This groundbreaking book explores how the attachment- focused family therapy model works at a neural level. Investigation of the brain science of early childhood and developmental trauma offers clinicians new insights-and powerful new methods-to help neglected and insecurely attached children regain a sense of safety and security with caring adults.

In this groundbreaking exploration of the brain mechanisms behind healthy caregiving, attachment specialist Daniel A. Hughes and veteran clinical psychologist Jonathan Baylin guide readers through the intricate web of neuronal processes, hormones and chemicals that drive-and sometimes thwart-our caregiving impulses, uncovering the mysteries of the parental brain. The biggest challenge to parents, Hughes and Baylin explain, is learning how to regulate emotions that arise-feeling them deeply and honestly while staying grounded and aware enough to preserve the parent-child relationship. Stress, which can lead to "blocked" or dysfunctional care, can impede our brain's inherent caregiving processes and negatively impact our ability to do this. While the parent-child relationship can generate deep empathy and the intense motivation to care for our children, it can also trigger self-defensive feelings rooted in our early attachment relationships, and give rise to "unparental" impulses. Learning to be a "good parent" is contingent upon learning how to manage this stress, understand its brain-based cues and respond in a way that will set the brain back on track. To this end, Hughes and Baylin define five major "systems" of caregiving as they're linked to the brain, explaining how they operate when parenting is strong and what happens when good parenting is compromised or "blocked". With this awareness, we learn how to approach kids with renewed playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy, re-regulate our caregiving systems, foster deeper social engagement and facilitate our children's development. Infused with clinical insight, illuminating case examples and helpful illustrations, Brain-Based Parenting brings the science of caregiving to light for the first time. Far from just managing our children's behaviour, we can develop our "parenting brains", and with a better understanding of the neurobiological roots of our feelings and our own attachment histories, we can transform a fraught parent-child relationship into an open, regulated and loving one.

What potential does psychotherapy have for mediating the impact of childhood developmental trauma on adult life? Combining knowledge from trauma-focused work, understandings of the developmental brain and the neurodynamics of psychotherapy, the authors explain how good care and poor care in childhood influence adulthood. They provide scientific background to deepen understanding of childhood developmental trauma. They introduce principles of therapeutic change and how and why mind-body and brain-based approaches are so effective in the treatment of developmental trauma. The book focuses in particular on Pesso Boyden System Psychotherapy (PBSP) which uniquely combines and integrates key processes of mind-body work that can facilitate positive change in adult survivors of childhood maltreatment. Through client stories Petra Winnette and Jonathan Baylin describe the clinical application of PBSP and the underlying neuropsychological concepts upon which it is based. Working with Traumatic Memories to Heal Adults with Unresolved Childhood Trauma has applications relevant to psychotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists working with clients who have experienced trauma.