Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain

257 Pages·2004·2.94 MB·English

by  Sue Gerhardt

Why Love Matters
Why Love Matters explains why love is essential to brain develop-
ment in the early years of life, and how early interactions between
babies and their parents have lasting and serious consequences.
Sue Gerhardt explores how the earliest relationship shapes
the baby’s nervous system. She shows how the development of the
brain can affect future emotional well being, and goes on to look
at specific early ‘pathways’ that can affect the way we respond to
stress and can contribute to conditions such as anorexia, addiction,
and antisocial behaviour.
Why Love Matters is a lively and accessible interpretation of
the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis and
biochemistry. It is invaluable reading for parents and professionals
alike.
Sue Gerhardt is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private
practice. She was a cofounder of the Oxford Parent Infant Project
(OXPIP), a pioneering charity that provides psychotherapeutic help
to parents with their babies.

Why Love Matters
How affection shapes
a baby’s brain
Sue Gerhardt
First published 2004
by Brunner-Routledge
27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2FA
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Brunner-Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
Brunner-Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
Copyright © 2004 Sue Gerhardt
Paperback cover design by Lisa Dynan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
This publication has been produced with paper manufactured to strict
environmental standards and with pulp derived from sustainable forests.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gerhardt, Sue, 1953–
Why love matters: how affection shapes a baby’s brain/Sue
Gerhardt – 1st ed.
p.; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-58391-816-7 (hardback: alk. paper) – ISBN 1-58391-817-5
(pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Infants–Development. 2. Infant psychology. 3. Brain chemistry.
4. Developmental neurobiology. 5. Brain–Growth. 6. Parent and child.
[DNLM: 1 Brain–growth & development–Infant. 2. Brain
Chemistry–Infant. 3. Emotions–physiology–Infant. 4.
Hydrocortisone–biosynthesis–Infant. 5. Mental Disorders–chemically
induced–Infant. 6. Mental Disorders–prevention & control–Infant. 7.
Personality Development–Infant. WL 300 G368w 2004] 1. Title.
RJ134.G47 2004
155.42′2–dc22
2003026871
ISBN 0-203-49965-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-59354-5 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 1–58391–816–7 (hpk)
ISBN 1–58391–817–5 (pbk)
For my children, Jessica and Laurence

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Permissions acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
PART 1
The foundations: babies and their brains 11
1 Back to the beginning 13
2 Building a brain 32
3 Corrosive cortisol 56
Conclusion to Part 1 85
PART 2
Shaky foundations and their consequences 87
4 Trying not to feel 93
5 Melancholy baby 112
6 Active harm 133
7 Torment 149
8 Original sin 167
PART 3
Too much information, not enough solutions 193
9 ‘If all else fails, hug your teddybear’ 195
10 Birth of the future 207
Bibliography 219
Index 243
Acknowledgements
Many people have participated in the making of this book,
some perhaps without knowing it. I would particularly like
to thank all my patients over the years who have taught me
so much.
I would like to thank those friends who gave their
time to read the whole manuscript and gave me invaluable
feedback: Jane Henriques, Paul Gerhardt, Diana Goodman,
Paul Harris, Mollie Kenyon-Jones, John Miller, John
Phibbs, Pascale Torracinta and Andrew West.
I would also like to thank Fiona Duxbury, John
Edginton, Morten Kringelbach and Allan Schore, for helpful
comments on particular chapters.
In my professional work, I would like to acknowledge
Daphne Briggs for her inspiring introduction to baby obser-
vation, which started it all off. I would also like to thank
Penny Jaques for her steady support as I struggled to develop
work with parents and babies, and all my colleagues at the
Oxford Parent Infant Project who have helped me sustain
a commitment to it – particularly Joanna Tucker. Both
Jean Knox and other colleagues within the International
Attachment Network have also helped to enrich my thinking
about attachment issues.
Behind the scenes, I would like to thank all my friends
for their encouragement, but particularly to Jane Henriques,
Angie Kaye and Nigel Barlow for brainstorming and spurring
me on, my children for putting up with it all and John Phibbs
for his support in the last stages of the book.
My greatest debt is to Paul Gerhardt, who was behind
me every step of the way and without whom I could not have
written this book.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Text
Six lines from ‘Late Fragment’ by Raymond Carver, courtesy
of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
A description of Dennis Potter: A Biography, by Humphrey
Carpenter. Courtesy of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Excerpts from Anne Sexton: A Biography by Diane
Wood Middlebrook. Copyright © 1991 by Diane Wood
Middlebrook. Reprinted by permission of Houghton
Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Approximately 45 words from The Blank Slate: The Modern
Denial of Human Nature, by Steven Pinker (Viking
Penguin, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 2002). Copy-
right © Steven Pinker, 2002. Reproduced by permission of
Penguin Books Ltd.
Approximately 194 words from Of Women Born: Motherhood
as Experience and Institution, by Adrienne Rich. Copy-
right © 1977 Adrienne Rich. Reprinted by permission of
Time Warner Books UK.
Excerpt from ‘Anger and Tenderness’, from Of Women Born:
Motherhood as Experience and Institution, by Adrienne
Rich. Copyright © 1986, 1976 by W.W. Norton & Company,
Inc. Used by permission of the author and W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc.
Approximately 200 words from Billy, by Pamela Stephenson.
Copyright © 2002 Pamela Stephenson. Reprinted by per-
mission of HarperCollinsPublishers.
Approximately 300 words from A Life’s Work, 2001, by Rachel
Cusk. Copyright © 2001 Rachel Cusk. Reprinted by per-
mission of HarperCollinsPublishers.
Figures
Figure 3.1 Does Stress Damage the Brain, by J. Douglas
Bremner. Copyright © 2002 J. Douglas Bremner.
Figure 5.1 Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance advert.
Used with permission of the DBSA.