Quotes from Louis Cozolino

Wise elders will likely be those individuals who stay both mentally and physically vital throughout life.

Those who are nurtured best, survive best.

The problem is, when you depend on a substitute for love, you can never get enough.

Therapists are never "done" with growth, they are simply people who should be dedicated to learning as much about themselves and others as they possibly can. The best therapists are fully human and engage in the struggles of life. Our own failures help us to remain open to the struggles of others; our personal victories give us the optimism and courage to inspire those struggling with their lives.

Most therapists grew up struggling to be loved and accepted by others. Because of these early experiences, many of us find it difficult to believe others can be of help to us. We carry this struggle into our adult lives and, inevitably, into our relationships with our clients.

The things most people need to learn in therapy are related to attachment, abandonment, love, and fear. We are trying to access basic emotional processes that are organized in primitive and early-developing parts of the brain. The language of these emotions is also very basic; it is the language of childhood. The more complex the language and ideas you bring into therapy, the more likely you are to stimulate your clients' intellectualizing defenses.

Optimal sculpting of key neural networks through healthy early relationships allows us to think well of ourselves, trust others, regulate our emotions, maintain positive expectations, and utilize our intellectual and emotional intelligence in moment-to-moment

Those who are nurtured best survive best. It turns out that our emotional resilience and our ability to learn are inextricably interwoven.

Despite the fact that our brains are social organs, Western science studies each individual as a single, isolated organism rather than one embedded within the human community. This way of thinking leads us in the West to search for technical and abstract answers to human problems instead of looking at day-to-day human interactions

our ability to learn is regulated by how we are treated by our teachers, at home and in the classroom.

Be mindful of your own inner pressure to fill in silences and come up with rapid solutions. Experiment with patience. I've found that if I am patient, clients will often arrive at the very same conclusions I wanted to give them minutes before.

Thus, the brain remains plastic into adulthood and can be changed for the better through positive interpersonal relationships.

Therefore, reading and reacting to other people's behaviors, emotions, and attitudes have been hardwired into our brains. We are not only wired to connect, but we are also wired to attune to, resonate with, and learn from others.

they found considerable plasticity from the onset of puberty into the early twenties. Once this was discovered, it became obvious that the upheavals of adolescence and early adulthood coincide with a previously unrecognized sensitive period of brain maturation in the prefrontal cortex

Sensitive periods are triggered via the interaction of genetic timing and experience. Sensitive periods are times of rapid learning when thousands of synaptic connections are made each second (Greenough, 1987; ten Cate, 1989). The timing of sensitive periods varies

discover that the quality of our relationships with our teachers, families, friends, and communities is as important to learning as the curriculum, testing, and technologies which usually occupy our attention.

The evolution of the human brain is inextricably interwoven with the expansion of culture and the emergence of language. Thus, it is no coincidence that human beings are story tellers. Through countless generations, humans have gathered to listen to stories of the hunt, the exploits of their ancestors, and morality tales of good and evil...Thus, I believe that both the urge to tell a tale and our vulnerability to being captivate by one are deeply woven into the structures of our brains

Learning that we are more than the voices that haunt us can provide hope and serve as a mean of changing our life. As the language of self-awareness is expanded and reinforced we learn that we are capable of choosing whether or not to follow the expectations of others and the mandates of our childhoods and cultures. Thus much of our suffering can be traced back to our stream of thoughts: the voices in our heads and the stories we tell about ourselves.

Successful therapists learn to be 'amygdala whisperers' by leveraging the social brain in order to help clients face their fears.

Like neurons, we send and receive messages from one another across a synapse—the social synapse.

As discussed earlier, an important remnant of our evolutionary past, the amygdala, rests at the core of the brain. This ancient executive center has retained veto power over our modern cortical executive centers when it detects a threat.

complexity. Assuming

Emotional attunement between teachers and learners is highlighted, as well as the central role of storytelling in traditional and contemporary learning. Research has also found that exploration and play, usually consigned to less important after-school activities, are central

It is the power of being with others that shapes our brains.