http://mednews.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/5510.html?at Children's earliest relationships set the stage for life
"Browse through many of the parenting books on store shelves, and they'll recommend singing and reading to your baby even before birth, talking to your newborn and making eye contact several times throughout the day. Local experts in child psychology say you're not just helping your child's brain make early connections that can enhance language skills later in life. You're actually teaching your child how to establish and maintain their first relationship.
"According to Dr. John Constantino, assistant professor of child psychiatry and a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine, it is this earliest relationship with a parent or caregiver that is the most powerful in a child's life.
" "It is that person who provides that baby with their first sense of what is a relationship with another human being all about," explained Constantino. "And what happens as they grow up is ... that relationship gets internalized in their mind and brain and carried forward, so that their whole understanding and their whole approach to relationships with other human beings is based in large measure on what happens during that first attachment relationship." ...
"The absence of a secure attachment relationship ... essentially doubles the relative risk the child will have a significant mental health problem over the course of childhood," said Constantino."In my last therapy session my t told me about the above information (He actually has a tape on this which he's going to let me borrow.) and the importance of the baby's eye-to-eye contact with their mother in early infancy. The good news he said the harm done from the lack of eye-to-eye contact and physical contact with my Nmother can be reversed through eye-to-eye contact and being listened to and acknowledged as an adult. Essentially I can get what I needed then, now. And I am.
The most important part is the actual chemical and brain changes which were supposed to happen as a baby can happen now. And it is. My t says there are actual physical changes in the brain, frontal lobe cortex.
From Wikipedia:
Frontal lobes have been found to play a part in impulse control, judgment, language, memory, motor function, problem solving, sexual behavior, socialization and spontaneity. Frontal lobes assist in planning, coordinating, controlling and executing behavior. People who have damaged frontal lobes may experience problems with these aspects of cognitive function, being at times impulsive; impaired in their ability to plan and execute complex sequences of actions; perhaps persisting with one course of action or pattern of behavior when a change would be appropriate (perseveration).The words I put in bold and underlined are exactly the areas where I am seeing significant change.
I am not usually into the scientific end of my healing journey yet this is interesting to me.
I have to take back what I said to October in her "Therapy" topic. Obviously it is important to have eye-to-eye contact with a person who will listen and acknowledge you. Years ago when I left my h for about 9 months I saw another therapist in a different city. He said that very thing to me. Now I am beginning to see the importance of eye-to-eye contact and listening/acknowledgement in my healing journey. And I still believe I needed to find my own path toward healing that was outside the box.
I told my t this last time that I don't fully trust him and wouldn't ever fully trust a therapist again. The violation of the N-t runs so deep and I don't know if that will ever heal. Maybe acknowledging it is first step to healing it?
My t told me he didn't know that. However upon our initial appointment he sensed a different approach would be needed for therapy. He's basically taken a "hands off" approach where he's interjected little information or advice. If I want to know something he'll tell me. If I am off base on something he'll tell me. Otherwise he's let me have the reins.
So I guess the relationship I have with my therapist
is my first relationship.How did my t and I get onto this subject? I was telling him about being stuck in my writing. I couldn't write any more through typing. Every time I would sit down I got stuck writing a story that was essentially over. My healing journey through writing my books has been about telling the truth. When I typed I stayed stuck in the fantasy that my relationship with my bioNfather was okay. So I switched back to handwriting and have completed nearly 60 pages in about two weeks.
My t says my right hand is connected to my conscious brain. If that is true I would connect to my conscious truth about my bioNfather not the fantasy. So that is why I needed to switch to handwriting. And that is when my t brought up the information above.
