- The hierarchical nature of attachment was initially overlooked due to a misunderstanding of the social nature of humans.
- The theories created about relationships were influenced by men and lacked an understanding of the purpose of attachment.
- It took a long time to understand the true nature of attachment, which is hierarchical and meant to facilitate dependence.
- The prevailing belief in society was that parenting should foster independence, but this contradicts the essence of attachment.
- Attachment is about rootedness and providing a context for maturation to occur.
- The diagram of a vertical relationship represents the anatomy of dependence and the dignity in dependence found in Japanese culture.
- In Japanese culture, as adults grow older, they make themselves easy to be taken care of, which contrasts with Western society's loss of dignity in dependence.
- Attachment requires two sets of complementary instincts: seeking and providing.
- Attachment is not about equality or egalitarian relating, but rather the evocation of alpha instincts in one person and dependent instincts in another to create an interface for closeness.

- Attachment is not about valuing oneself, but about the interface between alpha and dependent instincts.
- Identical twins must evoke different instincts in order to attach to each other.
- Ideally, attachment should be reciprocal, with one person taking on the alpha role and the other the dependent role at different times.
- Alpha instincts are about being the answer to the other person and providing a sense of significance and belonging.
- There is a crisis of confidence in parenting and teaching today, leading to a reliance on books and advice rather than embodying the alpha role.
- The alpha and dependent dance is important in both parenting and education.
- Cross-species attachments show that the alpha and dependent instincts can override natural predator-prey instincts.

- Alpha dependent instincts can override natural survival instincts
- Alpha and dependent instincts are present in all mammals, not just related to gender
- Young teachers and parents need to tap into their alpha instincts to effectively manage and care for children
- Attachments are hierarchically structured to facilitate dependency and caretaking
- The alpha and dependent dance is a natural and ancient dance that has been lost
- The posture and demeanor of the adult should inspire the seeking of the child
- The seeking child perceives the adult as their answer and depends on them
- The adult with alpha instincts feels responsible and guilty when things don't work for the child
- Avoiding guilt leads to loss of alpha posture
- An alpha complex can develop when someone gets stuck in their alpha instincts, leading to bossy and controlling behavior.

- Alpha children have a strong need to be in charge and show superiority
- They struggle with taking direction and asking for assistance
- They often act as know-it-alls and can be bossy, controlling, and demanding
- Alpha children are not truly independent, but their neediness is not easily perceived
- Immigrants from intact cultures often find alpha children difficult to manage
- Alpha children have difficulties with counter will and struggle to do what they are told
- They have high levels of frustration and aggression due to unmet attachment needs
- Alpha children are often misperceived as independent and strong
- There is a lack of literature on alpha children and their attachment issues.

- The video discusses the concept of alpha children who have difficulty with aggression, alarm, and eating problems.
- Alpha children feel in control and struggle to feel safe or taken care of.
- The video suggests that addressing these issues through relationship and finding a "dance" can help alleviate symptoms.
- Alpha children can be made by a lack of encountering a strong alpha presence or by a flight from vulnerability.
- Discipline practices and food education programs may contribute to the development of alpha children.
- The manifestations of an alpha complex can vary and may be influenced by personal experiences.

- The speaker discusses their own experience with alpha fantasies and how they developed an alpha complex.
- They explain that competitiveness and bullying are manifestations of the alpha complex.
- The speaker argues that bullying is not solely about power imbalance, but rather a combination of the alpha complex and a flight from vulnerability.
- They suggest that the current epidemic of alpha children and a flight from vulnerability is leading to increased bullying.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of addressing the underlying problems of the flight from vulnerability and the alpha complex to combat bullying.
- They mention that establishing caring dominance or softening the hearts of bullies can help address the issue.
- The speaker concludes by stating that finding the alpha instincts is a personal journey that cannot be taught through prescriptions, but rather requires perceiving a child's needs and presenting oneself as the answer.

- True needs are attachment needs (sense of belonging, love, significance, proximity)
- Independence is not just about physical tasks, but about meeting attachment needs
- Arranging scenarios where child must depend on caregiver is important for attachment
- Caregiver must take charge of decisions and circumstances regarding the child
- Caregiver should convey that the child is not too much to handle, regardless of feelings
- Caregiver should be in the know about the child and take initiative, rather than asking too many questions
- Concealing impotence by inviting the inevitable (e.g. accepting tantrums) helps maintain alpha posture
- Learning requires a hierarchical relationship and attachment
- Egalitarian values and independence are the fruit of the process, not the beginning
- King Arthur legend exemplifies the importance of hierarchical relationships in maturing process

- Attachment is a hierarchical relationship meant to facilitate dependence.
- Western society's belief in fostering independence contradicts the essence of attachment.
- Attachment requires complementary instincts of seeking and providing.
- The alpha and dependent dance is important in parenting and education.
- Alpha children struggle with taking direction and asking for assistance.
- Alpha children have difficulties with aggression and unmet attachment needs.
- Alpha children are often misperceived as independent and strong.
- The development of alpha children can be influenced by discipline practices and food education programs.
- Alpha children may manifest competitiveness and bullying behavior.
- Flight from vulnerability and the alpha complex contribute to increased bullying.
- Addressing underlying issues can help combat bullying.
- Finding the alpha instincts is a personal journey that requires perceiving a child's needs and presenting oneself as the answer.
- Independence is about meeting attachment needs, not just physical tasks.
- Arranging scenarios where a child must depend on a caregiver is important for attachment.
- Caregivers must convey that the child is not too much to handle and take charge of decisions and circumstances regarding the child.
- Learning requires a hierarchical relationship and attachment.

As I mentioned in the last session, Session 12, we would take a session and look at the hierarchical nature of attachment.

The hierarchical nature of attachment was camouflaged basically by our understanding of the social nature of man, as I mentioned in the last session.

And social connotes the horizontal plane, not the vertical plane.

And there were theories that were created basically about men or by men about their relationships with each other.

And so you can understand from this that it totally, it was devoid of an understanding of the purpose of attachment.

I'm sure if these theories would have been created by women in the context of raising children, our theories would have been much different.

And so it's taken us a long time to actually crack the riddle of what this was all about, of what the social nature was all about, what the nature of attachment is all about.

And when the word was changed to attachment, when we could start at the beginning and look at it from a developmental point of view, it became obvious, obvious, that attachment, that very essence of attachment, was hierarchical, it was meant to facilitate dependence, to basically arrange in a relationship to make it easier, easy for 1 to take care of another, 1 to depend upon another.

And so with that in mind, I will introduce this material in this session.

I've created a course on alpha children where I've devoted 4 hours to trying to cover the subject.

1 could again easily take an intensive around this 20-hour course and would never exhaust the material.

Bowlby had difficulty with this particular construct as he realized he was fighting against the prevailing sentiment of that day scientifically, and he was really trying to perpetrate a consciousness of attachment.

And when he realized the purpose of attachment, the hierarchical nature, he realized he was in for a tough goal, is the British public at that time, and continuing so as we started in the 60s and 70s and 80s, perceived parenting as basically the whole thrust of parenting was to foster independence and they got the fruit mixed up with the process.

Now the fruit is independence But that's not what we aim for.

As we became more linear in our thinking, as we became more directly moving to outcome, more shaping behavior, and then there was the idea that allow the child a year of dependence, but after that, as I've said, the modus operandi was we must never do anything for a child that they could or should do for themselves.

To do this would be to interfere with becoming independent.

And so this was the climate, and it still is the climate.

This is still the climate that we, that in a sense, find in our society generally.

And so this hierarchical nature is difficult to swallow, difficult to understand, and my job is to make sense of it, and hopefully in a way that resonates with inner intuition that hopefully goes down easy for you, and to get to the essence of it.

I think if you can get to the essence of it, it's self-evident, and it answers many of the concerns we have about allowing children to depend upon the adults responsible for them.

So again I go back to the diagram here, attachment facilitates dependence.

Again the ultimate fruit of attachment is separateness and independence, but this is not what attachment is about.

It is a context in which maturation happens.

And The diagram that I had borrowed here actually came from the cover of this book, Anatomy of Dependence.

And Japanese culture, a very, very old culture in which dependence, there's actually dignity in dependence.

Can you imagine a book being sold in North America with this title?

Well, And yet he was able to label this, of course it was in Japanese, this is the English translation, but he was able to get right to the core, the anatomy of dependence.

And then the diagram that I inspired my own just little image of the vertical relationship that is there.

Now what he studies, as I mentioned before, Tokyodoy is actually studying adult relationships, attachment in adults.

He didn't get to children, he studied it in terms of adults.

And then the Japanese culture, as adults grow older, as we all grow older, of course, we lose some of our independence, some of our viability, some of our ability to biological and physical viability and so on.

And so there is a stage and many of you know it with your own parents already when it moves to the place where they need to depend upon you.

Again in our society there is no dignity and dependence.

So it robs our seniors of their dignity, our elders of their dignity.

Yet, when we do take care of them, they feel belittled, put down, there is a loss of dignity in it.

And so I don't have to say to you, those of you that are in the sandwich generation know this very well.

But in Japanese culture, as they grow older, they actually are required by culture to make themselves sweet and to actually be easy to carry.

Wouldn't that be wonderful in our society?

They actually make themselves easy to be taken care of and this is part of their children as well, is that there's dignity to dependence instead of a loss of dignity to it.

So I thought I'd introduce this and we'll go then to the heart of the issue, the nature of attachment.

As I mentioned, to serve its primary purpose attachment needs to be arranged hierarchically.

In keeping with this, there are actually 2 sets of complementary instincts.

And so, in actual fact, the attachment families, the attachment instincts, are divided into these sets.

And words fail us here, so I didn't know what to do.

I borrowed alpha from the main term we use for other animals because we don't talk about this in terms of humans.

And so I had to do this, and of course dependent, that's a term that 1 should avoid at all costs, but I decided to go right to the thick of things.

And so I couldn't figure out another word for it.

And 2 sets of drives, seeking and providing.

Seeking is seeking for contact, for closeness, for love, belonging, for significance, for mattering, all the ways that we talked about before that have to do with proximity, and providing proximity.

And if I could illustrate it this way, is that when we come together, in when attachment, when we become attached to each other, when we come attached to each other, is we don't become attached in this way in terms of equal.

Equality, egalitarian relating is the fruit of attachment, but attachment itself is not this.

So what happens is nature doesn't, has to be able to deal with this and so the only way to get closeness, the only way to get together, to come together is for the alpha instincts to be evoked in 1 and the dependent instincts to be evoked in another and that allows the interface.

That is the interface and that is the only way it attachment can happen and so the this it's it's not this no matter how much we value this, this is not what attachment is about.

And so the dependent instincts are very much in this kind of posture, to look up to, to seek the answers in, to look to for a compass point, to seek for orienting, to follow, to seek comfort in, all of this kind of posture, which is looking for the answer.

And the alpha instincts, and you can study this particular slide in your handout later to see that each 1 is the answer to the other.

To trust in, the answer is for the alpha to take responsibility for.

To get one's bearings, the answer is to orient and inform.

To be taken care of, the answer is to care for and to take care of.

And so that is how we interface with each other in this way.

Now, you can think of, in this way, of 2 identical twins, and that's probably the easiest way to be able to think of this, because again, it's hard to grasp.

We just don't, this is not very easy for us in our cultures with our overlay, such a strong overlay of egalitarian relating.

If 2 identical twins come together and they're 3 or 4 years of age, and they start attaching to each other very, very strongly.

Nature again does not know what to do with the situation because they are equal, equal in every which way.

The only way they can attach is if alpha instincts are evoked in 1 of the twins and dependent instincts are evoked in the other.

Otherwise there will be continue clash of alphaism both or dependentism both.

And if you know identical twins, you'll find that when you watch them in their dance with each other, 1 will be typically be moving to the alpha position, the other will typically be moving to the dependent position.

For some, that will become the most important force in their personality, and they will develop an alpha personality generally, and another will develop a dependent personality generally.

Now notice that they have identical genetics.

Identical genetics, they have, and in this case, we're gonna argue they have identical, fairly identical environment, and yet, yet to be able to come together there has to be that the attachment is going to have the primary influence on the nature of their personality.

Now if everything would be ideal, if everything would be ideal with the identical twins, then whenever the twin would sense a need in the other, 1 of the twins, they would move to the alpha position and vice versa.

So in the ideal situation, their relationship would be reciprocal.

At any given point in the dance, there is alpha and dependent, because there is no way in our dances, I mean in our traditional dances, not our more contemporary dance, but in traditional dances, there must be a lead and there must be a follow.

This is the only way the dance can happen.

We've been dancing with each other for eons.

When we're attached, this is the way the dance happens.

Ideally with the twins it would be reciprocal.

This is ideally what would happen in a marriage.

But in any given moment, at any given moment when you're together, 1 will be the lead and the other the follow at any given moment.

You know what it's like for both of you to try to drive a car at the same time when there's only 1 steering wheel.

For both to lead in the walk at 1 time, 1 has to lead, this is the dance.

And the dance is that lead the alpha and dependent.

And this is as good as we get in terms of attachment, not egalitarian relating, but reciprocity in the dance of alpha and dependent.

Once you see it there, it becomes quite self-evident of what is there, and you begin to realize, you begin to see these dependent instincts and the alpha instincts.

And So 1 is a seeking, the seeking mode, and the providing mode.

Now alpha in its true purpose is not lording it over.

Alpha in its true purpose is not showing who's boss.

Alpha in its true purpose is to be the answer to the other, and the answer is in the most important question we have.

It is the answer to contact and closeness, it is the answer to sameness, it is the answer to loyalty, all of these things, to belonging.

And 1 of the problems we have today, of course, is that we have a crisis of confidence in parenting and in teaching today.

So nobody teaches this material, and it's no longer scripted in our society and so And so what happens is is parents think not that they need to be the answer to their child but they need to have the answers for their child, and they have to have the answers of what to do.

Now, we've been parenting for thousands of years.

We didn't need any of that material because culture scripted the alpha mode to walk, to talk as if you were the answer to the children.

In Provence, when we were there, the people in the village walked and talked as if they were the answer to the children and their children moved into the dependent mode.

It was amazing, they did not have behavior management problems in the village or in the school.

Nor were they reading books about how to manage children, how to manage classrooms.

But this dance was a very significant dance of seeking and providing.

And again, when we lose the confidence, and this is 1 of the tragedies, today's parents are largely in the position of seeking advice.

How am I supposed to know what to do with children when they're not born with a manual?

This is a dependent position What mode is the child supposed to attach in?

So the only position left is the alpha position the alpha position I sometimes when when when parents a common for instance all of our parents come to me and say, I am anxious to get your book to read it with my child.

I say, oh my goodness, don't you ever let your child know that you're reading a book about parenting.

Now if you read a book, read it secretly, but don't put it by your bedside table and don't read it by them.

And this dance is so important and it's equally true in school and I borrowed this this diagram from Lewis Carroll it's a Lewis Carroll sketch and I love this diagram because it's so unlikely but it captures it captures the essence here of what this is about.

The teacher is the natural predator of the student.

And the student would Normally know that you never ever put yourself in a vulnerable place to to the individuals the creatures that would devour you and yet This is a perfect example of the dependent and the alpha perfect example of that You You can go to YouTube and look for cross species attachments.

And when you look for cross species attachments and call them up, you will find the most unlikely attachments of creatures who are the natural predator of the other who is attached to them taking care of them and the other being receptive.

This is amazing because what it means is that the alpha dependent instincts can trump even the natural biological survival instincts of a predator and prey.

It is incredibly, this is a powerful set of instincts this dynamic is bigger than gender we've got to confuse culturally with gender this is nothing to do with gender we now know from our research that the alpha and dependent instincts are in every single mammal.

They're part of the limbic system, the emotional system.

In the rat, there are both the instincts to mount insects and to be receptive, and it's called forth by the culture of the situation.

And if that is true at that level, it's true at every level.

We all come with alpha instincts and dependent instincts.

They're meant to be called forth in the appropriate situation.

That's when they're meant to be called forth.

Now, how many, how many, those of you that are in education, you know what's happening with young teachers today.

They come into the classroom, this look the same way parents are doing.

Honey, you can't come into a class like that.

You've got to come into a class like you own the class.

You've got to come into the class like you're the answer.

Not that you have the answers, they can all beat you with Google these days but that you are the answer you are the answer to getting their orientation to to their significance to the invitation to exist in your presence at that time.

You have the answer, you are the answer to them.

And when you do this, they have no other way of attaching to you but to move in the dependent mode.

But if in the first 5 minutes you walk in the class like this, you will have them all over you.

And you won't be able to manage these kids, you'll be wondering why in the world didn't they teach you classroom management in university?

The thing is, is we haven't had to do this before this is not what was what it is but you don't get you don't get to understand in university about alpha and dependent how important it is that you can bear yourself walk in an alpha way find your alpha instincts And likewise, parents no longer know this.

And so we're having a huge problem with alpha children.

The alpha-dependent dance, again to review here, attachments are hierarchically structured to facilitate dependency and caretaking when becoming attached or pursuing proximity 1 is moved to assume either the alpha position or dependent position Now when you meet somebody and they have a very strong alpha presence, you find yourself automatically moving into the dependent instincts to do the dance with them.

And when you meet somebody who looks like a deer lost in the headlights kind of look, oh my god, I don't know what to do.

You find yourself moving automatically into the alpha position, right?

And that's exactly it is, because that's the dance.

If you put into a two-year-old's lap a little baby and you do matchmaking, oh he's so lucky to have you as a big brother.

Look at him, he's looking at you so adoringly, he loves you.

Watch that two-year-old find all their alpha instincts inside of them all of a sudden their whole alpha bearing changes and they are moved they are moved to take care of the baby.

If we helped our teenage moms find their alpha instincts they would be moved to take care of their babies.

Instead we try to teach them how to care for the child and that makes them dependent and they go like this you see the difference if we helped our young teachers if we helped our young our young parents understand that they are the answer to their charges, they would be moved if we could evoke the Alpha instincts in them to care for those that are responsible.

This is a natural dance, an ancient dance.

This is a dance that we've been doing again for eons and we've lost this dance.

Unless 1 is stuck, the posture of the other should typically call forth the opposite set of attachment instincts.

And the alpha independent instincts need to match the roles, need to match the roles.

Therapist and client, you all know, those of you that are therapists here, what happens when you get an alpha client.

You all know, you know, in terms of teacher and student, those teachers of you, when you got 2 or 3 really alpha students, like in To Serve With Love, the actor or the person acted by Sidney Poitier, and he had these 2 alpha students in his class and now we have many alpha students in our classes and how difficult it is to try and do the dance.

The parent and child, principal and staff, Those of you that are administrators know, or those of you that are staff know what it's like when you've got a principal who can't assume the alpha position.

And so this is a dance that it must match with the roles And again the idea here if everything is going if it's ideal the the the posture the alpha posture Demeanor of the 1 should inspire of the adult should inspire the seeking of the child.

The seeking child depends upon, the adult is cued by their felt need but it moves to depend upon, the caring alpha is cued by the perceived need of the child, for the seeking child it involves trusting in, wanting, aching for, asking for, wishing for, looking up to.

They perceive the other as their answer, and that's the way it should be.

The adult has instincts to trump, to lead, to initiate, to give, to nurture, to take charge, very generous, very generous in this, because again, it's that place.

The seeking child experiences shame when things don't work, that something is wrong with me, if something doesn't work, there's a sense that something is wrong with me.

And the providing child, or rather the adult automatically, with alpha instincts, the way the brain moves us is to move us to assume responsibility.

That's where the feelings of guilt come from.

So you feel responsible for anything that doesn't work for the child, whether you believe you're responsible or not, the alpha territory is guilt territory and there's nothing you can do about it.

That is, if you have alpha instincts, you feel guilty when bad things happen to the people you love, whether or not you're responsible for them or not.

There's a tremendous attitude today, because of the rational approach, that you shouldn't have to feel guilt, that's not reasonable.

The limbic system, there is no reason to it at all.

That is, the brain has its reasons, but it has nothing to do with our logic.

And the brain must move us to assume responsibility and so we feel guilty when we can't make things better for the people we love.

If we try to avoid our guilt, we lose our alpha posture.

So the only way we can really be to fulfill that is we must make some room for this emotion that again we don't have to agree with but it's just part of the territory and so the dance as you can see the the the the dance I managed to get them to dance here is the dance is incredibly important both parties feel fulfilled in this dance, the interaction is relatively easy and satisfying for both.

But what happens, of course, what happens if an alpha complex develops?

And an alpha complex, by complex I mean it gets stuck.

If there's stuckness involved, if a child gets stuck in this, an adult gets stuck in this, it no longer is responsive, the dance is no longer there, they're perseverating in their alpha instincts or it's inappropriate to the role.

The signs of an alpha complex tends towards bossy, controlling and demanding, even when with one's equals or with those 1 should be depending upon, seeks to be on top or take center stage all the time, even with one's equals or with those who 1 should be depending upon.

Compelled to take over or to take charge in situations, have to trump in conversations and so on where this is not called for, can be driven.

1 kind of expression can be driven to show superiority, to know better, to be better, and so on, with one's equals.

Often has difficulty taking direction, asking for assistance.

Can be driven to trump interaction or have the last word even with 1 with one's equals or with those 1 should be depending upon and Very often with with children.

They must be in the know all the time They can act as a know-it-all very often alpha children are not very endearing to other children.

They're not very endearing to us because we're used to the dance.

And we think, of course, because they appear stronger and we don't see their neediness that they're doing it on purpose.

We don't see that it is, no, my goodness, they're just as immature as the other person.

The child is attaching in the wrong mode, the alpha instincts are stuck.

No matter how it comes across, this is a set of instincts.

And so 1 of the main expressions for the child, for the alpha, is demanding.

And so the child becomes to demand, to orchestrate the caring of another.

And so we drop a demanding child into this equation.

And now we have, he's a true dependent but he is in the alpha mode so true dependent I mean he needs to lean on others but he can't, he busy orchestrates this is the way you hug me, this is the way you hold your hands on the steering wheel, you mustn't use the cell phone, mommy, don't you remember?

And you've gotta close this door, and you're forgetting this and the child is in charge, in charge of orchestrating the behavior of the others.

Is bossy, assertive, prescriptive, controlling, cannot let go, insists on fairness, rights, and getting what is deserved.

Holds the other responsible and feels angry when things don't work.

And of course this is very frustrating for both.

If there is a caring outfit, this is very confusing because the dance doesn't work.

And they lose confidence and start thinking, am I doing things wrong?

And then they start reading books and manuals and going for advice.

The more they do it, the more wrong it gets.

Because nothing works very long, because they're in the right mode.

It's a relationship problem, Not a problem of knowing what to do and not a problem of not getting the right advice This is a relationship problem.

The child is on in the wrong mode We have to address this and this is this underlies a huge number of problems in today's children and so the alpha child experiences their alpha instincts as self-evident to them it is absolutely self-evident to them they don't understand it any different they are being true to themselves So when they boss, when they have to have the last word, when they are prescriptive, they're only being true to themselves.

This is, to not do this would feel wrong.

They're often, again, as I say, misperceived by being strong and independent.

We don't sense their neediness because that's part of the alpha, not to display your neediness.

We don't sense their fear because that's part of the alpha, not to give away when they're scared.

And so we perceive them as strong, we misperceive them as independent.

And this, we make this mistake, and that's why when immigrants come into Canada, Canada, a country of immigrants, and they come from other places where the relationships are still working, the attachment infrastructure is intact, economically there may be problems, but the attachment infrastructure is intact.

They see our children and they say, Oh my goodness, Canadian children, American children are so much more independent.

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Intensive I - session 13