||Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a
Why Love Matters: How
Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain by Sue Gerhardt offers an
eloquent overview of the latest scientific research on attachment.
Gerhardt, a British psychotherapist and cofounder of the Oxford
Parent Infant Project, has accomplished the formidable task of
linking the concrete language of neurochemistry to the more
abstract area of attachment theory. In so doing, she has greatly
clarified the nature-nurture argument, while establishing the
critical importance of parental love for optimum brain development
in childhood and the subsequent capacity for love and trust in
adulthood. Why Love Matters is an essential new work in the
field of attachment.
"Most of the
literature on depression is confined to its symptoms. The focus
is on the adult's brain chemistry and the adult's cognitions,
which are the target of treatments. There is remarkably little
recognition that the adult's brain is itself formed by
experiences starting in the womb, or that these may have
contributed to a predisposition to depression...
can be a powerful source of sustenance for the mother as well as
the baby. She is then potentially more able to inhibit her
baby's stress response and to ensure that his cortisol levels
remain low. This is achieved through her presence, her feeding
and her touch. The baby is protected from stress and discomfort
and his brain responds by growing more cortisol neurons. A brain
well-stocked with cortisol receptors through this early
experience will be better able to mop up this stress hormone
when it is released in future. This furnishes the baby's brain
with the capacity to stop producing cortisol when it has helped
deal with a source of stress. The stress response will quickly
be turned off when it is no longer needed."
Why Love Matters