Why Love Matters explains why loving relationships are essential to brain development in the early years, and how these early interactions can have lasting consequences for future emotional and physical health. This second edition follows on from the success of the first, updating the scientific research, covering recent findings in genetics and the mind/body connection, and including a new chapter highlighting our growing understanding of the part also played by pregnancy in shaping a baby's future emotional and physical well-being. The author focuses in particular on the wide-ranging effects of early stress on a baby or toddler's developing nervous system. When things go wrong with relationships in early life, the dependent child has to adapt; what we now know is that his or her brain adapts too. The brain's emotion and immune systems are particularly affected by early stress and can become less effective. This makes the child more vulnerable to a range of later difficulties such as depression, anti-social behaviour, addictions or anorexia, as well as physical illness.

Ambitious and wide-ranging, The Selfish Societyreveals the vital importance of understanding our early emotional lives, arguing that by focusing on the attention we give to our young children we can create a better society. Open any newspaper,and what do you find? Violence and crime, child abuse and neglect, expenses scandals, addiction, fraud and corruption, environmental melt-down Is Britain indeed broken? How did modern society get to this point? Who is to blame? How can we change? We have come to inhabit a culture of selfish individualism which has confused material well-being with happiness. As society became bigger and more competitive, working life was cut off from child-rearing and the new economics ignored people's emotional needs. We have lived with this culture so long that it is hard to imagine it being any different. Yet we are now at a turning point where the need for change is becoming urgent. If we are to build a more reflective and collaborative society, Gerhardt argues, we need to support the caring qualities that are learnt in early life and integrate them into our political and economic thinking. Inspiring and thought-provoking, The Selfish Society sets out a roadmap to a more positive and compassionate future.

Why Love Matters explains why loving relationships are essential to brain development in the early years, and how these early interactions can have lasting consequences for future emotional and physical health. This second edition follows on from the success of the first, updating the scientific research, covering recent findings in genetics and the mind/body connection, and including a new chapter highlighting our growing understanding of the part also played by pregnancy in shaping a baby's future emotional and physical well-being. The author focuses in particular on the wide-ranging effects of early stress on a baby or toddler's developing nervous system. When things go wrong with relationships in early life, the dependent child has to adapt; what we now know is that his or her brain adapts too. The brain's emotion and immune systems are particularly affected by early stress and can become less effective. This makes the child more vulnerable to a range of later difficulties such as depression, anti-social behaviour, addictions or anorexia, as well as physical illness.