Louis Cozolino, The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain

In this text, Louis Cozolino adds to his impressive contributions to the increasingly important and relevant field of neurobiology and attachment theory, and how these contribute to human development. His 2002 text, The neuroscience of psychotherapy: Building and rebuilding the human brain, set some of the conceptual framework for his current endeavor. In his current text, Cozolino explicitly explores how our human interpersonal interactions fundamentally shape the construction of each other’s brains. He notes that the brain is an organ of adaptation and that its structures are built in interaction with others. He emphasizes the notion that ‘‘there are no single brains’’ (p. 6) and in so doing, he clearly positions attachment constructs and relationships at the heart of the development of both adaptive and maladaptive behaviors in children and adults. His thesis challenges the Western construct of individualism. Rather than honoring the notion that ‘‘healthy’’ individuals are autonomous, independenceseeking creatures, he suggests that one’s social brain, with its’ many potentialities, is fundamentally shaped in interaction with other people. As such, healthy individuals rely on others throughout the lifespan to change and develop their strengths and capacities. This idea is consistent with a number of current psychological theories including relational theory (Mitchell 1988, 1997; Mitchell and Black 1995), intersubjective theory (Mitchell 2000), and attachment theory (Milulincer and Shaver 2007; Schore 2000), all which emphasize the crucial nature of mutuality in growth enhancing relational endeavors. Increasingly, authors explore the interface of attachment theory, developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, neurobiology, and clinical practice (Applegate and Shapiro 2005) and Cozolino’s text adds to this growing literature. The text is organized in six sections: (1) The emergence of social neuroscience; (2) the social brain: structures and functions; (3) bridging the social synapse; (4) social vision: the language of faces; (5) disorders of the social brain; and (6) social neural plasticity. Each section of the text offers rich and highly specific conceptual data about social brain functioning. An ambitious reader can integrate a sophisticated understanding of brain physiology. However, another reader who may not want to fully integrate the specificity of all aspects of brain functioning, can still glean much useful conceptual and clinical information. The text offers excellent tables and figures that deconstruct complex ideas in a user-friendly manner. Cozolino also illustrates the concepts with many clinical examples, interspersed throughout the text. The first two sections of the book lay out the conceptual framework of the text. Cozolino encourages the reader to ‘‘relax’’ with the material and to recognize that he will re-visit essential constructs throughout the text. He notes ‘‘The complexity of the brain makes any exploration simultaneously detail-rich and miserably incomplete’’ (pp. 50–51). Not surprisingly, he talks about the positive benefits of healthy relationships and he discusses how optimal sculpting of the prefrontal cortex shapes our sense of ourselves, our trust in others, our intellectual and emotional intelligence, and our ability to regulate our emotions, among other effects. He explores the differences of right and left hemisphere brain development, and he notes that right brain development precedes left-brain development. Hence, the right brain is more closely aligned with unconscious processes that assess safety and danger, D. Miehls (&) Smith College School of Social Work, Northampton MA 01603, USA e-mail: dmiehls@email.smith.edu