An illustrated introduction to the evolution and early development of the brain, emotions, and personality Designed for psychologists, psychotherapists, and childcare professionals, this book is an accessible primer on developmental neuropsychology, combining easy-to-understand text with light-hearted illustrations. Covering topics such as the autonomic nervous system, neuroaffective development, the prefrontal cortex, and the zone of proximal development, The Neuroaffective Picture Book is a unique and useful tool for learning about emotions, social skills, and self-regulation.

Explore the developmental stages of adulthood with THE NEUROAFFECTIVE PICTURE BOOK 3! In text and pictures, this book takes the reader on an exciting and educational journey through the different stages of adulthood, describing how our personality and skills develop and adapt to our unique life and culture. The imaginative images in the book help bring the text to life and give the reader a deeper understanding of the processes described. Research on brain development shows that all of our important personality skills continue to develop throughout life, based on experience. The book describes how these processes unfold, whether we live alone, with a partner and children, or in other family and social contexts. THE NEUROAFFECTIVE PICTURE BOOK 3 is written for everyone who wants to understand the maturational processes of adulthood from the perspective of brain development and life in our own cultural context. The book provides a simple and body-based explanation of the maturational levels of adulthood and shows how patterns that first develop in childhood and adolescence can become either resources, abandonment or inertia in adulthood. The book is a stand-alone sequel to The Neuroaffective Picture Book and The Neuroaffective Picture Book 2, and it is suitable for therapists, psychologists, psychotherapists and educators, as well as for anyone who wants to understand more about their own and others’ adult lives.

Designed for psychologists, psychotherapists, and childcare professionals, The Neuroaffective Picture Book 2 – Identity and Socialization outlines the developmental psychology of identity and interaction skills from age 2 to 20 years, combining easy-to-understand text with light-hearted illustrations. The text describes the development of the basic human motivation systems of attachment, play, status, gender identity and empathic mentalization during these years. The importance of peer relationships is highlighted, as well as reflections on how adult family members, mentors, therapists and teachers – hopefully wiser as well as older heads – can best support healthy maturation. This stand-alone book continues the work of the previous volume, The Neuroaffective Picture Book, which gives an overview of personality development during the first few years of life.

An illustrated introduction to the evolution and early development of the brain, emotions, and personality Designed for psychologists, psychotherapists, and childcare professionals, this book is an accessible primer on developmental neuropsychology, combining easy-to-understand text with light-hearted illustrations. Covering topics such as the autonomic nervous system, neuroaffective development, the prefrontal cortex, and the zone of proximal development, The Neuroaffective Picture Book is a unique and useful tool for learning about emotions, social skills, and self-regulation.

This “well-organized, valuable” guide draws from somatic-based psychotherapy and neuroscience to offer “clear guidance” for coping with childhood trauma (Peter Levine, author of Waking the Tiger and In an Unspoken Voice). Although it may seem that people suffer from an endless number of emotional problems and challenges, Laurence Heller and Aline LaPierre maintain that most of these can be traced to five biologically based organizing principles: the need for connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and love-sexuality. They describe how early trauma impairs the capacity for connection to self and others and how the ensuing diminished aliveness is the hidden dimension that underlies most psychological and many physiological problems. Heller and LaPierre introduce the NeuroAffective Relational Model® (NARM), a method that integrates bottom-up and top-down approaches to regulate the nervous system and resolve distortions of identity such as low self-esteem, shame, and chronic self-judgment that are the outcome of developmental and relational trauma. While not ignoring a person’s past, NARM emphasizes working in the present moment to focus on clients’ strengths, resources, and resiliency in order to integrate the experience of connection that sustains our physiology, psychology, and capacity for relationship.

Designed for psychologists, psychotherapists, and childcare professionals, The Neuroaffective Picture Book 2 - Identity and Socialization outlines the developmental psychology of identity and interaction skills from age 2 to 20 years, combining easy-to-understand text with light-hearted illustrations. The text describes the development of the basic human motivation systems of attachment, play, status, gender identity and empathic mentalization during these years. The importance of peer relationships is highlighted, as well as reflections on how adult family members, mentors, therapists and teachers - hopefully wiser as well as older heads - can best support healthy maturation. This stand-alone book continues the work of the previous volume, The Neuroaffective Picture Book, which gives an overview of personality development during the first few years of life.

• Shares 16 guided meditations for neuroaffective brain development and emotional maturation, along with links to online recordings • Explores the stages of emotional development, from childhood to old age, and their potentials for developing new ways of functioning • Reveals the biopsychological effects of meditation on the human brain, including how it affects us at the autonomic, limbic, and prefrontal levels Drawing on her 25 years of research into brain development as well as decades of meditation practice, psychotherapist Marianne Bentzen shows how neuroaffective meditation--the holistic integration of meditation, neuroscience, and psychology--can be used for personal growth and conscious maturation. She also explores how the practice can help address embedded traumas and allow access to the best perspectives of growing older while keeping the best psychological attitudes of being young--a hallmark of wisdom. She explains that there is a sequence to emotional maturation, just as there is for the development of cognitive or athletic skills, and details the central developmental processes of childhood and adolescence and the adult stages of psychological development. She then explores the biopsychological effects of meditation on the human brain, including how it affects us at the autonomic, limbic, and prefrontal levels. The author shares 16 guided meditations for neuroaffective brain development (along with links to online recordings), each designed to gently interact with the deep, unconscious layers of the brain and help you reconnect to yourself, your relationships, and the world around. Each meditation explores a different theme, from breathing in “being in your body” to feeling love, compassion, and gratitude in “the songs of the heart” to balancing positive and negative experiences in “mandala.” The author also shares a 5-part meditation centered on breathing exercises designed to balance your energy. Presenting an authentic, stepwise approach to spiritual growth, emotional maturation, and brain development, this guide explains the science behind neuroaffective meditation and offers detailed practices for a truly personal and ever-evolving experience of inner wisdom and growth.

THE NEUROAFFECTIVE PICTURE BOOK is an illustrated textbook for psychologists, psychotherapists, coaches and child care professionals. It offers a simple and visual introduction to the evolution and early development of the brain and personality that form the crucial foundation for lifelong learning and development. It also presents the neuroaffective compass model, a tool for personality assessment and for finding the best emotional Olearning zoneO for a child or an adult. The combination of short texts on neuroaffective development and light-hearted illustrations connects the theory to the nonverbal intuitive sense that is a central tool in all psychotherapy and personality development. Marianne Bentzen is a Danish psychotherapist. From 1982 to the present she has taught psychotherapy in sixteen countries and currently teaches in Scandinavia and Europe. Since 1997, Marianne Bentzen and clinical psychologist Susan Hart have co-created research-based models of neuroaffective personality and group development to inform intervention decisions in adult and child psychotherapy as well as in group processes, supervision, and organizational consultancy. MarianneOs approach includes somatic, interactional, systems-oriented, and meditative traditions."

This illustrated book shows how "thinking" systems offer new ways of seeing people which can help us see and do things differently. The authors describe how a theory of living human systems was developed and even recently revised. This major revision led to a theory of the person-as-a-system and its role-systems map that helps us see which system in us and in others is running the show. The authors illustrate how life force energy fuels the hierarchy of living human systems and how theory and practice with role-systems can be useful in everyday life. They begin with describing how they have used the new illustrations as a map to locate the contexts of our roles. Using this map has also enabled the authors to identify the role-systems and explore the territory of ourselves and our groups in new ways that deepened our understanding of roles and role locks. This book illustrates systems-centered therapy and training (SCT) theory by offering a practical theory to guide group psychotherapists, leaders and consultants in working with group dynamics.

Some investigators have argued that emotions, especially animal emotions, are illusory concepts outside the realm of scientific inquiry. However, with advances in neurobiology and neuroscience, researchers are demonstrating that this position is wrong as they move closer to a lasting understanding of the biology and psychology of emotion. In Affective Neuroscience, Jaak Panksepp provides the most up-to-date information about the brain-operating systems that organize the fundamental emotional tendencies of all mammals. Presenting complex material in a readable manner, the book offers a comprehensive summary of the fundamental neural sources of human and animal feelings, as well as a conceptual framework for studying emotional systems of the brain. Panksepp approaches emotions from the perspective of basic emotion theory but does not fail to address the complex issues raised by constructionist approaches. These issues include relations to human consciousness and the psychiatric implications of this knowledge. The book includes chapters on sleep and arousal, pleasure and fear systems, the sources of rage and anger, and the neural control of sexuality, as well as the more subtle emotions related to maternal care, social loss, and playfulness. Representing a synthetic integration of vast amounts of neurobehavioral knowledge, including relevant neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurochemistry, this book will be one of the most important contributions to understanding the biology of emotions since Darwins The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals