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Graham Music leads the way in applying understandings from attachment and neurobiology to child psychotherapy. His book, Nurturing Natures (2016), put the age old ‘either-or’ question at the heart of the nature-nurture debate to rest. He has shown instead how the two interrelate, nurture working in relation to nature and vice versa, in the context of a particular culture.
In Nurturing Children, he turns his attention to the vital question of, ‘what really makes a difference to those in distress’ (p.3), how we can help children who have suffered trauma come to find a kinder place in the world, in their relationships and in their own hearts and minds. He has found that this is done mainly through the apparently simple but extraordinarily challenging process of ‘making meaningful, compassionate emotional contact with complex states of mind and feelings in myself and others’ (p. 2).
In showing how that process happens, this book offers a welcome synthesis of multiple perspectives, from neurobiology, attachment theory, psychoanalysis, systemic thinking, mindfulness and practices focusing on the body. I found Music’s integration of perspectives refreshing. He makes vital links between our experience and insight as psychoanalytically trained child psychotherapists, and those of colleagues in other disciplines. He also does the much-needed work of translation. Uniquely valuable aspects of the work we offer, particularly in relating to the unconscious through our understanding of transference and countertransference, do have neurobiological underpinnings, and we need accessible new ways of talking about these core elements.
This book offers exactly that neurobiologically informed, yet everyday language. For example, in writing about a traumatised boy he calls Stuart, who has a diagnosis of ADHD, Music explains how fear inhibits executive functions that are crucial for managing in groups: ‘There is little space to build basic interpersonal capacities, concentration, empathy, kin