Una Lynn

“The more healthy relationships a child has, the
more likely he will be to recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love.”
― Bruce D. Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook

“At birth human touch is a novel and, initially, stressful
stimulus. Loving touch has yet to be connected to pleasure. It is in the arms of a present, loving caregiver that the hours upon hours of touch become familiar and associated with safety and comfort. It seems that when a baby’s need for this nurturing touch isn’t satisfied, the connection between human contact and pleasure isn’t made and being touched can become actively unpleasant.”
― Bruce D. Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook

“The behavior of his classmates was predictable. What was happening was a small version of what happens all across the planet in various forms every day. Human beings fear what they don’t understand. The unknown scares us. When we meet people who look or act in unfamiliar or strange ways, our initial response is to keep them at arm’s length. At times we make ourselves feel superior, smarter or more competent by dehumanizing or degrading those who are different. The roots of so many of our species’s
ugliest behaviors—racism, ageism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, to name just a few—are in this basic brain-mediated response to perceived threat. We tend
to fear what we do not understand, and fear can so easily twist into hate or even violence because it can suppress the rational parts of our brain.”
― Bruce D. Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook

“They were tolerant of his developmental problems, patient in correcting his social mistakes and nurturing in their interactions. These children provided many more positive therapeutic experiences than we ever could have given Peter.”
― Bruce D. Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook