Research on the process of resilience encourages a systemic rather than fragmented epistemology. By combining neurological development and narrative techniques, we can observe how emotional pressures from the family and social environment form the human brain. This is how it can acquire a neuro-emotional vulnerability or, on the contrary, the protective factors needed against traumas. When the injured person’s story is consistent with the surrounding stories, the person experiences a sense of calm that regulates brain function. But when the intimate and collective stories are conflicting, the maladjusted casualty feels isolated and misunderstood, making the process of resilience difficult. We can act on the environment that acts on our brain to increase the possibility of resilience. This degree of freedom makes us responsible for organizing such an environment.
The insights of ethology-the science of animal behavior from a biological and psychological point of view-were incorporated in the 1950s by the British developmental psychiatrist, John Bowlby, into his attachment theory, which argued that a secure affective base in infancy was critical to the normal development of perception, cognition, learning, and emotion, in addition to that of physical parameters. The theory was illustrated by Harlow's pioneering experiments with baby monkeys: those raised with a wire-frame "mother" failed to thrive, compared with the more normal development of those deriving comfort contact from a terry-cloth surrogate. Modern neuroscience techniques have confirmed that the absence of sensory stimulation during periods of maximal synaptic expansion provides the substrate for a subsequent mood disorder. Ethology offers a novel "nature plus nurture" approach to the development of abnormal mood, as well as a target for treatment.
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