Quotes from Bruce D. Perry

A menudo sucede que, cuando los padres ven que las cosas parecen ir bien, se dejan desmotivar por el precio y los inconvenientes de la terapia. Como Amber «estaba fenomenal», su madre no la presionó cuando se resistió a encontrar un nuevo terapeuta.

I think about children who are molested when they are so young that they don't have the language to process what has happened. The experience locks into the brain in a way it wouldn't if the child could express with words what happened.

When you have friends, family, and other healthy people in your life, you have a natural healing environment. We heal best in community. Creating a network-a village, whatever you want to call it-gives you opportunities to revisit trauma in moderate, controllable doses.

A person's capacity to connect, to be regulating and regulated, to reward and be rewarded, is the glue that keeps families and communities together.

En realidad, no puedes quererte a ti mismo si no has sido y eres querido. No es posible construir la capacidad de amar de forma aislada.

where a patient projects his feelings about his parents into other relationships, particularly the one he has with his therapist—be explained by examining the function of the brain?

Oprah: In every single interaction, there is a moment when we all wonder, Do you see me? Do you hear me? Children know from birth whether their caregiver's eyes light up when they enter a room. They sense and respond to tenderness, playfulness, compassion, and patience. They know the true feeling of quality time. They know they are loved.

The earliest relational experiences are the most powerful and enduring.

los niños pequeños son muy susceptibles a la espiral de consecuencias de las elecciones que nosotros —y después ellos— hacemos, tanto para bien como para mal.

Resilience is a capability that can wax and wane, not a permanent, innate trait…even the most seemingly resilient people can be drained by relational poverty and ongoing stress, distress, and trauma.

brain is organized to act and feel before we think.

Everyone needs people who can listen, be present, and make them feel heard and seen.

We have to think about ways to raise our children with more opportunities to be exposed to the magnificence of human diversity earlier in their lives. And we have to change the inherently biased elements of so many of our systems.

How ironic that the cultures our modern world has marginalized are the very cultures with the wisdom to heal our modern woes.

Gary taught me that an intention precedes every thought and every action, and that the outcome of your experiences is determined by your intention going in. It sounds complicated, but really there is nothing I do that doesn't start with my asking myself, What is my intention in doing this?

If a child has RAD, the lack of connection and attachment goes both ways. There is a reciprocal neurobiology to human relationships—our "mirror neurons" create this. As a result, these children are difficult to work with because their lack of interest in other people and their inability to empathize makes them hard to like. Interacting with them feels empty, not engaging. Stephanie shouldn't

The brain is a meaning-making machine, always trying to make sense of the world. If our view of the world is that people are good, then we will anticipate good things from people. We project that expectation in our interactions with others and thereby actually elicit good from them. Our internal view of the world becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; we project what we expect, and that helps elicit what we expect.

It is impossible to be truly wise without some real-life hardship. And we cannot develop post-traumatic wisdom without weathering and, most importantly, as you [Oprah] put, weathering together…A healthy community is a healing community, and a healing community is full of hope because it has seen its own people weather-survive and thrive.

If the challenge is going to build resilience, it has to be moderate—just right. Finding the "just right" is a major issue with children who have had trauma. Remember, they frequently live in a persistent state of fear. And fear shuts down parts of the cortex—the thinking part of the brain. In a classroom, what may seem to be a moderate, developmentally appropriate challenge for many children may be an overwhelming demand on a child with a sensitized stress response

your history of relational health-your connectedness to family, community, and culture-is more predictive of your mental health than your history of adversity

Our major finding is that your history of relational health—your connectedness to family, community, and culture—is more predictive of your mental health than your history of adversity

The value of early intervention programs, even those that have only brief "doses" of positive interaction, can't be underestimated.

No one knows what a moderate dose of revisiting a trauma memory is better than the actual traumatized person.

El alcohol desinhibe, reduce el autocontrol e incrementa la impulsividad.