The Healing Power of Love with Sue Carter

  • January 17, 2024
  • 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

The Healing Power of Love: The same ancient biology that allowed human evolution also supports love and relationships at all levels of analysis. The biology of love and secure attachments permitted civilizations to develop. It continues to protect individuals and societies. By deferring to the physiology of threat and fear, we have been left physically and emotionally vulnerable to anxiety, depression, inflammation, disease, and war. Guided by an understanding of love we can begin to prosper without aggression or fear. Exactly how does this work and why is it so powerful? The answer lies in moving out of states of ignorance and fear into those that are experienced as co-regulation and love.  The specific neurobiology of love and sociality is based on endocrine and neural systems that permit the emergence of processes that can protect against disease and trauma and heal essentially every form of human illness. The purpose of this presentation is to share some of the basic biology, focused on oxytocin and vasopressin, that permits love to heal.

Dr. Sue Carter is a Distinguished University Scientist and Rudy Professor Emerita of Biology at Indiana University and past Executive Director of the Kinsey Institute. A career biologist, she has studied the endocrinology of love and social bonds for more than three decades. These findings helped lay the foundation for the studies of behavioral and developmental effects of oxytocin and vasopressin in humans.

Dr. Carter was mentioned in our November discussion with her husband Stephen Porges and her son Seth. Truly an amazing family team.