The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

by Louis Cozolino

availability to their children. The three nonsecure patterns of attachment research all reflect lower levels of psychological and neurological integration. They also correlate with the use of more primitive psychological defenses associated with disconnections among streams of processing within the brain. The lack of recall and black-and-white thinking of the dismissing parent likely reflect blocked and unintegrated neural coherence. This brain organization then results in decreased attention and emotional availability to the child. The enmeshed parent has difficulty with boundaries between self and others, as well as between past memories and present experiences. These internal and interpersonal issues then lead to inconsistent availability and a flood of words that dysregulate the child. Thus the child, who is also anxious and ambivalent, will seek proximity but have a difficult time returning to play because of the unpredictable availability, as well as the confusing and emotionally dysregulating nature of the parent’s messages and emotions. The internalized mother, instead of being a source of security and autonomic regulation, becomes organized as a destabilizing state of mind and body.