Description

Why Love Matters explains why loving relationships are essential to brain development in the early years, and how these early interactions can have lasting consequences for future emotional and physical health. This second edition follows on from the success of the first, updating the scientific research, covering contemporary findings in genetics and the mind/body connection, and including a new chapter highlighting our growing understanding of the part also played by pregnancy in shaping a baby’s future emotional and physical well-being. Sue Gerhardt focuses in particular at the wide-ranging effects of early stress on a baby or toddler’s developing nervous system., When things go incorrect with relationships in early life, the dependent child has to adapt; what we now know is that his or her brain adapts too. The brain’s emotion and immune systems are particularly suffering from early stress and can change into less effective. This makes the child more liable to a range of later difficulties such as depression, anti-social behaviour, addictions or anorexia, in addition to physical illness., Why Love Matters is an accessible, full of life, account of the recent findings in neuroscience, developmental psychology and neurobiology – research which matters to us all. It is a useful and hugely popular guide for parents and professionals alike.