Brain Development: Why It Matters

Brain development can be understood as a process of four maturing stages: survival, emotional, attachment and cognitive. These stages hold a key to understanding both poor and healthy thought processes. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Dr. Kirby Reutter steps us through brain development, how trauma impacts it and how by God's grace we can think healthier.

Show Notes:

• The first dimension of the brain to develop very early in life is the survival brain. Survival lies at the heart of the operations of the survival brain. The responses of fight, flight and freeze protect and train us to respond to our surrounds and preserve life.
  • Healthy development : A child has a healthy co-regulator (parent figure) who helps them regulate their responses and properly protects them.
  • Unhealthy development: A child does not have a healthy co-regulator and their safety is exploited. Fight, flight and freeze become a constant regular reaction to outside stimuli.
• The second dimension of the brain to develop is the emotional brain. Responses to outside stimuli are mapped to feelings.
  • Healthy development: A properly developed survival brain allows for a developing emotional brain. The full range of emotions, both comfortable emotions (positive) and uncomfortable emotions (negative) are appropriately experienced.
  • Unhealthy development: An underdeveloped survival brain has a detrimental effect on the developing emotional brain. Negative emotions (primarily fear and anger) are over developed because of their abundant use. At the same time, positive emotions under develop because of their infrequent use or betraying affect.
• The third dimension of the brain to develop is the attachment brain. This development helps us connect with another human in relationship.
  • Healthy development: A healthy emotional brain allows for a healthy attachment brain to develop. A recognition exists that people and relationships are needed. A child is seen, safe and soothed by another person (parent figure).
  • Unhealthy development: An unhealthy emotional brain thwarts a maturing attachment brain. A belief emerges that recognizes people as a threat and relationships as dangerous.
• The fourth dimension of the brain to develop is the cognitive brain. This is the thinking brain, responsible for reasoning and judgement.
  • Healthy development: A healthy attachment brain gives way to healthy thinking and reasoning. A healthy cognitive brain will making good decisions, recognize cause and effect, seeing short term and long term goals, identifying pros and cons, thinking abstractly, theoretically, logically and linguistically.
  • Unhealthy development: An unhealthy attachment brain skews the cognitive development. Decisions and judgements are made through the lens of a threatening world.