Social Buffering and Compassionate Stories: The Neuroscience of Trust Building with Children in Care

Abstract

Caregivers for children who experienced abuse and neglect earlier in life are tasked with sustaining their caring feelings despite the deep mistrust these children bring to the relationship. Two areas of neuroscientific research are particularly applicable to the process of helping caregivers manage the risk of blocked care: research on social buffering and research on the power of compassionate stories to promote trusting connections. This article explores the implications of these two lines of research to the therapeutic goal of helping parents ‘go high’ to embrace the whole child, mistrust, and all.