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Wednesday, April 15, 2015.  I have had many friends over many years of my adulthood who are of Indigenous ancestry.  Among most tribes, as far as I know, there are teachings based on what can most simply be called “The Medicine Wheel.”  Tribes vary on the words that might literally be attached to the four directions presented in these wheels (as with colors, stages of life, specific teachings, medicines, animals, etc.).

The words about the “core wheel” itself I am going to describe here are from a common Anishinabeg (Chippewa, Ojibwa) culture.  Along with those words I will next describe an alternative, additional way of thinking about so-called “negative” emotions that can be identified as being “survival-based” emotions connected to the operation of our “calm-stress” response system (and are therefor deeply physiologically based).

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I have no way to create a visual for what I wish to describe other than to attempt to do it with words.  (If you wish, just grab paper and pen/pencil and draw this out as you read along here.)  Envision a circle.  Draw quadrant lines top to bottom, side to side so that they cross at the center.

I will be listing words here in groups that begin at the far right of the circle and move, then, around the circle at each quadrant point.

• EAST: element = air (mind) —  color = yellow – place of new birth and rebirth – ages 0  – 20
• SOUTH: element = earth (spirit) – color = red – place of “doing the work” – ages 20 – 40
• WEST: element = water (emotion) – color = black – place of “the cave” and introspection – ages 40 – 60
• NORTH: element = fire (body) – color = white – place of healing – ages 60 – 80 (over age 80 lies in the quadrant area leaving the top point and moving toward the right = east)

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Now, as I think about the processes and emotions of the cycles of our life (for everyone at some time, in some way) I think about the

(a) uncountable times we have been “alerted” to changes within our environment that

(b) give us a version of a “startle response” as these things

(c) demand our immediate attention and assessment for safety or danger, and then

(d) send us either off to address/solve a “problem” or are

(e) no big deal so we have to do nothing and

(f) can return again to the center point of self = peaceful calm

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IF we have to do something we are put into MOTION!  On my calm-stress response” circle I added

• ANGER at the EAST point. FIGHT RESPONSE.  Anger is itself simply a word that people identify with a particular emotion, but in my thinking I use it only as a symbol of power and energy that is extremely creative and full of potential.  With this power and energy I envision (in-vision) that we very quickly reach for the most immediately recognized solution to a problem in our environment we have to deal with that we can find.  We use first KNOWN solutions, KNOWN resources and if possible our OWN resources.  (simplified descriptions here)  The power of so-called “anger” used constructively and positively inspires determination, know-how and courage.   If a problem’s solution overwhelms our ability in this “anger” (generative), rather than move back to “center” we are forced by circumstances to move on to
• FEAR at the SOUTH point. FLIGHT RESPONSE.  Fear again is a word, a symbol, that I am using to signify a realization in our process as I describe it here that WE ALONE are powerless to solve this problem and we MUST reach out (FLEE is as much TO something as it is AWAY from something) to others* for help as we search for alternative options.  THIS is part of the shared work of being alive!  It is when soaring solo is replaced by a realization that if we are going to fly at all we must “find a flock” to help us.  (This is also a state we can reach when our concern for the well-being of others (fear for others) leads us to understand that if we are going to help we cannot be effective alone.)  Fear, then, generates a kind of social interaction that involves something we may not have tried before and something more familiar to others.  If we CANNOT get help from anyone else at this point FEAR lets us know that we are directly missing a vital resource (and solution) that we need.  However the variables in this stage play themselves out, either we solve the problem and return to “center” or we move on to
• SADNESS at the WEST point. HIDE RESPONSE.  Whether or not we reach this point alone or in the company of others who share this “state” what is needed is a discovery of something entirely NEW that can solve whatever problem we are engaged in ending.  This “cave” of inner exploration to find new solutions is like a womb, a matrix, a place of introspection and ingenuity!  I am not envisioning “only” a weepy sorrowful emotional state here.  I believe that it is HERE that our greatest discoveries can be made and amazing ideas can be found.  If we can solve our problem here back to “center” we go, if not?  We move on to
• HOPELESSNESS at the NORTH point. FREEZE RESPONSE.  This state involves a kind of fire, I think, that is a kind of agony.  This point is one of purification and can be named by a feeling state of utter “hopelessness” in which a sense of being abandoned and completely alone can swallow us whole.  Or so it seems.  This point is often one of deepest humility which is a gift, I believe, that can come from “pure shame transformed.”  Humans are NOT superheroes.  We do not have “magical” powers.  There are times when the cycles of life seem to present us with no solutions.  No options.  No alternatives.  If so, here we are in a state of suspended animation, a state of limbo, a state of purification that I don’t think anyone WISHES for!  This can be the state where the only thing we know how to do is ENDURE.

Who cares enough to find the “lost and hidden” sad and hopeless people when so many of them have faced or are facing severe trauma that alone they cannot move past?  Who has the empathy, compassion and SKILLS to reach them and to help them?

How do we move out of this frozen “stuck” dead-end place?  I would rather be asking “How do we (and I mean mostly “we the people”) avoid – and help one another avoid – ever getting to this point at all?”  Something extraordinary has to happen for us to move on from here.  HEALING!

How that healing happens is a concern for everyone.  I do not believe we can do it alone.  This is the place of miracles.

Not to worry.  Such miracles are not rare!

NOTE:  *others – our “attachment village” – assistance when needed is always a part of safe and secure attachment

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(And this thoughts include my concerns about early severe trauma survivors who have never known “peaceful calm” and cannot get back to that “center” because they were never given what they needed in the early years of their attachment development to get there in the first place.  Many such survivors can be trapped swirling around through these cycles without end for their entire lives.)

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(This “in-visioning” I am writing today is different from a version of this process I posted a few months ago.)

Note:  This is a post that follows this one:  +WHAT IF?

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am still stuck with this new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

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Tuesday, April 14, 2015.  What follows in this post are my morning’s thoughts about attachment.

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Attachment occurs in a matrix, a creational/re-creational womb.

Attachment –

is at the core of human affairs and directs development and shapes responses

organizes relationships, all the way to the level of global civilization

is a form of intelligence commission and transmission

sets the patterns for interactions

is a living process and a process of living

literally enables and allows life to go on

shapes life

communicates the conditions of life

its patterns remember themselves within people from conception until death and communicate themselves down the generations

attachment has a language of its own

it shows itself through its patterns like everything else does that is a part of life

at each end of the continuum of human life attachment is life, un-attachment (detachment) is death (coherence/incoherence; generation/degeneration; movement toward order and complexity/toward disorder/lack of complexity)

in between, taken objectively, attachment talks to attachment

we are its carriers, its transmitters, expressers of the language of its signals

attachment is about resources (their availability/scarcity/accessibility) – it is about signals/communications about resource patterns.  without resources to sustain life there is death.

attachment is how life takes care of life as it prepares for its continuation (through time into the future)

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taken from this angle attachment is a resource management system capable of communication about its operations

ongoing generations of human beings are recipients of benefits from improvements to resource (their availability/scarcity/accessibility) management.  because attachment processes have no ulterior motives and exist to manage resources and to communicate those concerns, attachment will improve as resource management improves

“resiliency” cannot, therefore, be conceived of as being outside this life support and enhancement system

given that this view of attachment is simplified as if considering the very building blocks of life itself it is possible to suggest that in whatever direction we turn we will find the essential processes of attachment in operation.

because we are considering humans, the apex of creation as we know it, and because the apex of humanity is the solidified, conscious, socially responsible self, it will be the experience of this self (its formation, maintenance and expression) that will suffer most when depleted resource management damages attachment and it will benefit most when adequate resource management allows attachment to flourish.  The former = degrees of (both organized and disorganized) insecure attachment and the latter = increasing degrees of safe and secure attachment.

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In its essence I would call attachment love.  I would call this love spiritual.  I would say that a Creator we are incapable of comprehending loved creation into existence.

Attachment is the process of love in motion as it sustains existence in this world.  It is therefore fundamental and essential to life.  Because in this world humans have been given free will to make choices we can influence many attachment processes.

For this, in the next world, we will be held accountable.

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On a practical level when it comes to current attempts to “measure” adult attachment the following maxims as they are considered to be reflected within rational ‘cooperative discourse’, and have been incorporated into the rating structure of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) used clinically and in research to assess adult attachment.

Grice’s Conversational Maxims

Maxim of Quantity:

1. Make your contribution to the conversation as informative as necessary.
2. Do not make your contribution to the conversation more informative than necessary.

Maxim of Quality:

1. Do not say what you believe to be false.
   2. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of Relevance:

Be relevant (i.e., say things related to the current topic of the conversation).

Maxim of Manner:

1. Avoid obscurity of expression.
   2. Avoid ambiguity.
   3. Be brief (avoid unnecessary wordiness).
   4. Be orderly.

These maxims are mentioned in this post:

+NEEDY PEOPLE AND BUMPY CONVERSATIONS (GRICE’S MAXIMS, AGAIN!)

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

++++

Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am still stuck with this new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

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Monday, April 13, 2015.  I remember a decade ago scouring the dense pages of books (I now refer to as “hisci”) written by people like Dr. Allan N. Schore, Dr. Daniel Siegel, Dr. Jon Allen, and others in my desperate attempt to gain some useful information to help me understand how what happened to me in my abusive childhood was connected to the many and varied difficulties I experience in adulthood.  It is very gratifying to me to see the online proliferation – in clear writing and in such beautiful formats – of this kind of information appearing all over the place in today’s “modern” website formats.

There is no end to how important early attachment information is to EVERYONE!  It is especially critical for early severe trauma survivors, and even those who would not “ordinarily” name their childhood as traumatic, neglectful or abusive to begin to understand how essential ESPECIALLY the experiences a human being has in the world before the age of three are to wiring a person up in their body-brain as the main patterns of their operations through life will be determined by these person-to-person events.

Please take a look at this short and well written online presentation of such information:

How Hard Will He Have to Work? 

This article starts off with –

“Fascinating research suggests we can predict how hard a person will have to work to feel good, based upon the quality of early attachment in the first 18 months of life.  This study measured the long term effects of early  attachment on long-term emotional regulation into adulthood, including a person’s ability to have a positive neurochemical response to positive experiences.”

It doesn’t matter what angle any researcher – or any serious investigator of any kind – takes in looking at the escapable, powerful impact of the earliest attachment interactions humans have at the start of their life to understand that EVERYTHING we experience throughout our entire life runs through the brain (nervous system) wiring and circuitry that is created and installed within all of us LONG before we usually consider this kind of heavy-hitting influence possible.

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It remains my “sideline” concern that those babies being born to mothers who “must” leave their infants in daycare settings are setting their offspring up for a lifetime of difficulties that nobody will trace back to the “attachment abandonment” these little ones experienced during the bulk of their waking interactional time early in their life.

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This is an excellent website:  HANDS ARE FOR HOLDING – stopspanking.org

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

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Leave a Comment »

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NOTE:  I am stuck with a new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

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Saturday, April 11, 2015.  Here is yet another expert’s word about the impact of trauma and hopes for its healing.  This is the link to one of Dr. Bessel A. van der Kolk’s talks on this subject where you can listen free of charge.  Dr. van der Kolk is a Dutch psychiatrist noted for his research in the area of post-traumatic stress since the 1970s.  His work focuses on the interaction of attachment, neurobiology, and developmental aspects of trauma’s effects on people —

Psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk’s Dangerous Idea? Trauma is a leading public health problem and we have to fix it.

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Dr. van der Kolk is the author of

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

“Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children.

Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives.”

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Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society (1996)

“This bestselling classic presents seminal theory and research on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Together, the leading editors and contributors comprehensively examine how trauma affects an individual’s biology, conceptions of the world, and psychological functioning. Key topics include why certain people cope successfully with traumatic experiences while others do not, the neurobiological processes underlying PTSD symptomatology, enduring questions surrounding traumatic memories and dissociation, and the core components of effective interventions. A highly influential work that laid the foundation for many of the field’s continuing advances, this volume remains an immensely informative and thought-provoking clinical reference and text.”

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This is the home page of The Trauma Center, with pages for clinical and educational services, and Dr. Bessel A. van der Kolk’s Trauma Center Research:

TRAUMA CENTER at Justice Resource Institute — http://www.traumacenter.org/

“The Trauma Center is a program of Justice Resource Institute (JRI), a large nonprofit organization dedicated to social justice by offering hope and promise of fulfillment to children, adults, and families who are at risk of not receiving effective services essential to their safety, progress, and/or survival. The Executive Director of the Trauma Center is Joseph Spinazzola, Ph.D., and the Medical Director and Founder of the Trauma Center is Bessel van der Kolk, MD, who is an internationally recognized leader in the field of psychological trauma.

The Trauma Center provides comprehensive services to traumatized children and adults and their families at the main office in Brookline.

In addition to clinical services, The Trauma Center offers training, consultation, and educational programming for post-graduate mental health professionals. Our Certificate Program in Traumatic Stress Studies has state-of-the-art seminars, lectures and supervision groups. Our monthly Lecture Series is open to all mental health professionals.

The Trauma Center Research Department is housed at our Brookline location and is also directed by Dr. van der Kolk. The Research Department conducts studies on traumatic memory and how treatment effects trauma survivors’ minds, bodies, and brains.

At this Web site you will find a wealth of information – on our clinical services, on our training, consultation and education programs, and on Dr. van der Kolk and others’ research and theories. Whether you are in therapy or a therapist, a student or a scholar, a lawyer or a judge, a representative of the media, you can learn a great deal here.”

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

NOTE:  I am stuck with a new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame

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Thursday, April 9, 2015.  My dear friend and fellow student of attachment-related trauma (of all possible kinds) done to infants and children, himself a fellow “tadpole” as he named survivors with Trauma Altered Development, just gifted me with two intriguing books – thank you!

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Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers (2006) by Gordon Neufeld  (Author), Gabor Mate M.D. (Author)

Again, the book description from the above title link:

“International authority on child development Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D., joins forces with bestselling author Gabor Maté, M.D., to tackle one of the most disturbing trends of our time: Children today looking to their peers for direction—their values, identity, and codes of behavior. This “peer orientation” undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming overly conformist, desensitized, and alienated, and being “cool” matters more to them than anything else.

Hold On to Your Kids explains the causes of this crucial breakdown of parental influence—and demonstrates ways to “reattach” to sons and daughters, establish the proper hierarchy in the home, make kids feel safe and understood, and earn back your children’s loyalty and love. This updated edition also specifically addresses the unprecedented parenting challenges posed by the rise of digital devices and social media. By helping to reawaken instincts innate to us all, Neufeld and Maté will empower parents to be what nature intended: a true source of contact, security, and warmth for their children.”

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Now here I am at the part of the post where I get to say something!  In nearing the end of another intense grandchildren caring week there is not much left of me to garner thoughts in language much beyond what a 32-month-old can understand.  But, really, that IS the point.

As Dr. Siegel – what is the word?  SHOUTS?  Preaches, screams, expounds?  What Siegel knows, what Siegel tells us is that what happens conception to age 3 not only wires up the body-brain of a new human being for a lifetime BUT also INTEGRATES the activity between brain (a part of the Central Nervous System) regions – connected together with everything else within us.

By age 3 new humans are essentially ready to roll onto the show room floor.  The rest of childhood?  A whole lot of fill in the blanks of missing information as it is fed INTO that most incredible structure in all known existence – THE HUMAN BRAIN – which will make the best use out of information that it can based exactly on what happened to that new person conception to age three.

PLEASE investigate this important information if you haven’t discovered Siegel before now!!  An online search for “daniel siegel” will enable you to access many valuable YouTube videos of his talks and a host of links to his life work’s expressions.  (His latest envelope-pushing, state-of-the-art thinking is currently not in the free access domain.  Sadly.)

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Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect (2012) by Jonice Webb (Author), Christine Musello (Contributor)

This book description is from Amazon.com at the title link (above):

“Running on Empty is the first self-help book about Emotional Neglect: an invisible force from your childhood which you can’t see, but may be affecting you profoundly to this day. It is about what didn’t happen in your childhood, what wasn’t said, and what cannot be remembered.

Do you sometimes feel as if you’re just going through the motions in life? Are you good at looking and acting as if you’re fine, but secretly feel lonely and disconnected? Perhaps you have a fine life and are good at your work, but somehow it’s just not enough to make you happy.

If so, you are not alone. The world is full of people who have an innate sense that something is wrong with them. Who feel they live on the outside looking in, but have no explanation for their feeling and no way to put it into words. Who blame themselves for not being happier.

If you are one of these people, you may fear that you are not connected enough to your spouse, or that you don’t feel pleasure or love as profoundly as others do. Perhaps when you do experience strong emotions, you have difficulty understanding or tolerating them. You may drink too much, or eat too much, or risk too much, in an attempt to feel something good.

In over twenty years of practicing psychology, many people have arrived in Jonice Webb’s office, driven by the threat of divorce or the onset of depression, or by loneliness, and said, “”Something is missing in me.””

Running on Empty will give you clear strategies for how to heal, and offers a special chapter for mental health professionals. In the world of human suffering, this book is an Emotional Smart Bomb meant to eradicate the effects of an invisible enemy.”

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The emotional neglect book….  At first thoughts those of us who endured horrendous direct emotional abuse (along with other horrors of trauma most cannot imagine) might approach this topic as a “fluff” kind of reading that could not possibly apply to us.

Although this book (I have only read to page 73 and then loaned the book to my daughter to read – hopefully) carries what I consider a “lighter” kind of message, it is an essential one.  At the very top of the list of people who so powerfully impacted me as a non-rescued child is my father who was essentially destroyed as a person by the emotional neglect he suffered from birth.

He LOST his chance 0-3 to build safe and secure attachments to ANY caregivers.  He LOST his chance to build a strong, clear self-within.  He was a complete sitting duck to be Mad Mother’s enabler and he fulfilled that role perfectly!

Every infant/child who did NOT have safe and secure attachment – which absolutely includes, in my thinking, people who PROTECT children from all harm – did experience emotional neglect on an essential level upon which all other abuses were heaped.  We were all human beings with emotional needs and we did NOT get them met.  In fact the evil opposite happened to us.  This matters.

Enough said for now.  I will not say anything more than this, as well:  I am greatly concerned about the high numbers of infants and children being left in large day care centers 50+ hours a week.  I do not think it is a good sign-of-the-times when mothers of a species abandon their offspring during their most critical stages of (attachment) development 0-3 into the care of strangers.

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Here is our first book out in ebook format.  Click here to view or purchase –

Story Without Words:  How Did Child Abuse Break My Mother?

It lists for $2.99 and can be read by Amazon Prime customers without charge.

++++

Leave a Comment »

++++

NOTE:  I am stuck with a new version of the blog’s posting page that I do not like and cannot get out of.  It has refused to post or include my chosen tags:

adult attachment disorders, adult reactive attachment disorder, anxiety disorders,borderline mother, borderline personality disorder, brain development, child abuse,depression,derealization, disorganized disoriented insecure attachment disorder,dissociation,dissociative identity disorder, empathy, infant abuse, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),protective factors, PTSD, resiliency, resiliency factors, risk factors, shame