Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential--and Endangered

The groundbreaking exploration of the power of empathy by renowned child-psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry, coauthor, with Oprah Winfrey, of What Happened to You?

“Empathy, and the ties that bind people into relationships, are key elements of happiness. Born for Love is truly fascinating.” — Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project

From birth, when babies' fingers instinctively cling to those of adults, their bodies and brains seek an intimate connection, a bond made possible by empathy—the ability to love and to share the feelings of others.

In this provocative book, psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry and award-winning science journalist Maia Szalavitz interweave research and stories from Perry's practice with cutting-edge scientific studies and historical examples to explain how empathy develops, why it is essential for our child development into healthy adults, and how modern parenting can raise kids with empathy while navigating threats from technological change and other forces in the modern world.

Perry and Szalavitz show that compassion underlies the qualities that make society work—trust, altruism, collaboration, love, charity—and how difficulties related to empathy are key factors in social problems such as war, crime, racism, and mental illness. Even physical health, from infectious diseases to heart attacks, is deeply affected by the neurobiology of our human connections to one another.

As Born for Love reveals, recent changes in technology, child-rearing practices, education, and lifestyles are starting to rob children of necessary human contact and deep relationships—the essential foundation for empathy and a caring, healthy society. Sounding an important warning bell, Born for Love offers practical ideas for combating the negative influences of modern life and fostering positive social change to benefit us all. This compelling guide to brain development reveals how and why the brain learns to bond with others—and is a stirring call to protect our children from new threats to their capacity to love.

Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with unforgettable stories, Born for Love explains:

• The Neurobiology of Connection: How our brains are hardwired for love and why human relationships are essential for both physical and mental health, from infancy into adulthood.
• Child-Rearing for a Compassionate Society: How modern lifestyles, technology, and changing educational practices can threaten a child’s capacity for empathy, and what parents and educators can do to foster resilience.
• The Science of Empathy: The fascinating link between empathy and major social issues like crime, racism, and war, explained through cutting-edge research and unforgettable stories from Dr. Perry’s clinical practice.
• Fostering Positive Social Change: Practical, science-backed ideas for combating the negative influences of modern life and building a more caring, connected, and healthy society for everyone.

“Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist at Baylor College of Medicine, has done brain scans of children who have been severely neglected and has found that entire structures of their cortex never developed properly. This kind of underdevelopment doesn’t affect just intelligence; it affects emotional health.” - Malcom Gladwell, The New Yorker

“Bruce Perry is both a world-class creative scientist and a compassionate therapist.” - Mary Pipher, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Reviving Ophelia

“Born for Love places love where it belongs: at the heart of human experience. Beyond our use of tools, our complex languages, or our artistic triumphs, what Homo sapiens does best is love one another. Szalavitz and Perry show just how vital and humanizing our capacity to care really is through the use of illuminating case studies, cutting-edge research, and deft writing.” - Christopher Ryan, Ph.D., author of Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships

“Once in awhile a book changes the way I experience the world. This time it’s Born For Love, by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz. Their book explores how children learn to love-or not. No work of fiction is as compelling.” - Denver Post

“An accessible and important work of popular science.” - BigThink.com

“Strikingly original and thought-provoking, Born for Love explores the crucially important role empathy plays in all of our lives. It should be required reading for every parent, partner, and friend.” - Annie Murphy Paul, author of Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives

“Facebook. Daycare. Economic inequality. All these trends are endangering empathy. Building off of case studies from Perry’s psychiatric practice, Perry and Szalavitz trace the antecedents and repercussions of (dis)connection, from mother-infant bonding through national financial meltdown. Born for Love explains science from cells to sociology and illustrates what can go wrong when we turn a blind eye toward others or engender blind spots in our children. But it offers fixes. Some are far off-systemic shake-ups-but others are just a handshake away.” - Psychology Today

“A clear, expert, up-to-date presentation of what makes us human, happy, and durable.” - Library Journal (starred review)

“Empathy, and the ties that bind people into relationships, are key elements of happiness. Born for Love is truly fascinating.” - Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project

“A leading neuroscientist . . . Dr Perry runs the respected Child Trauma Academy in Texas” - The Guardian