Kids Need Hugs

Kids Need Hugs

(The article below is based on an excerpt from my book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids. I have used a pseudonym to protect the privacy of family members.) My mother, who was mentally ill, never hugged me, never caressed me,...

The Neuroscience of Shame

What happens in the brain to make shame benign or toxic? What parts of our brains are injured by chronically being shamed by our caregivers, and how does that change who we are? These are a few of the questions I will attempt to answer in this piece. Some of the terms...