To feel that one is seen and understood by someone, or to be met on a limbic level, is the first step to an emotional healing process and a change in one’s experience of the world – Susan Hart
Susan Hart is the first person in Denmark to work with and describe Neuroaffective Developmental Psychology, which sees development in the light of psychodynamic, attachment-based, and neuroscientific theory.
The neuroaffective approach is that the child develops an ability to regulate the brain and nervous system in relation to sensitive adults, who regulate the child’s arousal level through mirroring and interaction. (Susan Hart). Therefore the child is dependent on learning emotional attunement through connectedness, which builds up the ability of the brain and the nervous system to experience calm (Ibid.).
Psychotherapy is in many ways a about continuing where development prematurely stopped. Challenges with regulating the self can obstruct the path to harmony and self-development. Therapy inspired by a neuroaffective approach integrates sensory, emotional and cognitive processes, and focuses on interventions which regulate, calm and build up resources for the individual, whilst respecting receptivity, readiness and actual needs.