The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog: Analysis

Dr. Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz produced a novel, called The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, which focused on the development of the human brain and how this development can be altered when a child is exposed to severe trauma. Perry has personally experienced the negative effects trauma can have on the brain through his work. Doing so, has allowed Perry to introduce the Neurosequential Model. The Neurosequential Model allows a person to assess a child’s history and present functioning with a focus on the child’s current strengths and weaknesses to better help this individual. Perry has established a number of new understandings not only within the neurobiological field of study, but within child psychology as well. Perry has come to understand …show more content…
Perry’s experiences with these children, he began to notice that therapy had to primarily focus on when the child’s trauma began. If the child’s cognitive development was negatively affected when the abuse and/or neglect occurred, this is where the therapy should begin. This is due to the traumatic event ultimately allowing the child to stay in, or skip this stage of development which is still important to the child’s overall development. Therefore, Dr. Perry explains that therapy focuses on what the child needed at that age despite their current chronological age. This could be seen in Dr. Perry’s patient who was known as, Peter. Peter was adopted and had delayed development in numerous areas in his life due to early childhood neglect. This caused Peter to become fixated in certain areas of childhood despite his age being much older than he was acting. However, by treating Peter how you would treat a young child he began to see progress and later graduate high school and attend …show more content…
Perry states how damaging our current modern western society can also be on a child. This is due to this societies attempt to dismantle extended family structures. In many other cultures, extended families are a tightly woven web of family support. Having more stable and healthy relationships can only positively effect a child’s development. Unfortunately, this was not the case for a child that Dr. Perry reviewed. This child, known as Leon, viciously murdered two young girls. This child led a very different life than his older brother Frank who flourished in an extended family lifestyle, versus Leon who was often left alone for hours while his mother and brother went about their