In this Live Legacy Interview Professor Ruth Feldman, eminent scientist and clinician shares her pioneering work in the field of developmental social neuroscience and psychoanalysis. Ruth shares her lifetime’s wisdom and expertise on the remarkable chemistry of love and connection and how the extraordinary convergence of synchronicity, biology and neuroscience has the power to create lasting relationships and help children to flourish even when there are difficulties.

Ruth is the Simms-Mann Professor at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzlia and Yale Child Study Center. Ruth’s awards as Research.com’s Best Female Scientist 2022 and world expert in Parent-Child Relations and Psychoanalytic Theory by Expertscape, attest to her remarkable contributions to the field of child mental health.

Ruth is in conversation with Jane O’Rourke and Salam Soliman. Ruth is joined by her special guests, Dr. Daphna Dollberg, her colleague working on their postpartum depression intervention study and Dr. Shafiq Masalha discussing their intervention for Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Key moments:

• 8:15 How Ruth became interested in synchrony and influence of music
• 11:00 What is biobehavioural synchrony: ‘The human capacity to create a coupled biology with another human through behaviours’
• 17:00 What happens if children don’t experience synchrony. 3 main reasons: premature birth; depression; mother not able to give required attention eg war
• 20:00 Why the first 9 months are critical for synchronicity and for babies ‘to build a bio-behavioural system that’s welcoming of attachment’.
• 22:00 Parallels with Dan Stern’s ‘vitality effects’ – emotions that are expressed in different patterns of time.
• 26:00 Kangaroo care – Ruth’s RCT showing positive long-term effect of skin to skin contact that lasts into adulthood
• 33:00 Synchrony explained over a lifetime, how the early relationships are echoed in later ones akin to Bowlby’s internal working models
• 39:00 The science of Biology of Love. Neuroscientists used to scoff at concept, now a serious topic.
• 41:00 Role of Oxytocin in biobehavioural synchrony, attachment
• 44:00 Levels of oxytocin in love and relationships eg between lovers as well as between therapist and patient
• 46:00 Use of exogenous (intranasal) oxytocin for therapeutic purposes. Endogenous uses of oxytocin eg long hugs and touch is more helpful. Windows of opportunity eg childbirth are when the brain is most plastic
• 51:00 Fathers and Gay dads and oxytocin levels can be same as mothers if closely involved with baby.
• 55:00 Repairing early difficulties and ruptured synchrony. Repair possible because its experienced bottom up so new relationships can repair old difficult ones
• 1:00:00 Maternal Postpartum Depression Intervention using video feedback: Daphna Dollberg
• 1:06:00 Study case of mother who was too intrusive with her infant and more details on the intervention
• 1:23:25 Tools of Dialogue Intervention for building empathy and cooperation: Dr Shafiq Masalha