Love matters. And we have the science to prove it.
Should I put my baby in a nursery? Do our genes determine our lives? Will my depression be passed on to my child? Can we prevent anti-social behaviour? This new edition of Why Love Matters throws fresh light on these perennially challenging questions by updating its popular and accessible account of how the brain develops in early life.
Sue Gerhardt explains why this has such a lasting impact on our whole lives. Drawing on her experience as a psychotherapist working with individuals and families, she focuses on the first love relationship – between parent and child – and how it is in many ways the key to lifelong mental and physical health. As she puts it in the introduction, “our earliest experiences as babies (and even as foetuses) have much more relevance to our adult selves than many of us realise. It is as babies that we first feel and learn what to do with our feelings, when we start to organise our experience in a way that will affect our later behaviour and thinking.”
In a new chapter on pregnancy, Sue describes how the nervous system starts here and can already be affected by mother and father’s state of mind. But her main focus is on the intense brain development that takes place in the early years, as parents and babies “adapt and respond to each other like crazy”, as she puts it. She points out if babies don’t get the loving response they need at this time, they can ‘fail to thrive’ or develop defensive ways of managing their emotions.
As Steve Biddulph, author of The Secret of Happy Children, says in his new foreword, “I greatly admire what Sue has done. She has taken one of the most complicated fields in the world today and made it useful”. He points out that Sue does not just explain what we need to know about neuroscience, she also provides clear remedies – “for society, and for our own parenting”. As he suggests, when young mums and dads see the work of parenthood as valuable and precious, “the benefits in resilient, empathic, good humoured and interpersonally effective adults will be enormous”.
Reviews:
“This book is a rare achievement. It succeeds in combining the most accessible and readable account of the neurobiology of early development I have come across with an impressive level of scholarship. Though written with a light touch this fascinating updated volume eloquently describes how very recent advances in neuroscience are being used to re-define and deepen our understanding of the relational origins of human nature, and how this knowledge can be used to address the early roots of many of the common problems that all societies are now facing. A best seller in the UK, Sue Gerhardt's book deserves to be more widely read in the USA.” - Allan N. Schore, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, USA
"A sensational read. Combining cutting edge research on the brain, parenting and emotional development with wonderful writing, this is popular science at its best. A page-turner of a book which packs a powerful and life-changing message and is a must-read for parents, policy-makers, childcare professionals, students and indeed anyone interested in a healthier and happier future." - Dr. Graham Music, consultant psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic, London, and author of Nurturing Natures
Praise for the first edition: "Why Love Matters is hugely important. It should be mandatory reading for all parents, teachers and politicians." - Rebecca Abrams, in The Guardian
– ENDS –
About the Author…
Sue Gerhardt has been a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice since 1997. She co-founded the Oxford Parent Infant Project (OXPIP), a pioneering charity that today provides psychotherapeutic help to hundreds of parents and babies in Oxfordshire and is now the prototype of many new ‘PIPs’ around the country. She is also the author of The Selfish Society (2012).
Why Love Matters
How affection shapes a baby's brain
2nd Edition
Written by Sue Gerhardt
Published: 10th of September
Pb: 978-0-415-87053-5 £14.99
Hb: 978-0-415-87052-8 £90.00
To find out more and see more reviews please visit:
http://www.routledgementalhealth.com/books/details/9780415870535/
NOTES TO EDITORS
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(Outside North and South America) Sarah Wilkins, Marketing Manager, Routledge Psychology
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(North and South America) Julia Gardiner, Marketing Manager, Routledge Psychology
Tel: +1 (917) 351-7165| Email: julia.gardiner@taylorandfrancis.com
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