ABSTRACT
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 recent 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.
The author focuses in particular on the wide-ranging effects of early stress on a baby or toddler’s developing nervous system. When things go wrong 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 affected by early stress and can become less effective. This makes the child more vulnerable to a range of later difficulties such as depression, anti-social behaviour, addictions or anorexia, as well as physical illness.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |12 pages
Introduction to the second edition
part 1|94 pages
The foundations: babies and their brains
chapter 1|13 pages
Before we meet them
chapter 2|20 pages
Back to the beginning
chapter 3|26 pages
Building a brain
chapter 4|30 pages
Corrosive cortisol
chapter |3 pages
Conclusion to Part 1
part 2|112 pages
Shaky foundations and their consequences
chapter 5|21 pages
Trying not to feel
chapter 6|23 pages
Melancholy baby
chapter 9|26 pages
Original sin
part 3|32 pages
Too much information, not enough solutions