Sublime

internal working models.11 He saw them as maps you developed as a child of what to expect from your caretaker and the world in general, and then from subsequent close relationships.

In this case, because Tina understood what was happening in her son’s brain, she saw that the most effective response was to connect with his right brain.

Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 230.

we begin to form expectations of what our relationships will be like in infancy. Part of this is recorded in our ANS. If our parents aren’t able to provide warm, safe connection a good part of the time, our sympathetic fight-or-flight response is on a lot. We begin to anticipate that our closest people won’t come to help us when we feel disconnecte

Mental activity stimulates brain firing as much as brain firing creates mental activity.

Later research by Martin Teicher at McLean Hospital showed that different forms of abuse have different impacts on various brain areas at different stages of development.

many of the disorders that therapists are actively requested to treat are about difficulties regulating state with others.

So considering everything from the growth of neurons to one’s sense of self-esteem, the security of our attachment is very important. Some consider this the most critical of all childhood needs.

Lyons-Ruth concludes that infants who are not truly seen and known by their mothers are at high risk to grow into adolescents who are unable to know and to see.”