ABSTRACT
Though much of the research connecting neuroscience and clinical applications is speculative and largely theoretical in nature, as clinicians, it behooves to better understand just how change in the brain occurs. Whereas John Bowlby and Ainsworth had originally focused on examining behaviors and cognitive internalizations and Main and her colleagues had explored attachment's intersection with the linguistic world, the focus of attachment theory shifted to focus on the connection between the mind, body, and the brain. Firstly, non-goal directed movement seems to activate the mirror-neuron system in humans, whereas mirror neurons are only activated by goal-directed behavior in monkeys. Secondly, there is evidence to suggest that the human mirror-neuron system codes for the movements that make up an action, whereas for monkeys, it is only the action itself that is encoded. The human brain has many different mirroring systems, designed to mimic, to imitate, and to potentially understand and empathize with others.
