The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity—A Transformative Guide to Understanding Childhood Trauma and Health

by Nadine Burke Harris

Babies are born with an oversupply of brain cells and the brain also goes through a pruning process. The brain cells on the circuits you don’t use get pruned, and the ones on the circuits that you do use grow and strengthen. Our experiences, both positive and harmful, determine which brain pathways are activated and continue to strengthen over time. In that sense, early experiences literally shape the brain. We know that early adversity activates the brain pathways that are associated with vigilance, poor impulse control, increased fear, and inhibition of executive functioning. But if we can identify kids who are at high risk for toxic stress early enough, we can intervene in time to take advantage of high levels of both synaptic and cellular plasticity. The most effective way to rewire the brain is to implement early interventions that help to prevent the stress response from becoming dysregulated and that support practices that buffer the stress response (as with child-parent psychotherapy). By doing this, you give the brain the greatest opportunity to grow in new and healthy ways.