To attachment, it is my understanding that attachment style is forged for the most part along with the foundations of personality in the first 2-1/2 years of infancy. It becomes more deeply engrained through unconscious parenting and predicable self repeating patterns and behavior.
Thanks a lot!!! Just recently, and I am in my early sixties, I could relate to my mother' trauma inherited from her mother, my granny, which originated in the beginning of the Second World War, horrific stories, sadly ,never had the chance to properly speak with my mother about it, emotionally, before she has left this world.....those issues are so crucial, it must not be put under the carpet... much love from Serbia!
I watched the piece on limerance with pennies dropping all round. The link with childhood trauma had passed me by; another powerful and helpful interview, Piers, thank you!
Hi Nicky, thank you for your comment. Looking back on my boarding school experience I can resonate so much with all David shared about limerence. Thank you, take care, Piers
Hi @user-ql3ux3qw3p, I have reached out to a few academics but nothing has been fixed yet - they seemed too busy. I will chase them again. Thank you for the reminder, Take care, Piers
Martha Nussbaum wrote about the different types of objectifying people. It can be as simple as seeing all people in a group as the same. This is fungibility. Like if you are a woman, black person or a young person then you are expected to only like certain types of music. You are scorned for refusing invitations to go to a disco or nightclub. At the moment I am scorned retroactively. Then there is not allowing other people authority or agency over their own life. A visitor to your home is stopped from leaving your home early and told they are being rude. There is also instrumentality such as expecting a certain friend or family member to be available at all times to help you with baby sitting, providing meals, vehicle repairs or driving. Then there is ownership of others such as with slavery and European countries colonising other countries in Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas.
Great interview. so much to comment on but wrt to David's statement on the walking wounded, reaching adulthood with a seamless developmental history is not only impossible, but it flies in the face of the learning-unlearning imperative that necessarily leads to greater consciousness. What is laid down in the brain as learning is in constant need of enquiry and if necessary, change through unlearning and relearning again. It is a God given spiritual imperative to do so if we are to grow as we go through the short journey of human life! If not, we are born and go through life just as we came in, only to die of our wounds.
Thanks guys. Very interesting, as always. As a highly sensitive person, aka HSP, I am very attuned to other people's emotions and feelings. It's a hypervigilance that is very energy consuming and it takes conscious effort to keep it under control in order fto be able to focus on other things. It was worse when I grew up and I was young. I am able to control it better now that I'm past midddle age. I believe this level of sensitivity plays a huge role in sensing trauma in others even when they aren't consciously aware of that trauma themselves. Apropos intergenerational trauma. Well, all sorts of trauma really.
Thank you both of you for talking about Limerence. It is something I have been through five times from the age of fourteen to the age of forty five. May I give a warning to people who are friends with or are a therapist to someone with limerence. The person who has the love addiction is not necessarily ignorant of what is going on. They may know very very well - as I did with the four latest times it happened to me - that they don't really know the person and it is all based on fantasy. This intellectual knowledge - vital though it is - does not neatly switch of the feeling of limerence like someone switching off a light switch. If you tell the person, however politely, that they are living in la la land you might be telling them something they have made very personally sure they know already. Your remark can be deeply humiliating and insulting to them as it will encourage their inner critic into action telling them of their infantile naivety with a great big megaphone. The other thing is don't - because they have these limerence feelings tell them that they are behaving like a child. There needs to be a sharp division between feelings and behaviour here. Many adults may at various times feel like a child. In a way it is part of being an adult. You just have to keep going even though you have this sense of childlike insecurity with your adult status. Adults are only childish if they behave like a child - or rather behave like a brat. I lost a friendship with a very bossy and dictatorial friend because she could not see this difference between feelings and behaviour when it come to my limerence. At the time I was being super disciplined about how I was behaving with the person I was having the love addiction to. The feelings of limerence may also be very very difficult not because the person is stalking their beloved and trying to emotionally blackmail them into having a relationship like a brat. It may be difficult because they are (for the moment) stuck doing the same type of job along side each other as was the case with me and the last time limerence happened to me. The person was not aware of my feelings and announced in the staff room they were getting engaged to their long term partner and that they were leaving work. Because she saw me as a friend (purely of a platonic sort) she wanted to invite me to her wedding party and still keep up with our platonic friendship. When she had left her job (I made some excuse not to be at the wedding party) she was still saying "but we really must meet for a coffee" I felt I had to write her an email. I admitted to my feelings in an unshowy way and that I felt it would be better if I just left her and her soon to be husband (who was and no doubt is a very nice guy) to get on with their lives. She very much accepted this. Although there was a lot of fantasy involved I felt there was an adult part of me that did love and respect her and that was the part that let her go. I knew I had done the right thing but sometimes even though I have a very busy life and many really good friends it still hurts like hell. But as far as I am concerned if you want to help someone with limerance then listen to them and do not judge them. And invite them out in the evening with a nice benevolent gang of people to keep their mind off things and help slowly but surely to erode the toxic fantasy away. Although I still sometimes feel like hell I think my own has eroded considerably. The other thing I would say is for the limerant person the best thing is to keep busy at work and socially busy but not try and solve things by rebounding into another relationship. It would not be fair on both of you. I think the relationship will come later once the internal work is done.
This is a fascinating conversation. Why parents who have been to boarding school send their children to boarding school is a key question. I am not saying this is the whole answer but I think it is to do with the fact that if they decided not to send their child to boarding school then that would involve facing head on the damage and trauma their own boarding school experience did to them. If they send their child on they can always be rather in denial about it. Or they can factually say what happened to them but not admit, least of all to themselves, how much it hurt and damaged them. And how that hurt and damage lingers. They can also do what I see as the old country and western routine about how boarding school did hurt but it made them grow up tough and be a man and now you will be a man too. This though is just my theory. Other people will have other ideas that no doubt are just as valid. Although I think this has gone on I don't think it was the case with my parents. My father told me that he thought that nowadays boarding schools would be much better than the ones he went to and would be more humane with no capital punishment and caning. There was certainly no corporal punishment from teachers - though there was plenty from the pupils. He also had a tip off that my house master was a very good house master and he put a lot of trust in the man for that reason. I can see no rational reason why my father would lie about this. He is essentially a very good man. And a very honorable one. What he did not realise - and he was far from alone in this - was that because the house master was quite soft and quite distanced it meant that the tyranny may not have come from him but it certainly did come from the boys. The other thing he thought was that there would be the matron to keep an eye on things. Not so. There was very little that was gentle or supportive about her.
Thanks for sharing Richard. Yes, I so agree. The violence usually came from the teachers or the pupils, and sometimes both. Usually one or the other. And yes, Matron in most stories I have read is very distant and remote and in Charles Spencer's case quite nasty. Take care, Piers
If you want to understand a bit about limerence but are fortunate enough never to have gone through it then look at Sam Gamgees attitude to elves in Lord of the Rings.
To attachment, it is my understanding that attachment style is forged for the most part along with the foundations of personality in the first 2-1/2 years of infancy. It becomes more deeply engrained through unconscious parenting and predicable self repeating patterns and behavior.
Thanks a lot!!! Just recently, and I am in my early sixties, I could relate to my mother' trauma inherited from her mother, my granny, which originated in the beginning of the Second World War, horrific stories, sadly ,never had the chance to properly speak with my mother about it, emotionally, before she has left this world.....those issues are so crucial, it must not be put under the carpet... much love from Serbia!
Thank you Biljana for sharing. I am glad that you found it helpful, take care, Piers
I watched the piece on limerance with pennies dropping all round. The link with childhood trauma had passed me by; another powerful and helpful interview, Piers, thank you!
Hi Nicky, thank you for your comment. Looking back on my boarding school experience I can resonate so much with all David shared about limerence. Thank you, take care, Piers
Piers you should do a piece of the Native American boardind schools.
Hi @user-ql3ux3qw3p, I have reached out to a few academics but nothing has been fixed yet - they seemed too busy. I will chase them again. Thank you for the reminder, Take care, Piers
Fascinating and very helpful. Many thanks both for recording this.
Thanks Ben, I am glad that you found it useful. I too found it an amazing episode, Take care, Piers
What you discussed about objectifying people was a real light bulb moment for me. Thanks as always!
Martha Nussbaum wrote about the different types of objectifying people. It can be as simple as seeing all people in a group as the same. This is fungibility. Like if you are a woman, black person or a young person then you are expected to only like certain types of music. You are scorned for refusing invitations to go to a disco or nightclub. At the moment I am scorned retroactively.
Then there is not allowing other people authority or agency over their own life. A visitor to your home is stopped from leaving your home early and told they are being rude.
There is also instrumentality such as expecting a certain friend or family member to be available at all times to help you with baby sitting, providing meals, vehicle repairs or driving.
Then there is ownership of others such as with slavery and European countries colonising other countries in Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas.
Great interview. so much to comment on but wrt to David's statement on the walking wounded, reaching adulthood with a seamless developmental history is not only impossible, but it flies in the face of the learning-unlearning imperative that necessarily leads to greater consciousness. What is laid down in the brain as learning is in constant need of enquiry and if necessary, change through unlearning and relearning again. It is a God given spiritual imperative to do so if we are to grow as we go through the short journey of human life! If not, we are born and go through life just as we came in, only to die of our wounds.
Thanks for sharing @SongwritingLPT2023 your insights, take care, Piers
Thanks guys. Very interesting, as always.
As a highly sensitive person, aka HSP, I am very attuned to other people's emotions and feelings. It's a hypervigilance that is very energy consuming and it takes conscious effort to keep it under control in order fto be able to focus on other things. It was worse when I grew up and I was young. I am able to control it better now that I'm past midddle age. I believe this level of sensitivity plays a huge role in sensing trauma in others even when they aren't consciously aware of that trauma themselves. Apropos intergenerational trauma. Well, all sorts of trauma really.
Thank you @alienspotter422, glad that you found this episode interesting. Take care, Piers
Limerence / wound connection...
Thank you both of you for talking about Limerence. It is something I have been through five times from the age of fourteen to the age of forty five. May I give a warning to people who are friends with or are a therapist to someone with limerence. The person who has the love addiction is not necessarily ignorant of what is going on. They may know very very well - as I did with the four latest times it happened to me - that they don't really know the person and it is all based on fantasy. This intellectual knowledge - vital though it is - does not neatly switch of the feeling of limerence like someone switching off a light switch. If you tell the person, however politely, that they are living in la la land you might be telling them something they have made very personally sure they know already. Your remark can be deeply humiliating and insulting to them as it will encourage their inner critic into action telling them of their infantile naivety with a great big megaphone. The other thing is don't - because they have these limerence feelings tell them that they are behaving like a child. There needs to be a sharp division between feelings and behaviour here. Many adults may at various times feel like a child. In a way it is part of being an adult. You just have to keep going even though you have this sense of childlike insecurity with your adult status. Adults are only childish if they behave like a child - or rather behave like a brat. I lost a friendship with a very bossy and dictatorial friend because she could not see this difference between feelings and behaviour when it come to my limerence. At the time I was being super disciplined about how I was behaving with the person I was having the love addiction to. The feelings of limerence may also be very very difficult not because the person is stalking their beloved and trying to emotionally blackmail them into having a relationship like a brat. It may be difficult because they are (for the moment) stuck doing the same type of job along side each other as was the case with me and the last time limerence happened to me. The person was not aware of my feelings and announced in the staff room they were getting engaged to their long term partner and that they were leaving work. Because she saw me as a friend (purely of a platonic sort) she wanted to invite me to her wedding party and still keep up with our platonic friendship. When she had left her job (I made some excuse not to be at the wedding party) she was still saying "but we really must meet for a coffee" I felt I had to write her an email. I admitted to my feelings in an unshowy way and that I felt it would be better if I just left her and her soon to be husband (who was and no doubt is a very nice guy) to get on with their lives. She very much accepted this. Although there was a lot of fantasy involved I felt there was an adult part of me that did love and respect her and that was the part that let her go. I knew I had done the right thing but sometimes even though I have a very busy life and many really good friends it still hurts like hell. But as far as I am concerned if you want to help someone with limerance then listen to them and do not judge them. And invite them out in the evening with a nice benevolent gang of people to keep their mind off things and help slowly but surely to erode the toxic fantasy away. Although I still sometimes feel like hell I think my own has eroded considerably. The other thing I would say is for the limerant person the best thing is to keep busy at work and socially busy but not try and solve things by rebounding into another relationship. It would not be fair on both of you. I think the relationship will come later once the internal work is done.
Thank you Richard for sharing. Take care, Piers
Patrick Teahan, a family therapist, made a video to talk about this, too.
Thank you @lemsip207, I will look him up, take care, Piers
This is a fascinating conversation. Why parents who have been to boarding school send their children to boarding school is a key question. I am not saying this is the whole answer but I think it is to do with the fact that if they decided not to send their child to boarding school then that would involve facing head on the damage and trauma their own boarding school experience did to them. If they send their child on they can always be rather in denial about it. Or they can factually say what happened to them but not admit, least of all to themselves, how much it hurt and damaged them. And how that hurt and damage lingers. They can also do what I see as the old country and western routine about how boarding school did hurt but it made them grow up tough and be a man and now you will be a man too. This though is just my theory. Other people will have other ideas that no doubt are just as valid. Although I think this has gone on I don't think it was the case with my parents. My father told me that he thought that nowadays boarding schools would be much better than the ones he went to and would be more humane with no capital punishment and caning. There was certainly no corporal punishment from teachers - though there was plenty from the pupils. He also had a tip off that my house master was a very good house master and he put a lot of trust in the man for that reason. I can see no rational reason why my father would lie about this. He is essentially a very good man. And a very honorable one. What he did not realise - and he was far from alone in this - was that because the house master was quite soft and quite distanced it meant that the tyranny may not have come from him but it certainly did come from the boys. The other thing he thought was that there would be the matron to keep an eye on things. Not so. There was very little that was gentle or supportive about her.
Thanks for sharing Richard. Yes, I so agree. The violence usually came from the teachers or the pupils, and sometimes both. Usually one or the other. And yes, Matron in most stories I have read is very distant and remote and in Charles Spencer's case quite nasty. Take care, Piers
If you want to understand a bit about limerence but are fortunate enough never to have gone through it then look at Sam Gamgees attitude to elves in Lord of the Rings.