Bibliograph

Why love matters, how affection shapes a baby's brain, Sue Gerhardt

Type

Label

Why love matters, how affection shapes a baby's brain, Sue Gerhardt

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-297) and index

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Why love matters

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

878098862

Responsibility statement

Sue Gerhardt

Sub title

how affection shapes a baby's brain

Summary

Why Love Matters explains why love is essential to brain development in the early years of life, particularly to the development of our social and emotional brain systems, and presents the startling discoveries that provide the answers to how our emotional lives work. 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. She shows how the development of the brain can affect future emotional well being, and goes on to look at specific early 'pathways' that can affect the way we respond to stress and lead to conditions such as anorexia, addiction, and anti-social behaviour. 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

Table Of Contents

pt. 1. The foundations : babies and their brains -- 1. Before we meet them -- 2. Back to the beginning -- 3. Building a brain -- 4. Corrosive cortisol -- pt. 2. Shaky foundations and their consequences -- 5. Trying not to feel : the links between early emotional regulation and the immune system -- 6. Melancholy baby : how early experience can alter brain chemistry, leading to adult depression -- 7. Active harm : the links between trauma in babyhood and trauma in adult life -- 8. Torment : the links between personality disorders and early experience -- 9. Original sin : how babies who are treated harshly many not develop empathy for others -- pt. 3. Too much information, not enough solutions : where do we go from here? -- 10. 'If all else fails, hug your teddybear' : repairing the damage -- 11. Birth of the future

Classification