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122 CHAPTER 9 Attachment Theory and Self-Disclosure Strengthening the Teacher-Student Bond The protocols described in chapter 8 help not only to lessen the possibility that students will be harmed in the self-disclosing classroom but also to strengthen their attachment to classmates and teacher. The success of any pedagogy based on self-disclosure depends on the empathic bonds that permit students to reveal painful or shameful aspects of their lives without the fear of being criticized or attacked. Attachment theory, formulated by the English psychoanalyst John Bowlby in his landmark three-volume work Attachment and Loss, implies that the longing for human connection is as instinctual as hunger or sexuality. Bowlby’s research focused on the parent-child relationship, but it also has profound implications for psychotherapy. M. D. S. Ainsworth noted in her obituary on Bowlby in 1992 that attachment theory “has had a stronger impact on American psychology than any other theory of personality development since Sigmund Freud” (668). As Jeremy Holmes suggests, the best predictor of success in psychotherapy is a “positive therapeutic alliance, which can be understood as secure attachment ” (118). Holmes demonstrates that secure attachment creates a paradoxical state of intimacy and autonomy: “Autonomy is possible on the basis of a secure inner world—we can go out on a limb, stand our ground, make our own choices, and tolerate aloneness if we can be sure that attachment and intimacy are available when needed. Conversely, intimacy is possible if the loved one can be allowed to be separate; we can allow ourselves to get close if we feel autonomous enough not to fear engulfment or attack, and also know that separation does not mean that our loved one will be lost forever” (19). Attachment theory has no less relevance to education in that students’ success depends upon their strong attachments to teachers. As I observe in Empathic Teaching, “Teachers who make a difference in their students’ lives and who are regarded as supportive, dependable, and empathic be27460 part 02.indd 122 27460 part 02.indd 122 10/2/07 2:06:24 PM 10/2/07 2:06:24 PM Attachment Theory and Self-Disclosure 123 come attachment figures, and they are the ones whom students regard as instrumental in their personal and professional lives” (109). If we extend the meaning of Holmes’s reference to a “secure inner world” to the empathic classroom, we can see how students’ autonomy derives from a feeling of security. They can make risky self-disclosures in their diaries and essays, revealing experiences they might otherwise be reluctant to share for fear of being viewed as different or, worse, as “sick” or “crazy.” They can tolerate frightening feelings that are now being made public for the first time. They can begin to open up to their teacher and classmates, exposing aspects of their lives that in many cases they have never publicly revealed. And they can begin to discover that their own secrets may not beentirelydifferentfromthoseoftheirclassmates.Insofarasself-disclosure begets self-disclosure, students who share secrets with classmates become the recipients of their classmates’ secrets, resulting in heightened trust and understanding of everyone in the classroom. Cutting Criticisms Self-disclosures about cutting will not occur if students fear “cutting criticisms” from their classmates or teacher. Sometimes, as with Louise, teachers don’t know they have made a caustic remark until students tell them. Prolonged exposure to biting critiques is a form of verbal abuse that may provoke people into cutting themselves. As Patty documents, one of the reasons people cut is that they fear exposing their pain and unhappiness to others. Such exposure would result in further stigmatization and rejection. Caroline Kettlewell makes a similar observation in Skin Game. “I kept my cutting so resolutely to myself not because I feared its discovery, per se, but rather because I knew it would be like the fatally ill-timed sneeze that gives the heroine away when she most needs to escape detection. It would be the signpost to a whole inner life I could neither justify nor explain, a life that was like one of those ‘find the item that doesn’t match’ games” (94). This “inner life” is the opposite of the “secure inner world” that promotes autonomy and intimacy. Indeed, none of the fictional characters whom Patty discusses have a secure inner world, and none demonstrate genuine autonomy or intimacy. Cutters experience relief during the act of cutting, but they derive little or no pleasure from receiving...

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