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Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential--and Endangered Paperback – April 5, 2011
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The groundbreaking exploration of the power of empathy by renowned child-psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry, coauthor, with Oprah Winfrey, of What Happened to You?
“Empathy, and the ties that bind people into relationships, are key elements of happiness. Born for Love is truly fascinating.” — Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project
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, 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 to raise kids with empathy while navigating threats from technological change and other forces 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. It reveals how and why the brain learns to bond with others—and is a stirring call to protect our children from new threats to their capacity to love.
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateApril 5, 2011
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.86 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100061656798
- ISBN-13978-0061656798
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Humans need the capacity for empathy-without it, the ability to love is lost. These children are hungry, even desperate for love, and hungry for learning, but the deficits in brain development due to the trauma, drama and chaos of the first four years of life, during which their brains were literally organizing, resonates down their early years. Perry makes the case that all the "Golden Rules" in major religions show how "morality depends on our ability to see the world from other points of view. And this starts with mirror neurons." Right there is what makes this book unique; what we experience as religious, moral and ethical choices in life all begin with what our brains are capable of. "Empathy is the basis of compassionate action...the foundation of trust, which is necessary for the successful functioning of everything from relations to families to governments and, yes, to economies."
What I love about Perry's approach, though, is the lack of moralizing. Here's what happened to this kid's brain and when; here's the consequences of that, now and in the future. Let's find out where the gaps are in brain development, fill in the gaps, and help the kid make better choices. It's a simple process of science-based assessment and treatment, with positive outcomes. It's not easy, but doable. Children, families, schools, neighborhoods, county/state child welfare systems, all benefit when the kid moves from raging and hurting to soothing and healing.
Perry doesn't offer psycho-pablum, such as "all kids are resilient, they'll get over it." When early trauma is intermittent and moderate, a child can be resilient; but when the trauma is sustained and severe, the child is vulnerable, not resilient, and needs help delivered in a way that maximizes brain change and healing. These children need connection, need claiming and consistency, not shuttling them from one foster family or treatment center to another.
Perry prescribes six "R's" in his approach: playful engagement needs to be rhythmic (to affect deep down in the brainstem), repetitive (creating patterns), relational (safe, stable), relevant (geared to child's developmental stage, not chronological age), rewarding (pleasurable) and respectful (of the child, family and culture). Without intervention, they rage, act out, hurt themselves, their families, other children, end up in detention, homeless, insane or in prison. As a society, we need to make good choices about how we spend our charitable and tax dollars on child trauma and neglect; otherwise these children make brain-traumatized choices that cost them and us much pain, injury, money and lives. No empathy breeds impaired, broken and lost relationships; loving, thoughtful care creates well brains, good choices and productive lives.
His chapter "On Baboons" was beneficial in helping me understand my boss and what has been happening to me with all the stress and my health (this chapter helped me realize I need to quit my job and start my own business). I read the chapter to my mother to help her understand why people stay in hopeless situations; for example, my brother has a lot of stress in his marriage, and now my mother understands what he's going through.
I find myself quoting from the book and telling others some of the stories to explain my understanding why people are doing what they do. But like his other book, "The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog," I need to read this one again to absorb all the information.
You will never regret getting this book, especially if you work and help children who are young (although it helps with understanding who others turn out like they do).
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My favorite quote from the book has to be, "I don't promise that it will be easy. I do promise them that they can get through it, as long as they keep putting one foot in front of the other and getting up everyday. That's what I do, I just keep getting up."
Thoroughly recommended.
一日で半分聴いたが、その時々は良く理解できた。
全貌を頭に残すには、ゆっくりとメモを取りながら進める事も必要かな?
公園を散歩しながら聴くには最適と思う。
他の著作も気になった。








