Sue Gerhardt considers how the earliest relationship shapes the baby’s nervous system, with lasting consequences, and how our adult life is influenced by infancy despite our inability to remember babyhood. The way that we respond to stress, in particular, depends on how our brains are set up to deal with it in early life. Gerhardt shows how the development of the brain can affect future emotional well being, and goes on to look at specific early ‘pathways’ that can lead to conditions such as anorexia, addiction, and anti-social behavior. Early experience leaves its mark, not only in our degree of confidence in other people, but also in the structure and functioning of the brain.
Why Love Matters is a lively and very accessible interpretation of the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis and biochemistry. It will be invaluable to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, mental health professionals, parents and all those concerned with the central importance of brain development in relation to many later adult difficulties. (Book description by the publisher, Brunner-Routledge) |
At age 11 or 12, the brain experiences a wave of synapse formation (similar to the growth spurt seen in infants), followed in adolescence by a process of synaptic pruning (much like pruning the weaker branches of a tree). Consequently, the “use it or lose it” principle becomes critical in adolescence. Featured Video
Programs at Work
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