Emotional Literacy: Intelligence with a Heart
(Paperback) by Claude Steiner
This step-by-step program opens the
door to achieving emotional power. Instructions are given on how emotional
literacy-intelligence with a heart-can be learned through practicing specific
exercises that foster the awareness of emotion in oneself and others, by
increasing capacities to love others and oneself while developing honesty,
and by taking responsibility for one's actions. Provided are instructions
on how to reverse the dangerous self-destructive emotional patterns that
can rule a person's life. This program shows individuals how to open their
hearts and minds to honest and effective communication, how to survey the
emotional landscape, and ultimately how to take responsibility for their
emotional lives.
Click to see few easy
training steps and use our comunuication tools to practice now >>>>>
The Original Warm Fuzzy Tale (Paperback) by Claude Steiner
Few Reviews:
The message of giving love freely
and universally is beautiful. The illustrations are also lovely. I look
forward to the time when my own son is old enough to enjoy the Warm Fuzzy
Tale. I'm so glad that it's still in print! The story might be geared toward
children, but even adults can find something meaningful and reassuring
within its pages. Something that will make you feel, well...warm and fuzzy!
I absolutely love this book! Growing
up hearing the "warm fuzzy story" told to me by verbal storytelling, I
was delighted to find this book in print. I have used it to read many children
to sleep at summer camps and overnights and have bought several copies
to give away. This is an endearing story with a wonderful, positive message
that kids CAN change the world and the illustrations are just TOO cute!
Steiner read the story at youtube:
Scripts People Live: Transactional Analysis
of Life Scripts (Paperback) by Claude M. Steiner From the Inside Flap
When Claude Steiner and the late
Eric Berne developed the theory of Transactional Analysis, their basic
belief that people were "born princes and princess, until their parents
turned them into frogs" countered the fundamental principle of psychiatry
which asserts that emotional and mental distress comes from within. This
theory was further developed in Steiner's book Games Alcoholics Play. Dr.
Berne, in What Do You Say After You Say Hello?, acknowledged Steiner's
important role in the analysis of "life scripts" which we choose at an
early age and which rule every detail of our lives until our death.
In Scripts People Live, Steiner
expands upon this belief to show that people are innately healthy but develop
a pattern early in life based upon negative or positive influences of those
around them. Thus children decide, however unconsciously, whether they
will be happy or depressed, winners or failures, strong or dependent, and
having decided, they spend the rest of their lives making the decision
come true. For those who choose a negative script, the consequences can
be disastrous unless they make a conscious decision to change.
Steiner's classic in psychological
theory, with a new foreword by the author, offers a hopeful and practical
analysis so that we all may rewrite our life scripts and lead more meaningful
and fulfilling lives.
Claude Steiner was born in Paris
in 1935. He spent his childhood in Spain and Mexico, before immigrating
to the United States in 1952. In 1957 he met Eric Berne, who encouraged
him to attend the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he received
a Ph.D. in clinical psychology. Among his other books are Games Alcoholics
Play, Achieving Emotional Literacy, and the children's book, The Warm Fuzzy
Tale. He currently divides his time between his homes in Mendocino County
and Berkeley, where he continues his practice as a psychotherapist.
Love & Survival: The Scientific Basis for
the Healing Power of Intimacy (Hardcover) by Dean Ornish Many people know Dean Ornish as
the doctor who proved that symptoms of heart disease can be reversed with
a regimen of a low-fat diet, exercise, and stress reduction. In Love &
Survival, he concentrates on the less tangible aspects of a healthful life.
Through anecdotes and dozens of scientific studies, Ornish demonstrates
that personal intimacy and other aspects of emotional well-being--all the
elements that make up what we call "love"--are as important to our physical
condition as to our mental health. Not only do these positive emotions
motivate us to make better lifestyle choices, Ornish argues, they also
have a powerful direct effect on our bodies, giving us stronger immune
systems, better cardiovascular functioning, and longer life expectancies.
But the benefits of opening our hearts to others go beyond curing our bodies
of disease; it's also the first step toward healing our entire lives.
Emotional Literacy; Training
Steps acording to Steiner
0. Asking for permission.
Stage One:
Opening the Heart
1. Giving Strokes
2. Asking for Strokes
3. Accepting Strokes
4. Rejecting Strokes
5. Giving Ourselves Strokes
Read Steiners book, Emotional
Literacy on his site for more and come back 4 practice with our comunication
tools.
Changing Lives Through Redecision Therapy (Paperback) by Mary McClure Goulding, Robert L. Goulding Redecision Therapy is based on the
premise that, through goal-setting and the reenactment of important
childhood scenes, we may change our future and gain control of our lives.
This
revised and updated edition includes the innovative treatment techniques
developed by the Gouldings, plus new material on short-term treatment for
victims of childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, and advice
on how to utilize the strengths of each client to enhance and support therapy.
Redecision Therapy: A Brief, Action-Oriented
Approach (Hardcover) by Carolyn E. Lennox Redecision therapy has roots in
transactional analysis, as originated by Eric Berne, and Gestalt therapy,
as developed by Fritz and Laura Perls. The action-oriented treatment model
created by Bob and Mary Goulding in the 1960s is built around contracting
for change, insisting on a language of self-responsibility, enacting change
within the therapy session, and encouraging action outside the therapy
session. Editor Carolyn Lennox characterizes the redecision therapist as
a director in an improvisational theater. Guided by the client's personal
contract for change, the therapist helps the client select and rewrite
old scripts in which he or she was cast as victim. By keeping the dialogue
moving and assisting the client in confronting negative messages, the therapist
supports revision of the last act so that the self can be experienced as
triumphant protagonist and the victory can be carried over into everyday
life. The book's thoroughly accessible approach to brief, action-oriented
therapy will be welcomed by students and practitioners alike as what Dr.
Lennox gracefully terms "teachable and learnable magic."
The
Science of Mother Love by: Cori Young
A growing body of scientific evidence
shows that the way babies are cared for by their mothers will determine
not only their emotional development, but the biological development of
the child's brain and central nervous system as well. The nature of love,
and how the capacity to love develops, has become the subject of scientific
study over the last decade. New data is emerging from a multitude of disciplines
including neurology, psychology, biology, ethology, anthropology and neurocardiology.
Something scientific disciplines find in common when putting love under
the microscope is that in addition to shaping the brains of infants, mother's
love acts as a template for love itself and has far reaching effects on
her child's ability to love throughout life.
To mothers holding their newborn
babies it will come as little surprise that the 'decade of the brain' has
lead science to the wisdom of the mother's heart.
According to Alan Schore, assistant
clinical professor in the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences
at UCLA School of Medicine, a major conclusion of the last decade of developmental
neuroscience research is that the infant brain is designed to be molded
by the environment it encounters.1 In other words, babies are born with
a certain set of genetics, but they must be activated by early experience
and interaction. Schore believes the most crucial component of these earliest
interactions is the primary caregiver - the mother. "The child's first
relationship, the one with the mother, acts as a template, as it permanently
molds the individual's capacities to enter into all later emotional relationships."
Others agree. The first months of an infant's life constitute what is known
as a critical period - a time when events are imprinted in the nervous
system.
"Hugs and kisses during these critical
periods make those neurons grow and connect properly with other neurons."
Says Dr. Arthur Janov, in his book Biology of Love. "You can kiss that
brain into maturity."
Hormones, The Language of Love
In his beautiful book, The Scientification
of Love, French obstetrician Michel Odent explains how Oxytocin, a hormone
released by the pituitary gland stimulates the release of chemical messengers
in the heart. Oxytocin, which is essential during birth, stimulating contractions,
and during lactation, stimulating the 'milk ejection reflex', is also involved
in other 'loving behaviors'. "It is noticeable that whatever the facet
of love we consider, oxytocin is involved.' Says Odent. "During intercourse
both partners - female and male - release oxytocin." One study even shows
that the simple act of sharing a meal with other people increases our levels
of this 'love hormone'.2
The altruistic oxytocin is part of
a complex hormonal balance. A sudden release of Oxytocin creates an urge
toward loving which can be directed in different ways depending on the
presence of other hormones, which is why there are different types of love.
For example, with a high level of prolactin, a well-known mothering hormone,
the urge to love is directed toward babies.
While Oxytocin is an altruistic hormone
and prolactin a mothering hormone, endorphins represent our 'reward system'.
"Each time we mammals do something that benefits the survival of the species,
we are rewarded by the secretion of these morphine-like substances." Says
Odent.
During birth there is also an increase
in the level of endorphins in the fetus so that in the moments following
birth both mother and baby are under the effects of opiates. The role of
these hormones is to encourage dependency, which ensures a strong attachment
between mother and infant. In situations of failed affectional bonding
between mother and baby there will be a deficiency of the appropriate hormones,
which could leave a child susceptible to substance abuse in later life
as the system continually attempts to right itself.3 You can say no to
drugs, but not to neurobiology. Human brains have evolved from earlier
mammals. The first portion of our brain that evolved on top of its reptilian
heritage is the limbic system, the seat of emotion. It is this portion
of the brain that permits mothers and their babies to bond. Mothers and
babies are hardwired for the experience of togetherness. The habits of
breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and babywearing practiced by the majority of!
mothers in non-industrialized cultures, and more and more in our own, facilitate
two of the main components needed for optimal mother/child bonding: proximity
and touch.
PROXIMITY, Between Mammals, the Nature
of Love is Heart to Heart
In many ways it's obvious why a helpless
newborn would require continuous close proximity to a caregiver; they're
helpless and unable to provide for themselves. But science is unveiling
other less obvious benefits of holding baby close. Mother/child bonding
isn't just for brains, but is also an affair of the heart. In his 1992
work, Evolution's End, Joseph Chilton Pearce describes the dual role of
the heart cell, saying that it not only contracts and expands rhythmically
to pump blood, it communicates with its fellow cells. "If you isolate a
cell from the heart, keep it alive and examine it through a microscope,
you will see it lose it's synchronous rhythm and begin to fibrillate until
it dies. If you put another isolated heart cell on that microscopic slide
it will also fibrillate . If you move the two cells within a certain proximity,
however , they synchronize and beat in unison." Perhaps this is why most
mothers instinctively place their babies to their left breast, keep! ing
those hearts in proximity. The heart produces the hormone, ANF that dramatically
affects every major system of the body. "All evidence indicates that the
mother's developed heart stimulates the newborn heart, thereby activating
a dialogue between the infant's brain-mind and heart." says Pearce who
believes this heart to heart communication activates intelligences in the
mother also. "On holding her infant in the left-breast position with its
corresponding heart contact, a major block of dormant intelligences is
activated in the mother, causing precise shifts of brain function and permanent
behavior changes." In this beautiful dynamic the infant's system is activated
by being held closely; and this proximity also stimulates a new intelligence
in the mother, which helps her to respond to and nurture her infant. Pretty
nifty plan - and another good reason to aim for a natural birth. If nature
is handing out intelligence to help us in our role as mothers we want to
be awake ! and alert!
TOUCH
"The easiest and quickest way to
induce depression and alienation in an infant or child is not to touch
it, hold it, or carry it on your body." - James W. Prescott, PhD
Research in neuroscience has shown
that touch is necessary for human development and that a lack of touch
damages not only individuals, but our whole society. Human touch and love
is essential to health. A lack of stimulus and touch very early on causes
the stress hormone, cortisol to be released which creates a toxic brain
environment and can damage certain brain structures. According to James
W. Prescott, PhD, of the Institute of Humanistic Science, and former research
scientist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development,
sensory deprivation results in behavioral abnormalities such as depression,
impulse dyscontrol, violence, substance abuse, and in impaired immunological
functioning in mother deprived infants.4 For over a million years babies
have enjoyed almost constant in-arms contact with their mothers or other
caregivers, usually members of an extended family, receiving constant touch
for the first year or so of life. "In nature's nativity scene, ! mother's
arms have always been baby's bed, breakfast, transportation, even entertainment,
and, for most of the world's babies, they still are." says developmental
psychologist, Sharon Heller in, The Vital Touch: How Intimate Contact With
Your Baby Leads to Happier, Healthier Development.5
To babies,touch = love and fully
loved babies develop healthy brains. During the critical period of development
following birth the infant brain is undergoing a massive growth of neural
connections. Synaptic connections in the cortex continue to proliferate
for about two years, when they peak. During this period one of the most
crucial things to survival and healthy development is touch. All mammal
mothers seem to know this instinctively, and, if allowed to bond successfully
with their babies they will provide continuous loving touch.
Touch deprivation in infant monkeys
is so traumatic their whole system goes haywire, with an increase of stress
hormones, increased heart rate, compromised immune system and sleep disturbances.6
With only 25% of our adult brain
size, we are the least mature at birth of any mammal. Anthropologist, Ashley
Montagu concluded that given our upright position and large brains, human
infants are born prematurely while our heads can still fit through the
birth canal, and that brain development must therefore extend into postnatal
life. He believed the human gestation period to actually be eighteen months
long - nine in the womb and another nine outside it, and that touch is
absolutely vital to this time of "exterogestation."7
Newborns are born expecting to be
held, handled, cuddled, rubbed, kissed, and maybe even licked! All mammals
lick their newborns vigorously, off and on, during the first hours and
days after birth in order to activate their sensory nerve endings, which
are involved in motor movements, spatial, and visual orientation. These
nerve endings cannot be activated until after birth due to the insulation
of the watery womb environment and the coating of vernix casseus on the
baby's skin.
Recall Dr. Janov's claim that you
can kiss a brain into maturity. Janov believes that very early touch is
central to developing a healthy brain. "Irrespective of the neurojuices
involved, it is clear that lack of love changes the chemicals in the brain
and can eventually change the structure of that brain."
BREASTFEEDING: Liquid Love
Breastfeeding neatly brings together
nourishment for baby with the need for closeness shared by mother and child;
and is another crucial way that mother's love helps shape baby's brain.
Research shows that breastmilk is the perfect "brain food", essential for
normal brain development, particularly, those brain processes associated
with depression, violence, and social and sexual behaviors.8
Mother's milk, a living liquid, contains
just the right amount of fatty acids, lactose, water, and amino acids for
human digestion, brain development, and growth. It also contains many immunities
a baby needs in early life while her own immune system is maturing. One
more instance of mother extending her own power, (love) to her developing
child.
LIMBIC REGULATION: The Loop of Love
Another key to understanding how
a mother's love shapes the emerging capacities of her infant is what doctors
Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon , authors of A General Theory
of Love, call limbic regulation; a mutually synchronizing hormonal exchange
between mother and child which serves to regulate vital rhythms.
Human physiology, they say, does
not direct all of its own functions; it is interdependent. It must be steadied
by the physical presence of another to maintain both physical and emotional
health. "Limbic regulation mandates interdependence for social mammals
of all ages." says Lewis, "But young mammals are in special need of it's
guidance: their neural systems are not only immature but also growing and
changing. One of the physiologic processes that limbic regulation directs,
in other words, is the development of the brain itself - and that means
attachment determines the ultimate nature of a child's mind." A baby's
physiology is maximally open-loop: without limbic regulation, vital rhythms
collapse posing great danger, even death.
The regulatory information required
by infants can alter hormone levels, cardiovascular function, sleep rhythms,
immune function, and more. Lewis, et al contend that , the steady piston
of mother's heart along with the regularity of her breathing coordinate
the ebb and flow of an infant's young internal rhythms. They believe sleep
to be an intricate brain rhythm which the neurally immature infant must
first borrow from parents. "Although it sounds outlandish to some American
ears, exposure to parents can keep a sleeping baby alive."
The Myth of Independence
This interdependence mandated by
limbic regulation is vital during infancy, but it's also something we need
throughout the rest of childhood and on into adulthood. In many ways, humans
cannot be stable on their own-we require others to survive. Recall that
our nervous systems are not self-contained; they link with those of the
people close to us in a silent rhythm that helps regulate our physiology.
This is not a popular notion in a culture that values independence over
interdependence. However, as a society that cherishes individual freedoms
more than any other, we must respect the process whereby autonomy develops.
Children require ongoing neural synchrony
from parents in order for their natural capacity for self-directedness
to emerge. A mother's love is a continuous shaping force throughout childhood
and requires an adequate stage of dependency. The work of Mary Ainsworth
has shown that maternal responsiveness and close bodily contact lead to
the unfolding of self-reliance and self confidence.9 Because our culture
does not sufficiently value interpersonal relationships, the mother/child
bond is not recognized and supported as it could be.
The ability of a mother to read the
emotional state of her child is older than our own species, and is essential
to our survival, health and happiness. We are reminded of this each time
a hurt child changes from sad/scared/angry to peaceful in our loving embrace.
Warm human contact generates the internal release of opiates, making mother's
love a powerful anodyne. Even teenagers who sometimes behave as if they
are 'so over' the need for a mother's affection must be kept in the limbic
loop. Children at this age might be at special risk for falling through
the emotional cracks. If they don't get the emotional regulation that family
relationships are designed to provide, their hungry brains may seek ineffectual
substitutes like drugs and alcohol.
Children left too long under the
electronic stewardship of television, video games, etc., are not receiving
the steady limbic connection with a resonant parent. Without this a child
cannot internalize emotional balance properly.
Our hearts and brains are hardwired
for love, and from infancy to old age our health and happiness depend on
receiving it.
As the research keeps coming in and
we gain a gradually expanding vision of how mother love shapes our species,
we see an obvious need to take steps to protect and provide for the mother/child
bond. We can take heart knowing that all the while we carry in our genes
over a million years of evolutionary refinements equipping us for our role
as mothers. The answers sought by science beat steadily within our own
hearts.
Notes 1. Schore, Alan, Effects of
a Secure Attachment Relationship on Right Brain Development, Affect Regulation,
and Infant Mental Health, 2001 2.Verbalis, J.G., McCann, McHale and Stricker,
'Oxytocin secretion in response to cholecystoknin and food: differentiation
of nausea from satiety.' Science 1986, 232: 1417-19 3. Prescott, James
W., PhD, Breastfeeding: Brain Nutrients in Brain Development For Human
Love and Peace, From Touch The Future Newsletter, Spring 1997 http://www.violence.de/prescott/ttf/article.html
4. Prescott, James W., PhD, The Origins of Human Love and Violence, From
Pre and Perinatal Psychology Journal, Volume 10, #3: Spring 1996 5. Henry
Holt, 1997 6. Prescott, James W. , Ph.D , Rock A Bye Baby, Time Life Documentary,
1970, Executive Producer: Lothar Wolff, Scientific Consultant. (last modified
2001/04/16). 7. Montagu, Ashley Touching : The Human Significance of the
Skin, Harper, 1986 8. Prescott, James W., PhD, Breastfeeding: Brain Nutrients
in Brain Development For Human Love and Peace, From Touch The Future Newsletter,
Spring 1997 http://www.violence.de/prescott/ttf/article.html
9. Ainsworth, M.D.S., "Attachments Across the Life Span." Bulletin of the
New York Academy of Medicine 61, 1985
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