interpretation of the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis and biochemistry. It will be invaluable to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, mental health professionals, parents and all those concerned with the central importance of brain development in relation to many later adult difficulties.

Gerhardt, a UK psychoanalytic therapist who founded a project to help parents with their babies, discusses links between insecure early attachments, the developing nervous system, and later psychological problems. She concludes that radical re-thinking of the home/work divide is needed to reduce the problems plaguing parenting. While she does not follow Freud in blaming mothers for their children's problems, fathers are hardly mentioned.
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Why Love Matters explains why love is essential to brain development in the early years of life, particularly to the development of our social and emotional brain systems, and presents the startling discoveries that provide the answers to how our emotional lives work. Sue Gerhardt considers how the earliest relationship shapes the baby's nervous system, with lasting consequences, and how our adult life is influenced by infancy despite our inability to remember babyhood. The way that we respond to stress, in particular, depends on how our brains are set up to deal with it in early life. Gerhardt shows how the development of the brain can affect future emotional well being, and goes on to look at specific early 'pathways' that can lead to conditions such as anorexia, addiction, and anti-social behavior. Early experience leaves its mark, not only in our degree of confidence in other people, but also in the structure and functioning of the brain. Why Love Matters is a lively and very accessible interpretation of the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis and biochemistry. It will be invaluable to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, mental health professionals, parents and all those concerned with the central importance of brain development in relation to many later adult difficulties.

A lively and very accessible interpretation of the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis and biochemistry, this title explains why love is essential to brain development in the early years of life, particularly to the development of the social and emotional brain systems.

How affection shapes a baby's brain. This book explains why love and early relationships are essential to avoid later mental health problems. Professionals and parents will read this book.