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I have faithfully continued to add the tags ’empathy disorder’ and ‘infant abuse’ to nearly every single one of my many, many blog posts because I am waiting for ‘science’ and the mainstream to catch up to these two most important topics any day now.  Here, tonight, I have found the perfect subject that fits both of these category tags RIGHT NOW!

If there is one thing abusive parents are lacking, IT IS EMPATHY!  Take a look at this!

I am thrilled and delighted to have just discovered that  Dr. Bruce D Perry — an internationally recognized authority on brain development and children in crisis — along with Maia Szalavitz, authors of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook–What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing, released on April 6, 2010 yet another critically important title.

Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential–and Endangered by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz (Hardcover – Apr. 6, 2010)

This is what his website says about the title:

Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential–and Endangered

In BORN FOR LOVE: Why Empathy Is Essential—and Endangered (on-sale April 6, 2010), Dr. Bruce D. Perry and journalist Maia Szalavitz argue that empathy, the ability to recognize and share the feelings of others, is a crucial human quality that underlies much more than love, friendship and parenting. Through compelling personal stories and wide-ranging research, they explore how empathy affects everything from emotional depression to the Great Recession, from physical health to mental health, from our ability to love to criminal behavior and even the rise and fall of societies.

Sounds wonderful to me!  Ordering a copy immediately.  Dr. Perry’s work seems extremely grounded to me because he is in clinical practice with children, and does not draw his writing from any ‘ivory tower’ thinkology academy.

Dr. Perry is the one person I would like to have write a ‘blurb’ about/on my book.  I don’t even know what that’s called – but you know what I mean.  This new book covers the subject of empathy with the full understanding of the authors about the critical role of early attachment in brain formation as well as a complete understanding of how early trauma changes human development.

Developmental neuroscientist Dr. Allan Schore states in his writings that every insecure attachment pattern includes within it as a matter of course a corresponding empathy disorder.  Learning as much as we can about empathy will help us to grow even more knowledgeable about how our early insecure attachments and resulting adult insecure attachments have impacted our empathic abilities — and therefore our physiological development and our entire life.  I don’t think there could be a better author to read on the subject than Dr. Perry.

This is what I found on Amazon.com about “Born for Love”:

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

An inside look at the power of empathy: Born for Love is an unprecedented exploration of how and why the brain learns to bond with others—and a stirring call to protect our children from new threats to their capacity to love

From birth, when babies’ fingers instinctively cling to those of adults, their bodies and brains seek an intimate connection, a bond made possible by empathy—the ability to love and to share the feelings of others.

In this provocative book, renowned child psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry and award-winning science journalist Maia Szalavitz interweave research and stories from Perry’s practice with cutting-edge scientific studies and historical examples to explain how empathy develops, why it is essential for our development into healthy adults, and how it is threatened in the modern world.

Perry and Szalavitz show that compassion underlies the qualities that make society work—trust, altruism, collaboration, love, charity—and how difficulties related to empathy are key factors in social problems such as war, crime, racism, and mental illness. Even physical health, from infectious diseases to heart attacks, is deeply affected by our human connections to one another.

As Born for Love reveals, recent changes in technology, child-rearing practices, education, and lifestyles are starting to rob children of necessary human contact and deep relationships—the essential foundation for empathy and a caring, healthy society. Sounding an important warning bell, Born for Love offers practical ideas for combating the negative influences of modern life and fostering positive social change to benefit us all.

About the Author

Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., is the senior fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy (www.ChildTrauma.org), a not-for-profit organization based in Houston that is dedicated to improving the lives of high-risk children, and he is an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago. He is the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children.

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Please also take a few minutes to wander around Dr. Perry’s website.  Meet The Childtrauma Academy:

A not-for-profit organization, based in Houston, Texas, working to improve the lives of high-risk children through direct service, research and education. We recognize the crucial importance of childhood experience in shaping the health of the individual, and ultimately, society.  By creating  biologically-informed child and family respectful practice, programs and policy, The ChildTrauma Academy seeks to help maltreated and traumatized children.

A major activity of the CTA is to translate emerging findings about the human brain and child development into practical implications for the ways we nurture, protect, enrich, educate and heal children. The “translational neuroscience” work of the CTA has resulted in a range of innovative programs in therapeutic, child protection and educational systems.

The CTA is a Community of Practice. Etienne Wenger, a leading social learning theorist, defines communities of practice as groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. This model has been discussed as optimal for promoting social change in our current complex world. The CTA works to create collaborative working relationships between organizations and individuals to most effectively promote positive change for children.

The CTA started as a typical center of excellence in an academic setting, initially at The University of Chicago and later at Baylor College of Medicine. Over time however, it was clear that the problems of abuse and neglect in children were much more complex and multi-dimensional in ways that our medical model was unable to address.

A medical school centered work group investigating and solving physiological problems in humans makes sense. Solving problems which involve parenting, education, the law, child protection systems, mental health, law enforcement and a host of related systems across every professional discipline is more challenging. In response to this challenge we have created a collaborative, multi-site, interdisciplinary virtual Center of Excellence, The ChildTrauma Academy.

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There is  information on this site about the work this Community of Practice is involved in.  I wish they had a little house for me down there, with big shade trees, lots of flowers, a gentle fountain – and an art therapy studio for me to play in with others – I would be happy to move right in!!

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And, in memory of my Borderline mother, here’s more BPD info –

From Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault, PhD, your Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder

Did that subject line get your attention? Very few researchers have explored the relationship between BPD and sexual problems. But, more and more research is finding a link — problems such as sexual avoidance and reckless casual sex may be linked to BPD.

BPD and Sexual Difficulties

BPD symptoms can affect your emotional state, your relationships, and your ability to control your behavior. So, not surprisingly, BPD can have a major impact on your sex life.
Impulsive Behavior in BPD

Impulsivity can be a very troubling aspect of BPD, leading to problems with relationships, physical health, and finances, as well as legal issues.
BPD and Your Physical Health

BPD does not only have an impact on your mental health. People with BPD are more likely to report a variety of physical health problems, and are more likely to need to be hospitalized for medical reasons, than those without BPD.
Conditions Related to Borderline Personality Disorder

Learn more about conditions and disorders that are related to or frequently co-occur with borderline personality disorder.

What is BPD? Symptoms of BPD Diagnosis of BPD Treatment of BPD
Living with BPD

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