Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience and the Stories of Our Lives

"This book provides an innovative and impressive synthesis of neurobiological and developmental research with in-depth psychoanalytic thinking, a synthesis which has profound implications, both for clinical work but also for our understanding of life in general, a text for which clinicians and those generally interested in the challenges of being human, will be extremely grateful." - Graham Music PhD, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics, adult psychotherapist in private practice and author of Nurturing Children (2019), The Good Life (2014) and Nurturing Natures (2011)

"Sarah Sutton is a terrific writer. Her writing is full of seemingly casual but hugely powerful zest. She happens also to be a gifted artist and she somehow makes the links between these two, usually exceedingly difficult, subjects of psychoanalysis and science totally accessible, alive, exciting and beautiful." - Anne Alvarez PhD MACP Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist

"This accessible integration of psychoanalytic theory and interpersonal neurobiology puts relationships at the heart of development and the creation of personal meaning. Together these two approaches are used to open a creative perspective on the formation and workings of the mind and how, when needed, help may be offered. Babies employ the skills needed to relate from birth, although they do not know it, and relationships with parents sway the consolidation of important neural networks during infancy (and also, but less so, beyond) that are the foundations upon which the development of the psyche must build. When significant relationships are inimical to healthy development, or missing, small children cannot escape by themselves and so must endure and adapt. They know no alternative, and without intervention may eventually base their sense of self on this survival software. This is a matter of unconscious hardwired expectations of the moment to come that bias how the world is comprehended and generate a reaction before now is even noticed. A symptom has been distilled from a role that had to be played within a family drama. As this book shows, only with in-depth understanding allied with compassionate and considered relationships can such misplaced responses to a past environment of difficult relationships be changed." - Robin Balbernie, Infant mental health specialist; Child and adolescent psychotherapist

"This is the book we have been waiting for, a riveting work by Sarah Sutton, who is witty in writing about serious issues, law-abiding and revolutionary. She writes with respect about psychoanalysis and makes connections with ground-breaking neuroscience and relational psychotherapy, helping to fill the gaps between them. She illuminates the book with both poetry and science.

She talks of ‘silent understanding’ and reading the book gives an experience of this. It is both comforting and inspiring. It confronts the modern dilemma that mental health difficulties lead to more referrals than can ever be met by clinicians, and optimistically shows that thinking relationally, not just individually, can take the pathology out of mental health, and generate a fuller understanding which helps regulation and recovery.

The book helps us understand better not only ourselves, but also the communities we live in." - Dilys Daws, Honorary Consultant Child Psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics, Founding Chair of the Association for Infant Mental Health UK and co-author of Finding Your Way With Your Baby (2015), First Prize in Popular Medicine, BMA Medical Books Awards 2016

"This book provides an innovative and impressive synthesis of neurobiological and developmental research with in-depth psychoanalytic thinking, a synthesis which has profound implications, both for clinical work but also for our understanding of life in general, a text for which clinicians and those generally interested in the challenges of being human, will be extremely grateful." – Graham Music PhD, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics, adult psychotherapist in private practice and author of Nurturing Children (2019), The Good Life (2014) and Nurturing Natures (2011)

"Sarah Sutton is a terrific writer. Her writing is full of seemingly casual but hugely powerful zest. She happens also to be a gifted artist and she somehow makes the links between these two, usually exceedingly difficult, subjects of psychoanalysis and science totally accessible, alive, exciting and beautiful." – Anne Alvarez PhD MACP Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist

"This accessible integration of psychoanalytic theory and interpersonal neurobiology puts relationships at the heart of development and the creation of personal meaning. Together these two approaches are used to open a creative perspective on the formation and workings of the mind and how, when needed, help may be offered. Babies employ the skills needed to relate from birth, although they do not know it, and relationships with parents sway the consolidation of important neural networks during infancy (and also, but less so, beyond) that are the foundations upon which the development of the psyche must build. When significant relationships are inimical to healthy development, or missing, small children cannot escape by themselves and so must endure and adapt. They know no alternative, and without intervention may eventually base their sense of self on this survival software. This is a matter of unconscious hardwired expectations of the moment to come that bias how the world is comprehended and generate a reaction before now is even noticed. A symptom has been distilled from a role that had to be played within a family drama. As this book shows, only with in-depth understanding allied with compassionate and considered relationships can such misplaced responses to a past environment of difficult relationships be changed." – Robin Balbernie, Infant mental health specialist; Child and adolescent psychotherapist

"This is the book we have been waiting for, a riveting work by Sarah Sutton, who is witty in writing about serious issues, law-abiding and revolutionary. She writes with respect about psychoanalysis and makes connections with ground-breaking neuroscience and relational psychotherapy, helping to fill the gaps between them. She illuminates the book with both poetry and science. She talks of ‘silent understanding’ and reading the book gives an experience of this. It is both comforting and inspiring. It confronts the modern dilemma that mental health difficulties lead to more referrals than can ever be met by clinicians, and optimistically shows that thinking relationally, not just individually, can take the pathology out of mental health, and generate a fuller understanding which helps regulation and recovery. The book helps us understand better not only ourselves, but also the communities we live in." – Dilys Daws, Honorary Consultant Child Psychotherapist at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics, Founding Chair of the Association for Infant Mental Health UK and co-author of Finding Your Way With Your Baby (2015), First Prize in Popular Medicine, BMA Medical Books Awards 2016