Joyeux Noël !

Bûche de Noel

Due to Christmas I’d like to tell you something about Christmas tradition in France. You will see that this is a little bit different than in Poland. However there are a lot of things in common. For French people as for Polish people, Christmas is the most important celebration, it is the celebration of family. The 24th of December, in general everything is already prepared. Before to go to sleep some children hang Christmas stockings on the fireplace. Santa Claus will put the sweets there, otherwise children will find their gifts under the Christmas tree the 25 th of December because in general French people don’t have Christmas dinner which is throughrouly celebrated in Poland. Consequently, they don’t share wafer. But some of them go to the Midnight Mass to celebrate the birth od Jesus. But in France there aren’t many Catholic people so it’s not very common, It’s a shame because this tradition is beautiful and it changes a lot the meaning of Christmas which is not only the gifts and the meetings with family. We have to mention what is the reason for which we celebrate it.

It’s 25th of December when family meets, they eat a big dinner and they drink a lot of wine. The most traditional dishes are : turkey, seafood, foie gras, salmon and, for dessert, the cake named ‘bûche’ which resembles a stump.

I think that I’d like to spend Christmas in France just to see all these traditions under my eyes but I prefer our Christmas in Poland. 

Styles of attachement - Bartholomew and Horowitz

Today I would like you to present you another theory about styles of attachement. I will explain you that table which can be a little bit enigmatic. It presents the styles of attachement in adults in according to Kim Bartholomew and Leonard Horowitz.

As you can see, if you think positively about yourself and about your partner or other people, you can have the secure style of attachement. So, pose you some questions. Do you feel competent, worth attention and love? Do you love yourself? Do you think that someone can love you? 

If you have this style of attachement, you support other people, you are warm and you have confidence in others.

You feel well in a close relationship, not afraid of dependence or being alone.

It is the best style of attachement. 

However, if you have positive thoughts about you, but you think negatively about other people, you have the dismissive style of attachement. You also feel competent, and worth, but also independent and self-sufficient. Other people are hardly credible for you, hostile and unjust. Or you just think so... 

When it comes to your emotions you exclude negative emotions, you minimize the significance of the painful experiences. You have also poor emotional control, you prone to impulsive behavior. You can feel an extreme discomfort in the situation of proximity, you avoid intimacy, relationships and commitment. You build superficial contacts with others, based on common issues, and not on commitment. Unfortunately, you can treat instrumentally other people.

If your thoughts about yourself are negative and thoughts about other people are positive, you have preoccupied style of attachement. Your image of yourself is inconsistent and dependent on the acceptance of others. But you idealize other people, you have the high expectations, which are the source of your disappointment. You are jealous and are afriad of separation. You want to control emotions excessively. You are extensively involved in a relationship but at the same time you have difficulties with its maintenance. You are dependent on your partner, you want intimacy, fall in love quickly and you expect exclusive attention to yourself.

If both images, of yourself and of other are negative you have the fearful style of attachement. You feel incompetent and unattractive. You perceive others like threatening, not giving support, rejecting. You have difficulty in revealing emotions.You exhibit a lack of trust in others and fear of being dependent, rejection and abandonment. You rather avoid social contacts. In relations with others you are passive and shy, you also avoid conflicts. 

Styles of attachements in adults

The information that I have presented was just one part of the lecture. It was interesting for me but the things after were even more fascinating. 

Well, the style of attachement that we develop in childehood determines the style of attachment to people when we are adults, the style of making acquaintance. If does it mean that if you have anxious-avoidant insecure attachment or anxious-ambivalent insecure attachment you are damned to have a bad relationship? I will console you, not, you are not damned to it, we can learn to make acquaintances in a correct way, it demands a lot of effort but it is possible. The second thing that can you help to change you style of attachement is a good partner.

It is evident that if you are the person with secure attachement, you are in the best situation. The relationships that you will make will be mature and stable. The factors like: the greater intimacy, passion, commitment and the satisfaction of being in a relationship, will influence the lower level conflict behavior in your relationship.

If you have anxious-ambivalent insecure attachment, when you are adult, you can be really worth about if you truly loved and if you do not love too much. You can also be insanely jealous and feel unappreciated by your partner and other important people, such as colleagues. 

If your style of attachement is anxious-avoidant, you probably feel awkward in proximity of other people, you can even become nervous in their presence. On the one hand you can avoid intimacy and do not trust your partner. On the other hand you can become entangled in sexual relationships and excessively concentrated, for example, on your work.