Una Lynn

“Such “trained intuition” is a large part of what distinguishes experts from amateurs in most fields. We don’t always consciously know what it is that doesn’t fit, but somewhere our brain recognizes that part of the puzzle is missing, and it sends up a signal that something’s askew. (This “gut feeling” is actually a low-level activation of the stress response system, which is acutely attuned to combinations of incoming signals that are out of context or novel.)”
― Bruce D. Perry, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook

“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

“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