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.

Styles of attachement

According to the theory of Mary Ainsworth there are three styles of attachement :

1) Secure attachment: children who have this style are attached to their caregiver and are not afraid when they do not see him, they do not have the separation anxiety, they can explore the setting freely while the caregiver is present. Mother is their "safe base" and partner in the interaction and fun. From time to time they touch and hug her. They are not anxious with the arrival of a stranger and they do not react excessively anxious in the absence of the mother, can withstand a short period of separation, and after returning to actively welcome it clearly experiencing the joy caused by her back. The caregiver is responsive to the requirements of a child.

2) Anxious-avoidant insecure attachment: children with an anxious-avoidant attachment style avoids or ignore the caregiver. They do not explore the environment and they are not very interested in toys, even in the presence of the mother, and if they do, their commitment is shorter than in "safe" children. They seem to be constantly preoccupied with the place of residence of the mother. They refer frindlier to a person unfamiliar than to their mother. When the mother leaves, they become vulnerable. After her return tehy do not greet her, openly showing lack of interest and / or avoiding her. The caregiver isn't sensitive and he turns his back on the child.

3) Anxious-ambivalent insecure attachment: children with an anxious-resistant attachment are afraid of exploration and of strangers. The child has a tendency to be close to the caregiver but he can also reject him. They show reactions ambivalent: on the one hand they are looking for intimacy and contact with the mother, and the other they are reluctant to this interaction. It is a form of protection against injury. These children react differently to mothers back: some of them angrily hit his mother like "punishing" her for the fact that they were alone, others are more passive.
The caregiver isn't present in life of the child, it can be a father who delegates a lot.

Mary Ainsworth's experiment

Yesterday I was on the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. I participated in the lecture untitled: „How do we create the relations and why is it so difficult?” It was one of the lecture from the cycle : The Zone Psyche which has place one time per month. It was guided by two psychologists. I loved this talk and I'm sure that I will return there in December. Today I will present you one part of this lecture.

First of all, I found out about an experiment of Mary Ainsworth who made some of the most interesting research on attachment among children in the age of 14 moths. The study consisted in the fact that the child and his mother came to his estranged room, which was a lot of interesting toys appropriate for his age. After adapting the child to the new situation, to the room where the child resided with his mother, an unfamiliar woman entered. Then,  mother had to leave the room and the toddler was left with a stranger. After some time the mother returned to the room. Child's behavior was observated: his way of exploration areas and toys after coming to study his reaction to the appearance of a stranger, then reacting to leave the room by his mother, and finally reaction to the mothers back. 



In my next post I will present you the conclusion of that experiment. 

You can also watch a video from that experiment. 

La Belle Saison – Patricia Atkinson

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRN_fic4tNDnbcJIbRiBbVWdh7rUcrdfr7S6OFK480vXLAaHS83

I have finished to read the book of Patricia Atkinson having a French title even in English version – La Belle Saison. It is a second part of the book The Ripening Sun: One Woman and the Creation of a Vineyard. I didn't read first part, but I'm going to do that.

It is the biography of an English woman who decided to go to France and create her new life there. In La Belle Saison we can read about the continuation of her adventures with the management of vineyard in the south of France.

Patricia's life is very interesting. She always does something. What's more, she tells about it with details so we can learn a lot about the culture in France, in particular in the countryside. She descovers how to pick the truffles, how to eat it. We can also learn a lot about oysters, because she tells about lifting them from the sea. If she is the proprietor of the vineyard, we can also read many things about the grapevines et the wine.

Many time she takes part in a hunting so we can discover the details of this activity.

Apart from all this information about all the events, we can also learn some French words which are well explicated. This is very particular vocabulary but also the names of French dishes which are not known in Poland.

This book absorbed me, it was very interesting to broad my horizons about France, French culture, French vocabulary and also the specificity of French people in the south.

The book is beautifully written and I think that I will return to it many times.

Goodies

Last weekend I was in an exceptional cafeteria near Old Market Square in Poznań. 

I ordered a piece of cheescake with chocolate on top and the pieces of peanut butter. What's more, even cheese had a flavour of peanut butter. I also ordered a big milkshake made from milk, ice-cream, cream, but not only. We can choose ouerselves two chocolate bars which we want to blend with our shake. And there, we have an enormous choice! There is a bookcase with different kinds of candy bars. There is everything, few kinds of Kinder, Princessa, Snickers, Mars, Milky, Way, Bounty, Oreo and many others. I chose Kinder Bueno White and Kinder Country. I assure you that it was delicious.

Now you know what kind of things we can buy there. But it's just the beginning. There are also the cubes made from chocolate bars, the choice is big. I bought the cube of Ferrero Rocher and Kinder Bueno. 

Another thing are the cakes made from sponge cake and the chocolate bars which I mentioned above. There are many people who order it for birthday or another occasion. There are also unordinary cupcakes.

The ambiance in the cafeteria is very cheerful, there are lots of quotes in the colorful frames. It's very nice to read and maybe you will find a quote which will inspire you!

I know that all these things are not at all healthy, but if you want to make you pleasure one time for a long time, I recommend you this place. I assure you these treats are worth of much, much, much calories.