Speaker 1: Hi, I'm doctor Shiloh and I'm doctor Scott. And this
Speaker 1: is La Not So Confidential, the Forensic psychology and True
Speaker 1: crime podcast.
Speaker 2: Each week we explore the intersection of psychology, the criminal
Speaker 2: justice system, and entertainment.
Speaker 1: Today our episode is on the forensic psychtopic of attachment
Speaker 1: disorder and the role it plays in criminal behaviors.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, everybody, Happy New Year. Here's to resilience, recovery,
Speaker 2: rejuvenation during twenty twenty five, Doctor Shiloh, Are you ready
Speaker 2: for the Year of the Snake? And Chinese horoscopes say
Speaker 2: that those that are born in the year the horse
Speaker 2: will do well in the year of the upcoming snake,
Speaker 2: the wood snake. I believe so you'll have a bright
Speaker 2: financial year with married couples, possibly welcoming a new child,
Speaker 2: and a good chance of getting a promotion. How do
Speaker 2: those sound.
Speaker 1: That's not the kind of snake I'm looking for. No,
Speaker 1: why would you all that? Well, both those things are wrong.
Speaker 1: I am off to spending way too much money this year.
Speaker 1: I will be eating top ramen for the rest of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. No, that's that's cool.
Speaker 3: So what I.
Speaker 1: Mean, what's in it for you? What does it say
Speaker 1: for the tiger I am.
Speaker 4: I used to like, what was it?
Speaker 1: Some I got it?
Speaker 2: I got the horoscope wrong years ago and thought I
Speaker 2: had I'm born in the Year of the Tiger, right
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 4: Supposed to be.
Speaker 2: I thought I was a metal tiger, which is one
Speaker 2: of my email names, and then I find out now
Speaker 2: I'm a water tiger.
Speaker 4: I don't know. It's all a much a gobbledygook. But
Speaker 4: it's supposed to be a good year for me.
Speaker 2: Oh good, okay, and I tend to do better in
Speaker 2: odd years, so I don't know.
Speaker 3: This is it, this is your year.
Speaker 4: It's the little pillow of delusion I sleep.
Speaker 1: On every night, I know, and then sometimes you roll
Speaker 1: over and mercury retrograde is right there in your side.
Speaker 4: Damn it, that's why everything's going wrong.
Speaker 1: I got doctor Scott a Christmas ornament this year that says,
Speaker 1: what does it say?
Speaker 4: Blame it on mercur.
Speaker 1: Blame it on mar retrograde. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2: Made of heavy cast metal, so I could use it
Speaker 2: as a like knuckles if I wanted to brass nuck.
Speaker 1: You have to hang it at the very top of
Speaker 1: the tree where those really are. Well with that, I mean,
Speaker 1: should we take a moment to talk about how twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five will look for LA Not So Confidential?
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So moving forward, starting with today, you will get
Speaker 1: one new forensic psych related episode and then the second
Speaker 1: episode of the month is going to be our Behind
Speaker 1: the Couch session from either the previous month or the
Speaker 1: current month. We'll let you know at the end of
Speaker 1: this episode what's coming up, and just kind of depends
Speaker 1: on the time of recording because we work with our
Speaker 1: guests to kind of fit their schedule, so we don't
Speaker 1: know exactly you know, which week we end up talking
Speaker 1: to them live, but that will be what is coming
Speaker 1: your way. So still two episodes a month, with the
Speaker 1: occasional bonus or two parter you know, when the inspiration
Speaker 1: hits us. You can still catch Behind the Couch live
Speaker 1: streams well live if you follow our YouTube channels or
Speaker 1: social media, so make sure you are plugged into those
Speaker 1: to know when they come up live if that is
Speaker 1: your jam.
Speaker 3: To watch it.
Speaker 1: But for those of you who prefer to listen only,
Speaker 1: it will be in your regular feed. So for instance,
Speaker 1: I mean very recently, some people had missed that John
Speaker 1: Benet discussion on Live stream that I did with Rebecca
Speaker 1: Sebastian in twenty twenty one, and we just put it
Speaker 1: out a week ago and people are really glad to
Speaker 1: catch it and hear it and had totally missed it.
Speaker 1: So I think you know this lens to Also, what
Speaker 1: about our Patreon members. You are still going to get
Speaker 1: everything early and ad free. Plus you're going to get
Speaker 1: those extra shrink Wrap sessions that Scott and I do,
Speaker 1: and hopefully one or both of us will do some
Speaker 1: more of those Discord Voice channels, which is really a
Speaker 1: video channel. If you're at the intern or doctoral levels,
Speaker 1: you can catch those. I played around with that last
Speaker 1: month too, just kind of impromptu, told everybody I was
Speaker 1: jumping on in an hour or so and had some
Speaker 1: folks join and it was kind of cool. We did
Speaker 1: more John Benay after documentary debriefs, so it's really nice
Speaker 1: to get on there and chat every once in a while.
Speaker 1: So again, as we've said before, just because we are
Speaker 1: slowing down, you know, professionally, some things have changed. I
Speaker 1: am now on a state board for hostage and crisis
Speaker 1: negotiations for the next two years. We have to ebb
Speaker 1: and flow with our bandwidth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, same thing for me, my position has changed to
Speaker 2: working still within legal system and a forensic capacity, but
Speaker 2: doing more court work and being a subject matter expert.
Speaker 2: So it's a radical shift, but one also that I'm
Speaker 2: really excited about sort of getting the neurons crackling again.
Speaker 2: I think totally shifting and change is good for everybody,
Speaker 2: and this is one of them. And I'm so unbelievably
Speaker 2: grateful for the experience of the last seven and a
Speaker 2: half years that I had working in tandem with law enforcement.
Speaker 2: It's been just an eye opener, and you know, I've
Speaker 2: really I've been able to put my foot into a
Speaker 2: world and get some some real respect and really achieve
Speaker 2: some accomplishments that I never had even dreamed of a
Speaker 2: decade ago, which was really great.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we're all proud of you. Keep us posted, Oh
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: And I would also just want to add to the
Speaker 2: discussion about our Patreon channel is that I won't speak
Speaker 2: for you, doctor Shoe for myself, okay, but when I'm
Speaker 2: on there is a little bit more of freedom in
Speaker 2: how I can engage and I'm a little you know,
Speaker 2: you think I'm opinionated on the podcast, I'm a lot
Speaker 2: more direct in it.
Speaker 4: On the Patreon.
Speaker 2: So I think that that gives our listen steners at
Speaker 2: that level a little bit of a more expanded experience
Speaker 2: sure of the work that we do and our perspective
Speaker 2: on things. So join us over there if you want to,
Speaker 2: even at the lowest level. We always appreciate and are
Speaker 2: still just very very grateful to have our Patreon going
Speaker 2: and thank you all for supporting us for all these years,
Speaker 2: and you know, going with this as we continually shift
Speaker 2: to kind of make adjustments for both of us working slightly,
Speaker 2: if not majorly, over a regular forty hour week. Oh yes,
Speaker 2: oh yes, So let me just jump into a recap
Speaker 2: of last episode.
Speaker 4: For the last couple of.
Speaker 2: Weeks we dropped special bits included doctor Shiloh and the
Speaker 2: brilliant Rebecca Sebastian of Dialogue on the topic of Jean
Speaker 2: Benet Ramsey from twenty twenty one, and like you said, wow,
Speaker 2: I mean like it's three and a half years ago
Speaker 2: that you guys recorded that, and now it's back in
Speaker 2: the news with a lot of controversy, a lot of
Speaker 2: discussion and also just as much like bullshit flying back
Speaker 2: and forth as there was back in the day. So
Speaker 2: I think that This was like a really great grounding
Speaker 2: little footnote to put in and sort of reorient our
Speaker 2: listeners to it. And then we also were able to
Speaker 2: add our live show from the Berkshire's Podcast Festival and
Speaker 2: our most recent episode on the intersection of the Delphi
Speaker 2: murder trial along with the topic of digital ethics and
Speaker 2: our profession. I know, it sounds like a wild combination, right.
Speaker 2: We got a lot of responses from that episode that
Speaker 2: will probably end up generating a shrink wrap stream to
Speaker 2: address many of the questions. Again, please join us over
Speaker 2: on Patreon for more of that discussion if you haven't
Speaker 2: had a chance to listen to it, highly highly recommend it.
Speaker 2: I tried to control my soapbox, but it's another example
Speaker 2: of when someone just goes off the rail and our
Speaker 2: profession something that really Doctor Shiloh and I just at
Speaker 2: this point we have to contain our rage and just
Speaker 2: like roll our eyes that these things happen, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are you going to do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, what are you going to do? We
Speaker 1: can talk about it, We can discuss it in ways
Speaker 1: that pertain to our tradecraft when it comes to ethics
Speaker 1: and guidelines and just help people understand that, so I
Speaker 1: think it was a little mix of both.
Speaker 3: Definitely not rage.
Speaker 1: There was not rage there.
Speaker 2: But well on you like I have you either, I
Speaker 2: have a raging kitten inside me.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 2: So with all of that, Doctor Shiloh, what do Richard Ramirez,
Speaker 2: Ted Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Eileen Warnos
Speaker 2: all have in common? I mean, aside from the fact
Speaker 2: that they are recycled over and over and over again
Speaker 2: in the true crime environment, besides the obvious to any
Speaker 2: devotee of the subject of true crime, what do they
Speaker 2: have in common?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. That really doesn't narrow it down.
Speaker 2: True, But because we've been asked for the past few
Speaker 2: years to focus on today's topic, we should drill down
Speaker 2: into one of the fundamental aspects, the nurture aspect of
Speaker 2: personality development, nature versus nurture. Today, we're really gonna be
Speaker 2: talking about primarily nurture issues attachment disorder, particularly when it
Speaker 2: comes to radically unstable childhoods and the chronic possibility of abuse, abandonment, neglect,
Speaker 2: or even just the perception of that.
Speaker 1: Right, So let's start with an overview of attachment theory
Speaker 1: Attachment theory explains how early relationships with caregivers shape in
Speaker 1: individuals emotional development, as well as their social behaviors and
Speaker 1: their ability to form and maintain relationships throughout life. Proposed
Speaker 1: by John Bulby, the theory emphasizes the evolutionary role of attachment,
Speaker 1: the emotional glue between a parent and child, as a
Speaker 1: mechanism to ensure survival by keeping infants close to their
Speaker 1: primary caregiver. The quality of this attachment has been shown
Speaker 1: over the years to profoundly influence the child's emotional wellbeing
Speaker 1: and psychological resilience, which goes on to affect major parts
Speaker 1: of the individual life as an adult, really in all
Speaker 1: areas of interpersonal relationships and their view of themselves.
Speaker 2: So while there have been enormous contributions to research into
Speaker 2: attachment theory over the years, the OG pioneers in this
Speaker 2: area are as you said, doctor Shiloh, John Bolby, as
Speaker 2: well as Mary Ainsworth, Mary Maine, Judah Solomon, and Harry Harlowe.
Speaker 2: Each of them used Bolby's foundation and built on it
Speaker 2: further to expand the model. This is one of these examples, folks,
Speaker 2: of what we've talked about many times in the show
Speaker 2: of people. We as clinicians would not be able to
Speaker 2: do our work without unbelievably directed and intense research into
Speaker 2: particular areas of our field, and this is absolutely one
Speaker 2: of those times. John Bolby was a psychodynamic researcher that
Speaker 2: was trained under Melanie Klein and he specialized in child psychiatry,
Speaker 2: with training at the Tavistock Clinic in London during the
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties where he worked with children and families. Now,
Speaker 2: Bulby was able to merge empirical observations with psychoanalytic theory,
Speaker 2: and that was something that was very new at the time,
Speaker 2: like taking this kind of amorphous talk therapy theories and
Speaker 2: ideas and concepts and actually do some real research with it, okay,
Speaker 2: And he led to this idea of what's now called
Speaker 2: attachment theory. He asserted that attachment behaviors like crying or
Speaker 2: clinging in infants and young children are biologically programmed into
Speaker 2: humans and animals to keep infants safe. So he proposed
Speaker 2: three different attachment styles.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: So Mary Ainsworth went on to expand Bulby's theory by
Speaker 1: developing additional empirical methods to study attachment and invents, most
Speaker 1: notably the Strange Situation procedure. If it's at all possible
Speaker 1: for you to do this, listeners, please take a short
Speaker 1: break from this podcast and search YouTube for the animated
Speaker 1: video regarding the Strange Situation. It isn't necessary for listening
Speaker 1: to the rest of the show, but it is fascinating.
Speaker 1: You'll find a link in our show notes. We'll also
Speaker 1: put in links with actual footage of some of these
Speaker 1: experiments taking place. So the Strange Situation is one of
Speaker 1: those really seminal masters and doctoral level psychology lectures that
Speaker 1: kind of levels you up in terms of understanding human behavior.
Speaker 1: If you don't have time today, let me briefly break
Speaker 1: down what was found. So imagine being a baby.
Speaker 2: Okay, are you right there with you?
Speaker 1: No, not here, take that up with your therapist.
Speaker 2: Oh noted, Oh believe me, different decades of work in
Speaker 2: my area.
Speaker 1: Yes, wow, tam I already okay, yeah, exactly. So the
Speaker 1: Strange Situation was and continues to be, a structured observational
Speaker 1: study designed to assess attachment styles and infants aged twelve
Speaker 1: to eighteen months, and the study involves a series of
Speaker 1: eight short episode where the infant experiences separations and then
Speaker 1: reunions with their caregiver in a novel environment. So again,
Speaker 1: imagine being a baby just kind of chilling in a
Speaker 1: room of toys when a sort of friendly but also
Speaker 1: sort of suspicious stranger suddenly shows up. And remember you're
Speaker 1: a baby. Your caregiver then leaves, and you're like, wait,
Speaker 1: where are you going? And then just as you're kind
Speaker 1: of huffing and squirming and fully considering a total meltdown,
Speaker 1: your caregiver parent returns acting calm collected, like nothing happened.
Speaker 1: And this situation is carefully repeated with a number of
Speaker 1: slight differences. So one time the caregiver is in like
Speaker 1: directly in the line of sight of the baby as
Speaker 1: they leave. Another time they kind of slip out of
Speaker 1: the room when the baby's distracted. Sometimes there are more
Speaker 1: distractions than others. Sometimes a stranger is seen entering the room,
Speaker 1: and then other times they just slip in again with
Speaker 1: the baby completely unaware. So this test is the ultimate
Speaker 1: like who is your safe person and how are you
Speaker 1: going to react? A little bit of a challenge for
Speaker 1: those babies, and it measures how they handle caregiver separation,
Speaker 1: the reunion and the general awkwardness of stranger danger. So
Speaker 1: from these experiments, all of which were viewed and filmed
Speaker 1: through two way mirrors, the three then what came to
Speaker 1: be four attachment styles emerged. Some babies were seen to
Speaker 1: be cool throughout the various scenarios, which we now call
Speaker 1: securely attached. Some babies clearly gave their caregivers the cold shoulder,
Speaker 1: which is known as avoidant, and others go full dramatic meltdown,
Speaker 1: which is called ambivalent, although it doesn't really sound ambivalent
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 3: I think the message is kind of clear.
Speaker 1: And then, of course with any classification set, there are
Speaker 1: the wildcards, and these would be the baby who freeze
Speaker 1: or do something totally unpredictable, and we call that disorganized.
Speaker 1: So quickly the three initial categories were secure, insecure, avoidant,
Speaker 1: and insecure ambivalent or resistant or sometimes it's called anxious.
Speaker 1: Not to be confusing, but I know we're already there,
Speaker 1: so we'll move on from that. But that's a good
Speaker 1: encapsulation of how this all stemmed from some pretty famous experiments.
Speaker 2: So some very important observations emerge from these studies. Number One,
Speaker 2: does the infant or toddler use the caregiver as a
Speaker 2: base for exploration. Secondly, how distressed is that child when
Speaker 2: the caregiver leaves? And then how does the child infant
Speaker 2: respond when the caregiver returns. Those are the three things
Speaker 2: that help give the not diagnosis, but like sort of
Speaker 2: the observation or the name of an attachment style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, helped put them into who places them into the
Speaker 1: categories based on those three things. So over the decades
Speaker 1: while the strange situation was studied, it has really been
Speaker 1: shown to have significant predictive power. Researchers have found that
Speaker 1: attachment styles identified in infancy are shown to often predict
Speaker 1: future behaviors and relationship patterns. So the infantsibility to regulate
Speaker 1: emotions during separation and then reunion provides really good insights
Speaker 1: into the caregiving environment and resulting attachment style. But beyond infants,
Speaker 1: the variants of the strange situation have been developed to
Speaker 1: study attachment disorder in older children and even in individuals
Speaker 1: with disabilities. So we have come to know that follow
Speaker 1: ups with participants in Ainsworth's studies have shown that early
Speaker 1: attachment styles can influence adult relationship patterns, mental health, and
Speaker 1: even parenting styles.
Speaker 3: Okay, so here's your takeaway.
Speaker 1: From this SEK one oh one lesson. These styles are
Speaker 1: set at such an early age when frankly, the parents
Speaker 1: themselves are just emerging into adulthood. So I think that's
Speaker 1: a consideration.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And actually, in researching that for today's episode,
Speaker 2: I really want to make the point that as much
Speaker 2: as I give the og researchers like all this credit
Speaker 2: for developing this paradigm, there wasn't a lot of attention
Speaker 2: paid to the idea of what it meant for parents
Speaker 2: to be young adults because at that age, in the thirties,
Speaker 2: people had children much younger than they do today, and
Speaker 2: there was a lot of sort of closed consideration of
Speaker 2: multicultural issues. And I mean when I say multiculture, I'm
Speaker 2: also talking about sort of the concentric circles of our
Speaker 2: family culture, our neighborhood culture, our church culture, all of
Speaker 2: these things coming to bear. We now have a better
Speaker 2: understanding that's helping us change our perspective on attachment theory.
Speaker 2: But anyway, getting back to the one on one lesson,
Speaker 2: as you were saying, Ainsworth's research inspired both Mary Mayne
Speaker 2: and ju the Solomon to dig even further.
Speaker 4: Down into what are called the wild.
Speaker 2: Cards, and they assert a fourth attachment style that they
Speaker 2: then named disorganized attachment, as well as going on to
Speaker 2: devise what we love, of course, we love ways to
Speaker 2: actually measure things. They devised the adult Attachment interview, which
Speaker 2: is a really valuable tool in assessing attachment patterns in adults. So,
Speaker 2: then Harry Harlowe is well known for his experiments with
Speaker 2: Reesis monkeys, and I'm telling you I still have not
Speaker 2: recovered from this video.
Speaker 4: Did you see it?
Speaker 2: Own? My god?
Speaker 4: I'm guys.
Speaker 2: It's one of the most important important lessons you can
Speaker 2: learn as a mental health provider, but it's also probably
Speaker 2: one of the most disturbing, I think, or at least
Speaker 2: for me personally. So Harlow demonstrated the importance of comfort
Speaker 2: and care and attachment, showing that infants preferred a soft,
Speaker 2: comforting mother or parental figure over one that was providing food.
Speaker 2: Harlowe's work marks another key moment in the education of
Speaker 2: all mental health clinicians. As I said earlier, I don't
Speaker 2: know of any programs that don't have right on hand
Speaker 2: the black and white videos of Harlowe's heartbreaking experiments with
Speaker 2: the monkeys, and you can find them as.
Speaker 4: Well on YouTube.
Speaker 2: In short, Baby Reesi's monkeys were given the option of
Speaker 2: clinging to one of two wire forms within a cage.
Speaker 2: Both of those wire forms are in the shapes of
Speaker 2: mother reesis monkeys. They're larger their monkey shape, they have
Speaker 2: large eyes, they have ears. However, one of the wire
Speaker 2: shapes was completely bare metal with food available at the
Speaker 2: chest for the monkey to feed, like a hamster bottle
Speaker 2: where the monkey could go to for food. The other
Speaker 2: shape was covered in a warm, saw oft, cuddly furry
Speaker 2: material that provided no food. What the experiment found was
Speaker 2: that the baby monkeys would cling to the warmth of
Speaker 2: a familiar caregiver over that of the cold metal when
Speaker 2: despite the danger of starving to death. And that's also
Speaker 2: what was found as these baby monkeys actually starved themselves
Speaker 2: to death because they would not want to leave the
Speaker 2: warmth of the cuddly mother that was warm and felt
Speaker 2: inviting and welcome, right right.
Speaker 1: It's like when I asked my daughter if she wants
Speaker 1: to get out of her warm bed to come eat,
Speaker 1: and she's like, no, I'll just like here and watch
Speaker 1: Gray's anatomy.
Speaker 2: I'll just starve your daughter, is like, is like the
Speaker 2: daughter in this is forty when she won't stop watching
Speaker 2: Lost and she's just sobbing all the time because the
Speaker 2: episodes get satured and they.
Speaker 3: Like cut it off from her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly so in a nutshell, here's what each attachment
Speaker 1: style suggests. So insecure attachment, the child feels safe and
Speaker 1: confident that their caregiver will respond to their needs. The
Speaker 1: belief here is that these individuals will tend to have
Speaker 1: healthy relationships, emotional regulation, and high self esteem. As observed
Speaker 1: in the strange situation, the infant explores freely, shows distress
Speaker 1: when caregiver leaves, and seeks comfort upon return, and then
Speaker 1: often quickly returns to baseline emotional expression. Right, so what
Speaker 1: you would sort of expect given the situation and is
Speaker 1: able to regulate now. Insecure avoidant attachment presents differently. In
Speaker 1: this style, the child minimizes reliance on the caregiver due
Speaker 1: to the child's perception or belief of the possibility of
Speaker 1: rejection or emotional unavailability from the caregiver. The baby avoids
Speaker 1: or ignores the caregiver and shows little emotional response upon
Speaker 1: their return, basically indicating that the caregiver can't be relied on. So, like,
Speaker 1: why am I going to even bother? And Then these
Speaker 1: individuals as teens and then adults often struggle with intimacy
Speaker 1: and may appear emotionally distant.
Speaker 2: Then we go on to insecure, ambivalent, or resistant attachment,
Speaker 2: and this is where the child exhibits clinginess and difficulty
Speaker 2: trusting the caregiver's availability. In the strange situation, the child
Speaker 2: is highly distressed when the caregiver leaves and ambivalent upon
Speaker 2: their return, seeking comfort but also resisting it. And while
Speaker 2: these individuals as teens and adults may display high emotional reactivity,
Speaker 2: they also can exhibit difficulty trusting others in relationships. Finally,
Speaker 2: disorganized attachment is observed in the strained situation when the
Speaker 2: child displays erratic or confused behaviors like freezing, approaching, or
Speaker 2: withdrawing from the caregiver. And what research has found is
Speaker 2: that these children exhibit contradictory behaviors, often stemming from their
Speaker 2: history of trauma or abuse at this early age. And
Speaker 2: the terrible factor here is that the caregiver is person
Speaker 2: see by the child to simultaneously be a source of
Speaker 2: comfort and fear. The longitudinal studies show that these individuals
Speaker 2: are likely to struggle as children and adults with emotional regulation,
Speaker 2: ideas of self worth, and then solid or healthy interpersonal relationships.
Speaker 2: So look, folks, if you're self diagnosing while listening to this,
Speaker 2: please just stop. I mean it's normal. All of us
Speaker 2: that go into this field are warned not to over
Speaker 2: diagnose ourselves. It's kind of like, you know, it's just
Speaker 2: like a step we all go through, right, but lay
Speaker 2: yourself off the hook for a bit and just kind
Speaker 2: of take it as a chance to learn about this
Speaker 2: wacky theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think when this comes up, people might necessarily
Speaker 1: not be diagnosing themselves but previous people they've been in relationships.
Speaker 3: So stop doing that.
Speaker 2: To completely support that, you have no problem with that.
Speaker 2: Diagnose everybody else away, try and avoid.
Speaker 1: Oh okay makes sense now, so again. Attachment theory posits
Speaker 1: that early relationships that children have with their caregivers will
Speaker 1: significantly influence their emotional development and capacity to form healthy relationships.
Speaker 1: It does not necessarily mean that emotional development in one
Speaker 1: particular situation will result in the same concrete outcome at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just way too many factors involved, including
Speaker 1: the child's level of innate resilience, the child's exposure to
Speaker 1: higher levels of support from individuals outside the immediate and
Speaker 1: intimate family dynamic. But it is pretty clear that disruptions
Speaker 1: in these early attachments can lead to attachment disorders in
Speaker 1: the most challenging of cases. And with the immense body
Speaker 1: of literature that includes legitimate research as well as the
Speaker 1: more lurid portrayals in true crime, we can have a
Speaker 1: more insightful observation of the backgrounds of certain criminals and
Speaker 1: serial killers, and hence the reason we're talking about it today.
Speaker 1: So for fans of true crime, the following abbreviated list
Speaker 1: will likely hold no surprises, but that makes it a
Speaker 1: bit easier to look at the factors that we've been discussing.
Speaker 1: Just as a quick disclaimer here, I want to say
Speaker 1: we have kind of intermingled and not not interchangeably. But
Speaker 1: you've probably heard us say both styles and diagnoses. So far,
Speaker 1: attachment styles are not diagnoses, so there are actually no
Speaker 1: attachment disorders that formally apply to adults. However, the styles
Speaker 1: and behaviors exhibited in adulthood can be a result of
Speaker 1: childhood diagnoses that we are going to cover later in
Speaker 1: this episode. So just as we move forward, especially with
Speaker 1: these examples, I just want people to know that these
Speaker 1: aren't diagnoses. That again, you know, we don't slap labels
Speaker 1: or diagnoses on folks. We haven't evaluated ourselves.
Speaker 2: Right, So we're going to talk about the attachment styles
Speaker 2: of sort of some of the more well known subjects
Speaker 2: of true crime for the next few minutes. Jeffrey Dahmer
Speaker 2: murdered seventeen men and boys between nineteen seventy eight and
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one. In regard to attachment issues, Dahmer's mother
Speaker 2: was reported to be very loving and very sentimental and
Speaker 2: kept keepsakes from his childhood. However, she was challenged by
Speaker 2: her own mental health issues, including severe depression. Dahmer's father,
Speaker 2: a research chemist, was often not in the home, and
Speaker 2: apparently the birth of a younger brother, who was perceived
Speaker 2: to be the favorite, only increased family tensions. His parents'
Speaker 2: eventual divorce, leading to feelings of abandonment and isolation, were
Speaker 2: likely catalysts for existing attachment issues and Dahmer's underlying nascent psychopathy.
Speaker 2: That is also something to remember as we talk about
Speaker 2: these examples. Attachment styles are not the only thing at
Speaker 2: play here, but they certainly played an important part of
Speaker 2: the development of the drives that drove these criminals. The
Speaker 2: research can be conflicting, with some writers talking about the
Speaker 2: relative normalcy within Dahmer's upbringing while also commenting that one
Speaker 2: of his childhood toys was a bucket of animal bones,
Speaker 2: bleached and dried by both Dahmer and his father as
Speaker 2: a hobby. Dahmer shared in later interviews that his atrocities
Speaker 2: against his victims were attempts to keep them from leaving,
Speaker 2: and that is a drive that would parallel with an insecure, ambivalent,
Speaker 2: or resistant attachment style. Unstable early attachments may have contributed
Speaker 2: to his later inability to form healthy relationships and his
Speaker 2: subsequent choices in participating in his specific type of criminal behavior. Again,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of other stuff at play, but
Speaker 2: I think it's very interesting to put this particular lens
Speaker 2: on these criminals and see how that played a part
Speaker 2: in the development of their crime style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, with insecure and pivalent or resistant.
Speaker 1: It's really stark to kind of listen to his interviews
Speaker 1: where he said this was what I did was an
Speaker 1: attempt to keep them from leaving. Right, But in relationships
Speaker 1: and clients that we work with, I mean that looks differently.
Speaker 1: But there's some interesting underlying tones there. It's like the
Speaker 1: push and pull of like I hate you, I don't
Speaker 1: want you to leave me, this back and forth ambivalence,
Speaker 1: like it is ambivalence because it's back and forth so
Speaker 1: much in terms of what we see when people don't
Speaker 1: want to end relationships, even if it's toxic, and pulling
Speaker 1: people back into relationships for the fear of abandonment. It's
Speaker 1: just really interesting for us, someone who works with couples
Speaker 1: at this point, to look at these really extreme examples,
Speaker 1: but then think about, like, how do I see that
Speaker 1: just play out in the therapy room?
Speaker 2: All absolutely for people that never won't come anywhere near
Speaker 2: committing to crime, there are these drives as well. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure for some people already with you saying I
Speaker 2: hate you, I love you, I hate you, don't leave me,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing most of us in the mental
Speaker 2: health world would immediately go, well, that sounds like borderline
Speaker 2: personality disorder. And this is again one of those examples
Speaker 2: where there's just like this fascinating and holographic three D
Speaker 2: then diagram of different mental health diagnoses and attachment styles
Speaker 2: or attachment disorders. It all kind of comes together in
Speaker 2: very interesting ways. But you can't necessarily say that correlation.
Speaker 4: Is not causation.
Speaker 2: But there is an intersection that is always important to
Speaker 2: look at, especially when we're talking about criminals.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't just hear one behavior and say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is that. It could be a few things. Hence
Speaker 1: the reason Scott and I are throwing around the idea
Speaker 1: of doing a little part two of how this intersects
Speaker 1: with personality disorders and psychopathy.
Speaker 3: But with that we.
Speaker 1: Then have Eileen Warnos. She was a convicted and executed
Speaker 1: female killer who murdered seven men in Florida between eighty
Speaker 1: nine and nineteen ninety. Gosh, that sounds so long ago.
Speaker 1: Now she has been labeled as America's first female serial killer,
Speaker 1: which we obviously know is not true, and in retrospect,
Speaker 1: her crimes are now understood to be heavily sensationalized by
Speaker 1: the media. She committed her crimes within a brief time
Speaker 1: frame under circumstances that she claimed were acts of self
Speaker 1: defense against violent clients during her time working as a
Speaker 1: sex worker, so the media's framing of Warnos as a
Speaker 1: serial killer largely relied on gendered stereotypes and sensational narratives
Speaker 1: simply painting her as a monstrous anomaly rather than acknowledging
Speaker 1: the complexities of her abusive background and situational contexts. This
Speaker 1: oversimplification ignored really key distinctions that separate serial killing from
Speaker 1: reactive or situational violence. I will say, I think this
Speaker 1: over simplification is made about a lot of serial killers,
Speaker 1: men included, So this entire episode is probably more about
Speaker 1: not doing that moving forward more than anything. So in
Speaker 1: regard to attachment, Warno's experienced extreme instability in her early life,
Speaker 1: including her father's incarceration, abandonment by her mother, and left
Speaker 1: being raised by her grandparents, where she even further suffered
Speaker 1: sexual abuse, and frequent attempts to fend for herself in
Speaker 1: the woods behind the grandparents' home, where she would flee
Speaker 1: for safety. The disorganized attachment style seems to be prevalent here,
Speaker 1: as it is typically associated with a history of severe neglect, abuse,
Speaker 1: or inconsistent caregiving. Disorganized attachment arises when a caregiver is
Speaker 1: both a source of comfort and fear. So call that
Speaker 1: from when we were talking about that earlier, so you
Speaker 1: can see how the reported abuse that she suffered at
Speaker 1: the hands of these now supposed caregivers her grandparents likely
Speaker 1: created this paradoxical dynamic. This really led to profound relational
Speaker 1: difficulties and an inability to trust others. She was reported
Speaker 1: to have exhibited intense emotional outbursts, impulsivity, and difficulty forming
Speaker 1: stable relationships. Disorganized attachment often presents individuals with a marked
Speaker 1: inability to regulate their emotions due to the unresolved trauma.
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to assert that Warnos's relationships were
Speaker 1: tumultuous and marked by mistrust, possibly the fear of abandonment
Speaker 1: and erratic behavior of people in her life and then
Speaker 1: sort of manifesting in her as well. This pattern often
Speaker 1: stems from disorganized attachment, where individuals yearn for connection but
Speaker 1: really fear closeness due to those early experiences. However, or also,
Speaker 1: Warnos may have also exhibited traits of insecure ambivalent attachment,
Speaker 1: particularly in her intense need for love and validation that
Speaker 1: was paired with that fear of rejection. However, the severity
Speaker 1: in her early trauma and the abusive nature of her
Speaker 1: caregivers more strongly suggests disorganize attachment style. Disorganized attachment likely
Speaker 1: played a role in Warnos's psychological instability and violent actions.
Speaker 1: I think we can say that her difficulty trusting others,
Speaker 1: coupled with a deep fear of being or abandon could
Speaker 1: have contributed to her extreme reactions to the threats that
Speaker 1: she perceived in dangerous situations and then resulted in her
Speaker 1: taking the lives of these men.
Speaker 2: Richard Ramirez was known as the Knight's Talker and convicted
Speaker 2: of thirteen murders and numerous other assault and property crimes
Speaker 2: committed in California during nineteen eighty four and nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2: While there's not a great deal of information on his
Speaker 2: developmental periods during his infancy and toddler years, it is
Speaker 2: pretty clear that his descent into criminality was profoundly shaped
Speaker 2: by a radically unstable and abusive upbringing. He was born
Speaker 2: in El Paso, Texas. He was the youngest of five
Speaker 2: children to mixing immigrants. His father, a former Juarez police officer,
Speaker 2: was prone to violent outbursts, frequently subjecting his children to
Speaker 2: physical abuse. It is known and confirmed that Ramirez suffered
Speaker 2: multiple head injuries at a young age, one of which
Speaker 2: resulted in a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy. Now by
Speaker 2: the age of ten, he was exposed to the use
Speaker 2: of drugs and began his own path of experimentation, much
Speaker 2: too young to understand the ramifications, marking the start of
Speaker 2: a lifelong struggle with substance abuse. Ramirez gravitated to a
Speaker 2: pivotal influence during his formative years that at first appeared
Speaker 2: to be a stable influence, and that was his cousin,
Speaker 2: Miguel Mike Ramirez, and Mike was a decorated Vietnam War veteran.
Speaker 2: Mike fascinated the young Richard Ramirez with inappropriate and lordly
Speaker 2: gruesome tales of torture and violence that Mike claimed to
Speaker 2: have inflicted upon Vietnamese women, often accompanied by photographic evidence
Speaker 2: of those atrocities. It's believed that this exposure to violence
Speaker 2: and sexually oriented material at such a young age, in
Speaker 2: tandem with chronic drug use and likely with temporal lobe epilepsy,
Speaker 2: had a major impact on desensitizing Ramireds towards cruelty again,
Speaker 2: all while under the influence and care of what he
Speaker 2: believed to be the one stable relationship that he had.
Speaker 2: And when Richard was thirteen years old, he witnessed Mike
Speaker 2: fatally shoot his wife during a domestic dispute. This event
Speaker 2: clearly had at lasting impact on the child's development, further
Speaker 2: cementing a fascination with violence. Following the incident, Richard's behavior
Speaker 2: grew increasingly erratic. He withdrew from his family, delved deep
Speaker 2: for into substance of use, and developed an interest in
Speaker 2: the occult and allegedly into Satanism, leading to sort of
Speaker 2: a perspective on an attachment style as disorganized based on
Speaker 2: the expression of violence.
Speaker 1: So Ted Bundy was a man who confessed to thirty
Speaker 1: homicides across several states during the nineteen seventies. In the
Speaker 1: abundant material available about Bundy's upbringing, he too was reported
Speaker 1: to have experienced a confusing and unstable early family environment,
Speaker 1: including being raised by his grandparents under the pretense that
Speaker 1: they were his parents and his mother was his sister.
Speaker 1: The context of the time is necessary, as this type
Speaker 1: of familial deceit was not well terribly uncommon, but definitely
Speaker 1: not discussed and generally shrouded in a lot of shame.
Speaker 1: His behaviors grew more erratic through his toddler years, with
Speaker 1: his aunt sharing years later an incident where she woke
Speaker 1: up to find three year old Ted standing by the bed,
Speaker 1: smiling at her and the multiple knives that he had
Speaker 1: surrounded her with. Bundy later indicated that he had harbored
Speaker 1: resentment towards his mother and grandparents for concealing the truth.
Speaker 1: As a teenager, Bundy had significant challenges in social interactions,
Speaker 1: describing himself as unable to understand in our personal relationships,
Speaker 1: although the media has portrayed him as this charming inseduct
Speaker 1: of man. And I think that's really interesting, being unable
Speaker 1: to understand in our personal relationships. Like it's such a clinical,
Speaker 1: stark way of describing it, but I think says a lot.
Speaker 4: Really does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or as much as it says, I think it
Speaker 2: opens the door to so many other questions that are
Speaker 2: diagnostic in nature. And again, we just have to peace
Speaker 2: through all the media bullshit about it, right.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, but yeah, you take a quote like that,
Speaker 1: and again not to compare ourselves, but someone like you
Speaker 1: and I would be like, man, I just don't feel
Speaker 1: what other people feel when they're like in love, and
Speaker 1: he's just like, yes, I don't understand this, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: is this thing you people are doing? So Bundy's behaviors
Speaker 1: from childhood characterized by a combination of things like fear, confusion,
Speaker 1: and contradictory behaviors in relationships. Again, we're going to posit
Speaker 1: that that points to a disorganized attachment style for this man.
Speaker 2: Henry Lee Lucas was a convicted serial killer who claimed
Speaker 2: to have murdered hundreds of victims, though only a handful
Speaker 2: were confirmed, and there remains to this day a great
Speaker 2: deal of controversy about the really poor investigative work done
Speaker 2: by law enforcement across the country because so many law
Speaker 2: enforcement agencies were eager to pen their unsolved crimes on him,
Speaker 2: and he willingly went a wrong with it because he
Speaker 2: was getting reinforced with cigarettes and chocolate mal and the
Speaker 2: treats that he got from the local restaurants. Born in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six in then rural Blacksburg, Virginia, Lucas is
Speaker 2: reported to have experienced a childhood that was challenged by abuse, neglect,
Speaker 2: and trauma. He was raised by his abusive mother, Viola Lucas,
Speaker 2: and his largely incapacitated father, Anderson Lucas. He endured relentless
Speaker 2: physical and emotional harm at the hands of his mother,
Speaker 2: Viola frequently subjected him to brutal beatings, including one incident
Speaker 2: where he struck him with a wooden plank, causing a
Speaker 2: traumatic brain injury that resulted in a three day coma.
Speaker 2: Viola is reported to also have forced Henry to witness
Speaker 2: her engaging in sex work while his father, a double
Speaker 2: amputee and full blown chronic alcoholic, was unable to provide
Speaker 2: any kind of protection or emotional support. Neglect was pervasive.
Speaker 2: For instance, Lucas lost an eye due to an untreated
Speaker 2: injury inflicted by his brother. Lucas's upbringing likely led to
Speaker 2: a disorganized attachment style, which again is by a simultaneous
Speaker 2: need and fear of caregivers. This attachment style typically arise
Speaker 2: in the environments where caregivers are sources of both comfort
Speaker 2: and threat. And I would also say in wrapping up
Speaker 2: this little section about examples that disorganized attachment styles or
Speaker 2: ambivalent attachment styles do not mean that you're going to
Speaker 2: grow up to be a criminal. It's just a factor
Speaker 2: that is apparently common in some of the most prolific
Speaker 2: killers that we've seen. So again, correlation is not causation.
Speaker 2: We're just pointing out some very interesting factors about upbringing
Speaker 2: and how some of these events may have been the
Speaker 2: lit match that is thrown on the pile of gasoline soaklogs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're just we're looking backwards. I mean, both doctor
Speaker 1: Scott and I work with everyday people who have insecure
Speaker 1: attachment styles. I mean, when you just look at the
Speaker 1: general population, about fifty to sixty percent of people have
Speaker 1: a secure attachment style. So we're looking at half the population,
Speaker 1: forty percent to half the population who do not. So
Speaker 1: we're again, we're not wanting to pathologize, we're merely just
Speaker 1: setting a foundation.
Speaker 2: No. In fact, let me let me tell on myself
Speaker 2: as someone who has been in therapy for literally decades,
Speaker 2: and I have been using treatment modalities sort of across
Speaker 2: the spectrum. You know, I've used eclectic modalities. I've you know,
Speaker 2: like gone all in on attachment styles.
Speaker 4: I've gone all in on.
Speaker 2: Object relations, that kind of thing. I understand now that
Speaker 2: I have a lot of that insecure, avoidant attachment stuff
Speaker 2: going on, and it gets very complex for us as individuals,
Speaker 2: especially if you do a lot of inner work, if
Speaker 2: you journal, if you go to therapy, if you do
Speaker 2: this kind of mindful observation of your own challenges. It's
Speaker 2: all about context, because on one hand, I can tell
Speaker 2: someone that's sitting across from me in my room. I
Speaker 2: can say, well, you know what, you had a really
Speaker 2: great boundary with this relationship. You saw this relationship as
Speaker 2: toxic and you removed yourself from that, and that is
Speaker 2: really good. Now that's a possibility. The other possibility is
Speaker 2: that this is a person that really can't tolerate any
Speaker 2: kind of conflict in a relationship and they immediately shut
Speaker 2: down and they leave the relationship. I myself have been
Speaker 2: that person and learning sort of tolerance distress tolerance skills
Speaker 2: has been a big challenge for me. So the boundary
Speaker 2: thing worked for me for years. It's like, yep, you're
Speaker 2: a piece of crap. I'm done, and now I have
Speaker 2: a much more i would say, balanced and nuanced view
Speaker 2: of relationships that's probably more healthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you got there.
Speaker 3: But thank you for the self disclosure, right.
Speaker 1: No, I mean this is a I kind of love
Speaker 1: that we're starting out with something like so psychobabbally for
Speaker 1: the first episode of the year, because it's an example
Speaker 1: how a lot of the time what we do on
Speaker 1: this show is we take a topic or phenomenon or disorder,
Speaker 1: and we look backwards through that lens at criminal behavior,
Speaker 1: but it's not the be all explanation of everything. And
Speaker 1: if we kind of talked in the middle of all
Speaker 1: of these venn diagrams that we have built on top
Speaker 1: of each other for seven years, you wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to I wouldn't be able to understand any of it.
Speaker 1: It would just so it's it's very intentional to take
Speaker 1: these topics, look backwards and then always always say, but
Speaker 1: this isn't everything right, There's so many other factors. So
Speaker 1: with that, there's still plenty of research and theoretical support
Speaker 1: for inspecting where these intersections of insecure attachment styles and
Speaker 1: childhood trauma overlap. When we're looking backwards at a serial
Speaker 1: killer's life, abuse and neglect in early childhood are common
Speaker 1: themes in the backgrounds of many serial killers, and many
Speaker 1: serial killers have histories of severe childhood trauma, which again
Speaker 1: can shape personality and then contribute to the development of
Speaker 1: mental health issues and ways in which they view other people.
Speaker 1: And then sort of separately from that theory is how
Speaker 1: attachment theory is conceptualized in criminology, where the research indicates
Speaker 1: the insecure attachment styles, often resulting from early abuse or neglect,
Speaker 1: are prevalent among criminal offenders. Individuals with anxious, ambivalent, or
Speaker 1: anxious avoidant attachment styles may struggle with emotional regulation, impulse control,
Speaker 1: and empathy, all factors that we absolutely look at when
Speaker 1: we're trying to look at recidivism of criminal behavior or
Speaker 1: maybe what led up to that first time of them
Speaker 1: engaging in criminal behavior.
Speaker 3: So those are.
Speaker 1: Really concrete things that can be documented and measured in
Speaker 1: the history of someone who's engaging in those acts. And
Speaker 1: then lastly, there is research that supports a nexus with
Speaker 1: attachment disorders and criminal behavior. Again, as we move into
Speaker 1: talking about attachment disorders, it's important to note that while
Speaker 1: these disorders can be a contributing factor, again, they don't
Speaker 1: determine criminal behavior just on their own. We need to
Speaker 1: continually think about a combination of genetics, environment, and the
Speaker 1: other psychological factors that typically influence such outcomes.
Speaker 4: So a lot to think about, folks.
Speaker 2: Again, it's a heady, heady psychobabble episode with some concrete
Speaker 2: examples of a concept that many people have requested over
Speaker 2: the last few years. We're going to wrap this up
Speaker 2: because we're already pushing an hour. We're going to wrap
Speaker 2: this up as part one of this episode, but do
Speaker 2: not stress out. We're not going to make you wait
Speaker 2: another entire week for an episode. We're going to do
Speaker 2: something that we really haven't done before. I think maybe
Speaker 2: we've done it once before, maybe it's hard to remember
Speaker 2: at this point. But what we're going to do is
Speaker 2: we're going to drop part two, which is another full hour, tomorrow,
Speaker 2: so again it'll just download regularly like you always get
Speaker 2: your episodes. That then we'll be digging down further into
Speaker 2: specific attachment styles that actually do turn into attachment disorders.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: So we will see you guys tomorrow on La Not
Speaker 1: So Confidential.
Speaker 4: Guys, be right back, folks.
Speaker 1: Bye, We sincerely thank you for spending some time with
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