Una Lynn

“When Mama P. had rocked and held the traumatized and neglected children she cared for, she’d intuitively discovered what would become the foundation of our neurosequential approach: these children need patterned, repetitive experiences appropriate to their developmental needs, needs that reflect the age at which they’d missed important stimuli or had been
traumatized, not their current chronological age. When she sat in a rocking chair cuddling a seven-year-old, she was providing the touch and rhythm
that he’d missed as an infant, experience necessary for proper brain growth. A foundational principle of brain development is that neural systems organize and become functional in a sequential manner. Furthermore, the organization of a less mature region depends, in part, upon incoming signals from lower, more mature regions. If one system doesn’t get what it needs when it needs it, those that rely upon it may not function well either, even if the stimuli that the later developing system needs are being provided
appropriately. The key to healthy development is getting the right experiences in the right amounts at the right time.”
― 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

“Children, just like us adults, react badly to the unknown, to the strange and unfamiliar, especially when they themselves are trying to adjust to a
new situation like the start of a school year. Although their social hierarchies aren’t always so easy to influence, most bullying and social rejection begins with fear of the unfamiliar, and adults have much more influence over the process than they may believe. When children understand why someone behaves oddly, they give him or her more slack,
generally. And the younger the children are, the more easily they are influenced by both obvious and subtle cues of rejection and acceptance from adults. These cues often set the tone for the children’s status systems, and teachers and parents can either minimize bullying or unfortunately, maximize it, by either strongly discouraging or tolerating the scapegoating of those who are “different.”
― Bruce D. Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook

“Each night after the children went to bed our team would meet to review the day and discuss each child. This “staffing” process began to reveal patterns that suggested therapeutic experiences were taking place in short, minutes-long interactions. As we charted these contacts we found that, despite having no formal “therapy” sessions, each child was actually getting hours of intimate, nurturing, therapeutic connections each day. The child controlled when, with whom and how she interacted with the child-sensitive adults around her. Because our staff had a variety of strengths—some were very touchy-feely and nurturing, others were humorous, still others good listeners or sources of information—the children could seek out what they needed, when they needed it. This created a powerful therapeutic web.”
― Bruce D. Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook