting help from a
friend or even a therapist because you
get
a new perspective on the event which
could be objective because it’s not
fully immersed in the event and then you
can apply similar steps to the one-game
cycle to conclude by having an
alternative ways of action and an action
plan for the future these two techniques
we’ve talked about they’re very useful
when you’re dealing with event
recollection and that’s all good but the
caveat is self-reflection is not just
about recollecting events that have
happened before set reflection can be
useful in day-to-day strategies for
dealing with stressful situations and
the more you understand yourself the
more security becoming yourself and
arguably then self reflection bridges
the gap between what you are and your
self-concept and you become more secure
now in terms of our concept of self it
can be shaped by so many different
factors for myself I grew up as the
child of two social workers and I might
be Co studying social work I also
started writing poetry as a teenager and
this gave me a chance to express how I
was feeling and reflect upon important
events in my life I would consider
myself to be securely attached and
research has shown that there is a link
between secure attachment and
self-reflection there was a study done
by Dawson and her colleagues in 1999
where mothers who were about to give
birth were put into a PET scan machine
so researchers could see what happens in
the brain what they found is that after
the baby arrived and mom and her newborn
were connecting in a positive way both
of their right brains lit up the right
brain is the seat of cognition and it’s
associated with activities like
self-reflection according to her Vic and
his colleagues interestingly another
study found that if you’re anxious or
avoidant lis attached you’re less likely
to have resolved early trauma so you’re
less likely to have thought about events
that have affected how you attached if
you do engage in some self-reflection
you might think about what happened to
you as a child and how that’s affected
how you would relate to people as an
adult to conclude there are many ways
that you can self reflect whether by
using the techniques mentioned by
Stephen or just
speaking with a friend we would like to
challenge you to take 10 minutes at the
end of your day rate the day between 1
and 10 with 10 being the best outcome
and see what adjustments you could make
to have a 10 out of 10 remember you
don’t have control of all that happens
in your daily life that’s out of your
jurisdiction what you do have control
over is your reaction in those
situations and that can make the
difference between a 1 and 10
self-reflection doesn’t have to be time
consuming and it can help you have a
better relationship with yourself and
others
now in terms of our adult attachments
the landscape of romance keeps changing
as you self reflect you might think
about whether you want to be monogamous
or whether you want to explore something
like polyamory some people think that if
you have multiple partners it’s a way to
avoid intimacy but polyamorous
individuals tend to be more trusting
faithful and secure which leads to
greater relationship satisfaction so as
you reflect upon how you attach and
relate to others and your culture we
hope that this gives you a chance to be
the person you wish to be thank you so
much [Applause]
we form bonds with our parents and other
caregivers in different ways most of us
are securely attached this means that we
had parents and other caregivers who
were there for us consistently when it
really counted attachment has just as
much to do with how you view yourself
that’s how you relate to others so if
you’re securely attached you tend to
view yourself in a positive way you
value your relationships with other
people and importantly for our talk you
tend to be more self reflective in a
study done of 14,000 children born in
the u.s. in 2001 60% were classified as
secure 25% were classified as avoidant
meaning their caregivers were sometimes
unavailable and hostile towards them the
child responds by withdrawing and
learning to be more independent as
adults they tend to view themselves as
superior and they often want distance
from their romantic partners because of
gender conditioning many men turn out
this way many girls turn out to be
anxiously attached where their
caregivers were inconsistent and the
child responded by trying to get their
attention adults they tend to view
themselves as unworthy and they can be
clingy and emotionally impulsive
partners the remaining 15% of the
children from the 2001 study were
anxiously attached we’re going to argue
here today that even if you might not be
securely attached you can still learn to
be that way as children you might have
had teachers or extended family who did
support you so you grow up to value
yourself and others as adults we can
also learn secure attachment through
healthy relationships whether platonic
or romantic in terms of romance most of
us do it with one partner at a time
because in our culture we value monogamy
however there are more and more people
who are choosing to do low
in a bit of a different way by exploring
polyamory where you can have more than
one romantic relationship with the
consent of all your partners if any of
you view yourself in a negative way it
might be hard to believe that more than
one person can love you in a deep and
meaningful way however if you
experienced any sort of trauma growing
up which many of us have having loving
committed multiple relationships can
show you what love can really look like
and our culture
monogamy is generally a given either
your parents are still together and
there are only two of them or like mine
your parents split up and sought out
other monogamous relationships
subsequently we go into relationships
thinking that that is what we want we
might even think that attachment is
stronger when there are only two people
involved however there are cultures
where attachment looks a little bit
different and this can depend on the
presence of individualism or
collectivism those two terms
individualism and collectivism the
cultural classification terms the term
individualism or an individualistic
culture is a culture where the emphasis
is on the person so each individual is
seen as unique on the other hand the
collective same culture is one that has
the core unit as the group so the
emphasis is on togetherness and
individuals fit into societal values the
culture you live in impacts how you
attach even past your formative years
for instance I’m from Kenya in East
Africa were a country with a rich
collectivist cultural background
exemplified by our national motto
harambe
which translates to all put together I
developed a secure attachment throughout
my formative years with support for my
parents but as I matured my values
morphed and by the time I moved to
Canada
I’d began embracing the notion everybody
for themselves which is more prevalent
in individualistic societies and
supported by avoidant attachment style
but that contradicts the culture I grew
up in and even contradicts how I was
brought up but contradiction actually
highlights the neurons in cultural
classification research is not
conclusive on what car
impacts what sort of value system what
is clear though is that your immediate
culture impacts how you touch and
impacts your personal values or
psychological values such as what you
think of yourself or your self-concept
we contend that while culture may
influence your values and concept of
self
it must not dictate them knowing that
culture will influence your values in
concept of self is ineffective in
shielding it without action it’s like if
you’ve ever seen a farmer who has fought
a land but never tells it when there is
rain there won’t be much growth how do
we act upon this information to
influence what we think of ourselves
what we need to devise a realistic
strategies and implementable techniques
that will allow us to see the world in
multiple perspectives without losing
sight of our own if we implement this
impact for self reflection techniques we
begin to see the world in multiple
perspectives understanding others and
empathetically accept their actions
these are the values and the qualities
of securely attached dividuals which
based on attachment theory you could
have that from your upbringing but it’s
also clear that a better understanding
of oneself promotes a secure attachment
so what is this better understanding of
oneself that I’m talking about Socrates
argued that to know thyself is the
beginning of wisdom now some of you may
think here well I’m quite sure I know
myself so what’s your point but let me
ask you this the self that you know now
how does that compare to the one you
knew a month ago or a year ago or even a
decade see knowing yourself is a
continuous process we are constantly
experiencing new things we keep changing
whether by chance or choice but we do
not grow from our experiences if we fail
to understand them and adjust based on
what we’ve learned and if we fail to
expand our knowledge based on the
experiences we’ve had our inconveniences
become obstacles the challenges we face
we get stress and anxiety and we fail to
see the simplest of solutions in
situations so knowing yourself requires
a continued evaluation of your values
and concept of self with consideration
for new experiences actually
psychologists have found that human
beings are quite motivated to analyse
their emotions when they experience
traumatic events but decades of research
into the benefits of asking why have
come up with contradictory results so
hear me out on the one hand
self-reflection has been shown to
transform perspectives and has been
shown to lead to a better understanding
of one’s strengths and flaws on the
other hand an assessment of one’s flows
has been sure to lean to rumination
where participants focus on the negative
part of an experience and end up poorly
assessing their own values leading to
diminished sense of self some of us have
actually gone into at some point so the
caveat here is that successful
self-reflection is not about theories
you need to be practical in how you
approach things and understand what
works for you I’ll give you two
techniques that we have come across
through research and I’ve also been
deemed useful from our personal
experiences the first technique is
called Gibbs reflective cycle it’s a six
step model the first step is to describe
what happened and then the second step
is to list down your feelings or what
you are feeling during the event and
then the third step is to evaluate the
good or the bad of the event these first
three steps require your objectivity
because you’re recollecting an event
that you went through traumatic or not
then the fourth step is to analyze the
event
now when I say analyze I mean what do
you make of the event and this is
arguably the most important step because
what you think about something is based
on your values and self-concept or how
you view yourself and then the fifth
step is to conclude by listening down
what could have been done differently to
lead to a better outcome and the final
step is to devise an action plan for
future events if you ever faced that
similar event now quite clearly if you
are recollecting a traumatic event it
might be challenging to be objective
about the details of the event so to
circumvent that you can apply the second
technique which is called self or
psychological distancing some of you
might have heard of the statement take a
step back so what this technique
proposes is instead of revision izing
the experience as though you were going
through it again you take a step back
and observe yourself from a perspective
of a fly-on-the-wall this technique has
been likened to getting help from a
friend or even a therapist because you
get
a new perspective on the event which
could be objective because it’s not
fully immersed in the event and then you
can apply similar steps to the one-game
cycle to conclude by having an
alternative ways of action and an action
plan for the future these two techniques
we’ve talked about they’re very useful
when you’re dealing with event
recollection and that’s all good but the
caveat is self-reflection is not just
about recollecting events that have
happened before set reflection can be
useful in day-to-day strategies for
dealing with stressful situations and
the more you understand yourself the
more security becoming yourself and
arguably then self reflection bridges
the gap between what you are and your
self-concept and you become more secure
now in terms of our concept of self it
can be shaped by so many different
factors for myself I grew up as the
child of two social workers and I might
be Co studying social work I also
started writing poetry as a teenager and
this gave me a chance to express how I
was feeling and reflect upon important
events in my life I would consider
myself to be securely attached and
research has shown that there is a link
between secure attachment and
self-reflection there was a study done
by Dawson and her colleagues in 1999
where mothers who were about to give
birth were put into a PET scan machine
so researchers could see what happens in
the brain what they found is that after
the baby arrived and mom and her newborn
were connecting in a positive way both
of their right brains lit up the right
brain is the seat of cognition and it’s
associated with activities like
self-reflection according to her Vic and
his colleagues interestingly another
study found that if you’re anxious or
avoidant lis attached you’re less likely
to have resolved early trauma so you’re
less likely to have thought about events
that have affected how you attached if
you do engage in some self-reflection
you might think about what happened to
you as a child and how that’s affected
how you would relate to people as an
adult to conclude there are many ways
that you can self reflect whether by
using the techniques mentioned by
Stephen or just
speaking with a friend we would like to
challenge you to take 10 minutes at the
end of your day rate the day between 1
and 10 with 10 being the best outcome
and see what adjustments you could make
to have a 10 out of 10 remember you
don’t have control of all that happens
in your daily life that’s out of your
jurisdiction what you do have control
over is your reaction in those
situations and that can make the
difference between a 1 and 10
self-reflection doesn’t have to be time
consuming and it can help you have a
better relationship with yourself and
others
now in terms of our adult attachments
the landscape of romance keeps changing
as you self reflect you might think
about whether you want to be monogamous
or whether you want to explore something
like polyamory some people think that if
you have multiple partners it’s a way to
avoid intimacy but polyamorous
individuals tend to be more trusting
faithful and secure which leads to
greater relationship satisfaction so as
you reflect upon how you attach and
relate to others and your culture we
hope that this gives you a chance to be
the person you wish to be thank you so
much [Applause]
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