Blueprint How Our Childhood Makes Us Who We Are – Dr Lucy Maddox

Identifying the neurocognitive coping mechanisms that are actively unhelpful might allow us to teach children more helpful ways of being, or to understand what support they need in the systems around them. ‘In part, the clues to that question would lie in which of the neurocognitive mechanisms seem to be most predictive of future risk?’ explains McCrory. ‘So if it’s autobiographical memory it’s likely that you ll get your preventative intervention by focusing on that. Or if it’s reward processing, or if it’s threat .

. . McCrory can foresee a future where it might be possible to create a detailed profile of which cognitive domains have been particularly affected by maltreatment, and tailor interventions to help accordingly. McCrory is very clear that we shouldn’t see this as a problem which is located in the child, and also that we need to be careful not to accidentally cause harm by intervening, An evidence base is crucial for ensuring that we know why we are intervening and how.

It is possible that, as well as the more specific thinking styles and patterns of brain activity, there is a more overarching common factor involved in helping individuals to recalibrate these systems in a helpful way. McCrory links this with Peter Fonagy’s idea of epistemic trust — the idea that we need to be able to trust someone to teach us something about the world, and that if we don’t have a trusting relationship with an individual we are unlikely to learn from them.’

In order for a therapeutic relationship to be able to help us see the world differently, we need to be able to trust the person who is supposed to be helping us, whether that is a therapist in a formal sense or a trusted adult in another, less formal therapy setting, ‘All of us update our understanding of the world in part through engaging with sources of information and people who we trust, explains McCrory.

‘And having a trusted adult may be what a child What happens when care isn’t good enough? needs to recalibrate their understanding of the world, and there’s lots of other evidence to support that as a key resilience factor. It’s not that were coming up with something completely new. It’s that this is all coming together: it’s trying to be more precise about the mechanisms that underlie the vulnerability, and thinking about how can we target those to recalibrate them, or normalize their functioning.

And the framework may be a trusting secure relationship, which would fit with many things we know already.’ It certainly fits with the literature on attachment, and with many therapeutic models of change. One of McCrory’s hopes is that this research will help people to begin to define resilience in a more relational context.

Copyright © Lucy Maddox, 2018 Cartoon on page 243 courtesy of Linda Hallenborg Kurtz papers, Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women’s Movement Archives. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University. All other illustrations © David Andrassy, 2018 The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1-47213-788-3 Typeset in Adobe Jenson Pro by SX Composing DTP, Rayleigh, Essex Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK), Croydon CRO 4YY Papers used by Robinson are from well-managed forests and other responsible sources. ® MIX ee from responsible sources FSC FSC* C104740 LONDON BOROUGH OF SUTTON LIBRARY SERVICE (WAL) 30119 028 336 29 7 © ON A WN BW YD = – © Contents Dedication and acknowledgements Introduction Before we are even born Getting attached Milestone-spotting and going off track Epigenetic colouring-in Learning to see All about the chat Mind-reading How to train a person What happens when care isn’t good enough?

Thinking about thinking Learning right from wrong What do siblings do to us? Playtime School time Remember, remember Teenage Kicks Pink and Blue Who am I? Fully grown? Notes Index Vii 108 124 139 152 168 179 194 210 225 242 262 276 288 303 ee Se | See seas Dedication and acknowledgements I’ve loved writing this book and thinking about how childhood makes us who we are.

How my childhood made me who I am was largely down to my mum and dad, Barbara and Piers. This book is dedicated to you both, with lots of love. I think we carry on growing and changing throughout all of our lives, and how my adulthood so far has made me who I am is also down to a fantastic family of friends and loved ones who give me a web of connection and support that I am hugely grateful for.

Thank you. The work we do and the teams we work in also shape us, both professionally and personally, and I have been lucky enough to have learned a massive amount from clients and colleagues past and present. Special thanks to Dr Sophie Browning and the rest of the team at Snowfelds Adolescent Unit, and to colleagues and guest lecturers at the Anna Freud Centre where I got the idea to write this book.

I interviewed many of the guest lecturers and have also drawn from ideas presented in other talks that I sat in on.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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