Holding my hand Carly Elizabeth stopped in her tracks. Walking down the street, a few yards ahead, were three large overstuffed derrières and a bright, bored four-year old. The swaggering behinds belonged to a set of grandparents and presumably to their son. Granny stopped the herd, grabbed the boy by the shoulder and smacked him in the seat, shaking him. “If you don’t shut up I’ll smack you again,” and she did. Predictably, the boy cried and the matriarch smacked him again.

Over fifty years ago James W. Prescott, PhD, noted that an absence of what we call bonding is neglect or abuse. Researchers at the McLean Hospital identified four types of permanent brain abnormalities caused by early childhood abuse and neglect. These and other studies confirm what Prescott and associates discovered in the 1960's and 1970's; that lack of affectionate, intimate contact between mothers and infants during the most sensitive periods of brain growth may result in permanent brain abnormalities associated with juvenal and adult patterns of depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, aggression and violence.