About Edward Brodkin M.D.
Edward S. (“Ted”) Brodkin, M.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry with tenure at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Founder and Director of the Adult Autism Spectrum Program at Penn Medicine. He has been honored by Philadelphia Magazine as a Top Doctor in the Philadelphia region for 14 years and has been honored as one of America’s Top Doctors by Castle Connolly Medical for the past 13 years.
He received his A.B. Magna Cum Laude from Harvard College and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He did his residency in psychiatry and a fellowship in neuroscience research at the Yale University School of Medicine, as well as a fellowship in genetics research at Princeton University.
His research lab and clinical program at the University of Pennsylvania focus on social neuroscience and the autism spectrum in adults.
You can follow professor Edward Brodkin on twitter.
About Ashley A. Pallathra, M.A.
Ashley A. Pallathra, M.A. is a clinical researcher and therapist.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree with Distinction in Neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania, she received a Master’s degree in Psychology and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
She is the author of numerous published research articles and a book chapter in the fields of resilience and social-emotional functioning in youth, autism research, and social neuroscience. Her current research and clinical work center around strengthening social competence and building resilience in children and adolescents from diverse community settings.
You can follow Ashley A. Pallathra, M.A on Twitter.
Missing Each Other: How to Cultivate Meaningful Connections
Have you ever been speaking with someone and realized that you missed everything they just said to you because you were lost in your own thoughts and were unable to maintain focus on even a brief conversation? With all, that’s going on in the world, and the never-ending demands of our daily lives, most of us are too stressed and preoccupied with our own thoughts and worries to be able to really listen to each other for long. Often, we seem to somehow “miss” each other, misunderstand each other, or talk past each other. Many of us are left wishing for someone who could really listen, understand, and genuinely connect with us.
These growing difficulties with connecting have led to a dramatic rise in loneliness and alienation in American society over the past several decades. Our connections have been further frayed in 2020 by COVID-19 and the necessity for “social distancing,” which has additionally atomized us. Global crises like COVID-19, racial injustice/police brutality, and climate change have driven us apart, resulting in greater disconnection, which in turn impairs our ability to work together to address these pressing issues.
In Missing Each Other, researchers and clinicians Edward Brodkin and Ashley Pallathra argue that we must find the ability to be in tune with each other again, and they show us how. Based on years of research that they conducted together in a National Institute of Mental Health-funded clinical study, the authors take a wide-ranging and surprising journey through fields as diverse as social neuroscience and autism research, music performance, pro basketball, and tai chi. They use these stories to introduce the four principal components of attunement:
- Relaxed Awareness,
- Listening,
- Understanding,
- and Mutual Responsiveness
and explaining the science, research, and biology underlying these pillars of human connection, but also providing readers with exercises through which they can improve their own skills and abilities in each.
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