Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology – serie

Therapists around the world ask similar questions and struggle with similar challenges treating highly dissociative patients. This book arose not only out of countless hours of treating patients with dissociative disorders, but also out of the crucible of supervision and consultation, where therapists bring their most urgent questions, needs and vulnerabilities.The book offers an overview of the neuropsychology of dissociation as a disorder of non-realisation, as well as chapters on assessment, prognosis, case formulation, treatment planning, and treatment phases and goals, based on best practices. The authors describe:What to focus on first in a complex therapy and how to do itHow to help patients establish both internal and external safety without rescuingHow to work systematically with dissociative parts of a patient in ways that facilitate integration rather than further dissociationHow to set and maintain helpful boundariesSpecific ways to stay focused on process instead of contentHow to deal compassionately and effectively with disorganised attachment and dependency on the therapistHow to help patients integrate traumatic memoriesWhat to do when the patient is enraged, chronically ashamed, avoidant or unable to trust the therapistHow to compassionately understand and work with resistances as a co-creation of both patient and therapistRelational ways of being with the patient are the backbone of treatment and are themselves essential therapeutic interventions. As such, the book also focuses not only on highly practical and theoretically sound interventions, not only on what to do and say, but places strong emphasis on how to be with patients, describing innovative, compassionately collaborative approaches based on the latest research on attachment and evolutionary psychology.Throughout the book, core concepts—fundamental ideas that are highlighted in the text in bold so they can be seen at a glance—are emphasised. These serve as guiding principles in treatment as well as a summing-up of many of the most important notions in each chapter. Each chapter concludes with a section for further examination. These sections include additional ideas and questions, exercises for practising skills and suggestions for peer discussions based on topics in a particular chapter, meant to inspire further curiosity, discovery and growth.

This book compiles, for the first time, Stephen W. Porges’s decades of research. A leading expert in developmental psychophysiology and developmental behavioral neuroscience, Porges is the mind behind the groundbreaking Polyvagal Theory, which has startling implications for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, and autism. Adopted by clinicians around the world, the Polyvagal Theory has provided exciting new insights into the way our autonomic nervous system unconsciously mediates social engagement, trust, and intimacy.

Cultivation of emotional awareness is difficult, even for those of us not afflicted by serious mental illness. This book discusses the neurobiology behind emotional states and presents exercises for developing self awareness. Topics include mood (both unipolar and bipolar), anxiety (particularly PTSD), and dissociative disorders.  Frewen and Lanius comprehensively review psychological and neurobiological research, and explain how to use this research to become aware of emotional states within both normal and psychopathological functioning. Therapists will be able to help survivors of trauma, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and dissociative disorders develop emotional awareness. The book also includes case studies, detailed instructions for clinicians, and handouts ready for use in assessment/therapy with patients/clients.

Louis Cozolino helps clinicians to broaden their thinking and deepen their clinical toolbox through an understanding of neuroscience, brain development, epigenetics and the role of attachment in brain development and behaviour.The effective therapist must have knowledge of evolution and neuroanatomy, as well as the systems of our brains and how they work together to give rise to who we are, how we thrive and why we suffer. This book will give clinicians all they need to understand:The social brainThe developing brainThe executive brainConsciousnessAttachmentTraumaMemoryThe latest information about clinical assessmentKey figures and terms of neuroscience, along with numerous case examples, bring the material to life.Cozolino is one of the most gifted clinical writers on neuroscience and his long- awaited pocket guide is a must-buy for any clinician working on the cutting edge of treatment.

They typically have a wide array of symptoms, often classified under different combinations of comorbidity, which can make assessment and treatment complicated and confusing for the therapist.Many patients have substantial problems with daily living and relationships, including serious intrapsychic conflicts and maladaptive coping strategies. Their suffering essentially relates to a terrifying and painful past that haunts them. Even when survivors attempt to hide their distress beneath a facade of normality—a common strategy—therapists often feel besieged by their many symptoms and serious pain. Small wonder that many survivors of chronic traumatization have seen several therapists with little if any gains, and that quite a few have been labeled as untreatable or resistant.In this book, three leading researchers and clinicians share what they have learned from treating and studying chronically traumatized individuals across more than 65 years of collective experience. Based on the theory of structural dissociation of the personality in combination with a Janetian psychology of action, the authors have developed a model of phase-oriented treatment that focuses on the identification and treatment of structural dissociation and related maladaptive mental and behavioral actions. The foundation of this approach is to support patients in learning more effective mental and behavioral actions that will enable them to become more adaptive in life and to resolve their structural dissociation. This principle implies an overall therapeutic goal of raising the integrative capacity, in order to cope with the demands of daily life and deal with the haunting remnants of the past, with the “unfinished business” of traumatic memories.Of interest to clinicians, students of clinical psychology and psychiatry, as well as to researchers, all those interested in adult survivors of chronic child abuse and neglect will find helpful insights and tools that may make the treatment more effective and efficient, and more tolerable for the suffering patient.

Neuroscientific discoveries have begun to illuminate the workings of the active brain in intricate detail. In fact, sometimes it seems that in order to be a cutting-edge therapist, not only do you need knowledge of traditional psychotherapeutic models, but a solid understanding of the role the brain plays as well. But theory is never enough. You also need to know how to apply the theories to work with actual clients during sessions.In easy-to-understand prose, Being a Brain-Wise Therapist reviews the basic principles about brain structure, function, and development, and explains the neurobiological correlates of some familiar diagnostic categories. You will learn how to make theory come to life in the midst of clinical work, so that the principles of interpersonal neurobiology can be applied to a range of patients and issues, such as couples, teens, and children, and those dealing with depression, anxiety, and other disorders. Liberal use of exercises and case histories enliven the material and make this an essential guide for seamlessly integrating the latest neuroscientific research into your therapeutic practice.

The culmination of three decades of Allan Schore’s groundbreaking work, this book details how the right brain—the psychobiological locus of Freud’s unconscious mind—plays a fundamental role in the early origin of human nature (the general characteristics and feelings attributed to human beings). The early developing right brain, not only grounds our bodily-based subjective experience of the world, but also allows us to make sense of it.This volume offers interdisciplinary and clinical evidence indicating that during human infancy, right brain intersubjectivity (the emotional communication between unconscious minds) and attachment (the subliminal interactive regulation of emotion) underlie the essential foundation of the human personality. Beneath conscious awareness, the early evolving right brain implicitly generates the emotional capacity for both love and hate, ecstasy and agony, good and evil, forgiveness and revenge, creativity and destructiveness—all products of the deeper stratum of human nature.

Written for all therapists who want to understand this groundbreaking theory as it might actually show up in their day-to-day practice, this book offers a comprehensive approach to polyvagal-informed intervention. Worksheets and experiential exercises designed to map and shape autonomic response provide therapists with a road map for bringing polyvagal theory into their clinical practice. Adding a polyvagal perspective to clinical practice draws the autonomic nervous system directly into the work of therapy, helping clients:Re-pattern their nervous systemsBuild capacities for regulationCreate autonomic pathways of safety and connection

The body’s intelligence is largely an untapped resource in psychotherapy, yet the story told by the “somatic narrative”-- gesture, posture, prosody, facial expressions, eye gaze, and movement -- is arguably more significant than the story told by the words. The language of the body communicates implicit meanings and reveals the legacy of trauma and of early or forgotten dynamics with attachment figures. To omit the body as a target of therapeutic action is an unfortunate oversight that deprives clients of a vital avenue of self-knowledge and change.Written for therapists and clients to explore together in therapy, this book is a practical guide to the language of the body. It begins with a section that orients therapists and clients to the volume and how to use it, followed by an overview of the role of the brain and the use of mindfulness. The last three sections are organized according to a phase approach to therapy:developing personal resources, particularly somatic onesutilizing a bottom-up, somatic approach to memoryexploring the impact of attachment on procedural learning, emotional biases, and cognitive distortions.Each chapter is accompanied by a guide to help therapists apply the chapter’s teachings in clinical practice and by worksheets to help clients integrate the material on a personal level.The concepts, interventions, and worksheets introduced in this book are designed as an adjunct to, and in support of, other methods of treatment rather than as a stand-alone treatment or manualized approach. By drawing on the therapeutic relationship and adjusting interventions to the particular needs of each client, thoughtful attention to what is being spoken beneath the words through the body can heighten the intimacy of the therapist/client journey and help change take place more easily in the hidden recesses of the self.

Beginning with the claim that we are psychologically alive only in the now, internationally acclaimed child psychiatrist Daniel N. Stern tackles vexing yet fascinating questions such as: what is the nature of 'nowness'? How is 'now' experienced between two people? What do present moments have to do with therapeutic growth and change?Certain moments of shared immediate experience, such as a knowing glance across a dinner table, are paradigmatic of what Stern shows to be the core of human experience, the 3 to 5 seconds he identifies as 'the present moment.' By placing the present moment at the center of psychotherapy, Stern alters our ideas about how therapeutic change occurs, and about what is significant in therapy. As much a meditation on the problems of memory and experience as it is a call to appreciate every moment of experience, The Present Moment is a must-read for all who are interested in the latest thinking about human experience.

Here, two of the world’s leading couple therapists give readers an inside tour of what goes on in the consulting rooms of their practice. They have been doing couples work for decades and still find it challenging. This book gathers together what they have learned over the years of their practice and touches on issues at the core of couples work. No-one who works with couples will want to be without the insight, guidance and strategies offered in this book.

From the author of the internationally-acclaimed best-selling text The Developing Mind, and esteemed leader and educator in the field of mental health, comes the first book ever to integrate neuroscience research with the ancient art of mindfulness. The result is a groundbreaking approach to not simply mental health, but life in general, which shows readers how personal awareness and attunement can actually stimulate emotional circuits in the brain, leading to a host of physiological benefits, including greater well-being, resilience, emotional balance, and improved cardiac and immune function. For clinicians and laypeople alike, Siegel’s illuminating discussions of the power of the focused mind provide a wealth of ideas that can transform our lives and deepen our connections with others, and with ourselves.

Psychotherapists who have been trained in models of psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, or cognitive therapeutic approaches are skilled at listening to the language and affect of the client. They track the clients' associations, fantasies, and signs of psychic conflict, distress, and defenses. Yet while the majority of therapists are trained to notice the appearance and even the movements of the client's body, thoughtful engagement with the client's embodied experience has remained peripheral to traditional therapeutic interventions. Trauma and the Body is a detailed review of research in neuroscience, trauma, dissociation, and attachment theory that points to the need for an integrative mind-body approach to trauma. The premise of this book is that, by adding body-oriented interventions to their repertoire, traditionally trained therapists can increase the depth and efficacy of their clinical work. Sensorimotor psychotherapy is an approach that builds on traditional psychotherapeutic understanding but includes the body as central in the therapeutic field of awareness, using observational skills, theories, and interventions not usually practiced in psychodynamic psychotherapy. By synthesizing bottom-up and top down interventions, the authors combine the best of both worlds to help chronically traumatized clients find resolution and meaning in their lives and develop a new, somatically integrated sense of self.Topics addressed include:Cognitive, emotional, and sensorimotor dimensions of information processingmodulating arousaldyadic regulation and the bodythe orienting responsedefensive subsystemsadaptation and action systemstreatment principlesskills for working with the body in present timedeveloping somatic resources for stabilizationprocessing

2015 Gradiva Award Nomination for Best BookWhen immersed in therapy with a patient, clinicians are guided not only by conscious, explicit dialogues and intellectual investigation, but also by natural flows of emotion, energy, and body-based information—hunches, gut feelings, behavioral impulses. These natural flows are the foundation of clinical intuition, the right-brain means by which therapists perceive and respond to relational patterns and non-conscious signals during psychotherapy.In Clinical Intuition in Psychotherapy, Terry Marks-Tarlow bridged art and science to explain the essential role of clinical intuition in transforming traumatized brains into healthy minds. Here, Marks-Tarlow walks through a series of exercises to help therapists at all levels of experience hone their sensitivity to their non-conscious resources and apply intuition effectively in therapy. With exercises in breathing, mindfulness, meditation, play, perspective-building, and much more, Awakening Clinical Intuition is a practical workbook for eliminating mental clutter, getting in touch with right-brain, embodied responses to psychotherapy, and cultivating a unique, intuitive style. Features include client-ready applications and two hours of accompanying audio.

Personality and Wholeness in Psychotherapy applies the perspective of interpersonal neurobiology to a traditional wisdom framework widely known as the Enneagram of Personality. This framework describes a lifespan developmental personality model of nine distinct, key strategies that people use to make sense of and cope with their experiences and interactions with the world. These strategies can be understood as nine Patterns of Developmental Pathways, or PDPs.This book provides mental health practitioners with both a theoretical understanding of PDPs and practical tools for implementing the framework in clinical settings. Readers will find detailed descriptions of the nine core patterns of personality as well as integrative practices specific to each of these patterns that can help people work towards states of well-being and wholeness. This innovative book has the potential to unlock deep and lasting change in problematic and perplexing patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving, transforming personality from a prison to a playground for readers and clients alike.

As we move into the third millennium, the field of mental health is in an exciting position to bring together diverse ideas from a range of disciplines that illuminate our understanding of human experience: neurobiology, developmental psychology, traumatology, and systems theory. The contributors emphasize the ways in which the social environment, including relationships of childhood, adulthood, and the treatment milieu change aspects of the structure of the brain and ultimately alter the mind.

In 1994 Allan Schore published his groundbreaking book, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, in which he integrated a large number of experimental and clinical studies from both the psychological and biological disciplines in order to construct an overarching model of social and emotional development. Since then he has expanded his regulation theory in more than two dozen articles and essays covering multiple disciplines, including neuroscience, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, attachment, and trauma. Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self contains writings on developmental affective neuroscience and developmental neuropsychiatry. It is absolutely essential reading for all clinicians, researchers, and general readers interested in normal and abnormal human development.

In 1994 Allan Schore published his groundbreaking book, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, in which he integrated a large number of experimental and clinical studies from both the psychological and biological disciplines in order to construct an overarching model of social and emotional development. Since then he has expanded his regulation theory in more than two dozen articles and essays covering multiple disciplines, including neuroscience, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, attachment, and trauma. Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self contains chapters on neuropsychoanalysis and developmentally oriented psychotherapy. It is absolutely essential reading for all clinicians, researchers, and general readers interested in normal and abnormal human development.

When early interventions with children fail, clinicians wonder: How could things have been different? The answers seem obvious at first, but a little reflection begins to unveil just how complicated this question really is. Who should have been included in the treatment? With what professionals and using what approaches? When should intervention have occurred? Each question involves a spectrum of both personal and societal issues, which is perhaps why problems that are so widely acknowledged remain so widely ignored. Often, a family is not aware that their story could have had a different ending.So, in response to the critical need for a more cohesive system of care for our youngest patients, this book presents a conceptual framework for interdisciplinary collaboration. Examining the issues of infant mental health and early intervention from a brain-based perspective—one that cuts across all domains—addresses the need for individual practitioners to incorporate the whole picture in relation to their part in assessing and intervening with each individual child and parent, and provides a global framework for team collaboration.

Over the course of his esteemed career, he has received funding for hundreds of key studies in the US and abroad on normal and abnormal infant and child development—including his Mutual Regulation Model and Still-Face Paradigm, which revolutionized our understanding of infants’ emotional capacities and coping—all of which led to critical contributions in the field. Much of his work serves as the benchmark for how mental health clinicians think about biopsychosocial states of consciousness, the process of meaning making, and how and why we engage with others in the world.Now, for the first time, Tronick has gathered together his most influential writings in a single, essential volume. Organized into five parts—(I) Neurobehavior, (II) Culture, (III) Infant Social-Emotional Interaction, (IV) Perturbations: Natural and Experimental, and (V) Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness and Meaning Making—this book represents his major ideas and studies regarding infant-adult interactions, developmental processes, and mutual regulation, carefully addressing such questions as:What is a state of consciousness?What are the developing infant’s capacities for neurobehavioral self-organization?How are early infant-adult interactions organized?How can we understand the nature of normal versus abnormal development?How do self and mutual regulation relate to developmental processes?Is meaning making purely a function of the brain, or is it in our bodies as well?As a bonus, the book includes a DVD-ROM, with video clips of Tronick’s Still-Face Paradigm, an invaluable teaching aid.

What makes us happy? What makes us sad? How do we come to feel a sense of enthusiasm? What fills us with lust, anger, fear, or tenderness? Traditional behavioral and cognitive neuroscience have yet to provide satisfactory answers. The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach—which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share—to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals—for the first time—the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.This book elaborates on the seven emotional systems that explain how we live and behave. These systems originate in deep areas of the brain that are remarkably similar across all mammalian species. When they are disrupted, we find the origins of emotional disorders:- SEEKING: how the brain generates a euphoric and expectant response- FEAR: how the brain responds to the threat of physical danger and death- RAGE: sources of irritation and fury in the brain- LUST: how sexual desire and attachments are elaborated in the brain- CARE: sources of maternal nurturance- GRIEF: sources of non-sexual attachments- PLAY: how the brain generates joyous, rough-and-tumble interactions- SELF: a hypothesis explaining how affects might be elaborated in the brainThe book offers an evidence-based evolutionary taxonomy of emotions and affects and, as such, a brand-new clinical paradigm for treating psychiatric disorders in clinical practice.

We are hardwired to connect with one another, and we connect through our emotions. Our brains, bodies, and minds are inseparable from the emotions that animate them.Normal human development relies on the cultivation of relationships with others to form and nurture the self-regulatory circuits that enable emotion to enrich, rather than enslave, our lives. And just as emotionally traumatic events can tear apart the fabric of family and psyche, the emotions can become powerful catalysts for the transformations that are at the heart of the healing process.In this book, the latest addition to the Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, leading neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, therapy researchers, and clinicians illuminate how to regulate emotion in a healthy way. A variety of emotions, both positive and negative, are examined in detail, drawing on both research and clinical observations. The role of emotion in bodily regulation, dyadic connection, marital communication, play, well-being, health, creativity, and social engagement is explored. The Healing Power of Emotion offers fresh, exciting, original, and groundbreaking work from the leading figures studying and working with emotion today.Contributors include: Jaak Panksepp, Stephen W. Porges, Colwyn Trevarthen, Ed Tronick, Allan N. Schore, Daniel J. Siegel, Diana Fosha, Pat Ogden, Marion F. Solomon, Susan Johnson, and Dan Hughes.

What can dementia, delusions, and other neurological disorders teach us about how the brain creates personal identity and a unified sense of self? Here, a leading neurobiologist offers an intriguing scientific approach to understanding the neurobiology of the self.Drawing on both the latest neuroscientific research, as well as the author's decades of experience with neurological patients, From Axons to Identity examines the link between brain and identity in fascinating new ways. Dr. Feinberg presents case studies of individuals with brain pathologies and unusual psychiatric syndromes that cause them to deny parts of their bodies or believe in the presence of mysterious imposters or imaginary friends, and then presents a groundbreaking new theory of these conditions that relates them to the normal course of psychological development. By examining what goes wrong in individuals with these conditions, Dr. Feinberg presents an engaging new theory with far-reaching implications for the link between brain and identity. From Axons to Identity proposes a new view of the processes of the brain and the self that is unique and revelatory.

For each of us, our thoughts, beliefs, desires, expectations, and fantasies constitute our own sense of a unique identity. Here, Jungian and relational psychoanalyst Jean Knox argues that this experience of self-agency is always at the heart of psychological growth and development, and it follows a developmental trajectory that she examines in detail, from the realm of bodily action and reaction in the first few months of life, through the emergence of different levels of agency, to the mature expression of agency in language and metaphor.Knox makes the case that the achievement of a secure sense of self-agency lies at the heart of any successful psychotherapy, and argues for an updated psychoanalytic therapy rooted in a developmental and intersubjective approach. Drawing on a range of therapeutic disciplines—including interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, and developmental research—she proposes an integrated and flexible clinical approach that is based on the actual interpersonal agency of analyst and patient, rather than any one specific theory about the human unconscious being imposed on the patient by the analyst’s interpretations. Detailed clinical examples explore this approach.Part of the Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, Self-Agency in Psychotherapy deftly balances theory and practice, offering practical applications for groundbreaking research on self-agency.

Recent advances in research in the fields of attachment, trauma, and the neurobiology of emotion have shown that mind, brain, and body are inextricably linked. This new research has revolutionized our understanding of the process of change in psychotherapy and in life, and raised a flurry of questions about the practical application of neuroscience in clinical treatment, particularly with those who have experienced early relational trauma and neglect. What insight does neuroscience offer to our clinical understanding of early life experiences? Can we use the plasticity of the brain to aid in therapeutic change? If so, how?Changing Minds in Therapy explores the dynamics of brain-mind change, translating insights from these new fields of study into practical tips for therapists to use in the consulting room. Drawing from a wide range of clinical approaches and deftly integrating the scholarly with the practical, Margaret Wilkinson presents contemporary neuroscience, as well as attachment and trauma theories, in an accessible way, illuminating the many ways in which cutting edge research may inform clinical practice.

What happens between partners that makes love turn to war? How can couples therapists help deescalate the battles? Two leading therapists apply the latest neuroscience research on emotional arousal to help couples regulate each other’s emotions, maintain secure attachment, and foster positive, enduring relationships. The neurobiologically-grounded and sensitive approach set forth by Solomon and Tatkin in this book is sure to transform the way clinicians understand and treat couples in therapy.

This book addresses one of the fundamental, understudied issues of borderline personality disorder (BPD): dissociation and a lack of sense of self. Exploring dissociation from developmental, neurobiological,and behavioral perspectives, Russell Meares presents an original theory of BPD, offering new insights into this debilitating disorder and hope for recovery.BPD is not a new phenomenon, but much about it remains unclear and controversial. Meares’s three-stage treatment emphasizes:the failure of synthesis among the elements of psychic lifethe need for both personal and social developmentintegration of unconscious traumatic memoryaffect regulationhallucinosisstimulus entrapmentparanoid statesrestoration of the selfMental health professionals working with patients suffering from symptoms of BPD will find an invaluable theoretical grounding for treating the difficult—and varied—symptoms of BPD.

This book presents an overview of the latest theories of affect regulation and focuses on how these theories work in clinical settings and how therapists can be taught to implement them. The notion of teaching and learning will be extended by the theories themselves—the author presents methods of education that enact the theories being taught.The book is divided into eight chapters, each one highlighting a particular structure or related structures of the brain. Suggestions for learning how to clinically apply the neurobiological/neuroanatomical information are offered. What is so unique about this book is that the bulk of the chapters are clinical dialogue, accompanied by neurobiological commentary. Thus, readers can see for themselves, during the course of parts of sessions, just how a “neurobiological outlook” can inform therapeutic understandings of what clients are doing and saying. The result is a very user-friendly learning experience for readers, as they are taken along a journey of understanding various brain systems and how they relate to psychotherapeutic principles.Elegantly bridging the gap between the academic and clinical domains, this book is essential for anyone interested in the application of neurobiological principles to psychotherapy and wishes to learn about neurobiology without feeling overwhelmed or intimidated.

Chock-full of exercises and strategies, this book will allow clients to deepen the key principles of interpersonal neurobiology that Bonnie Badenoch wrote about in her earlier book. Topics include spotting implicit patterns, observing the bond with kindness, expanding our coherent narratives, coming to terms with the passage of time, and weaving brain talk into personal understanding.