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“Limbic System” — How a German Poet’s Picture of the Brain Helped Me Wrap My Head Around Emotional Regulation, Difficult Behaviour, and the “Little Deficits” We All Live With

I’d been a foster and adoptive parent for about six and a half years when, in late 2014, I first came across the poem “Limbic System” by Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1929-2022). I was learning about brain function in relation to prenatal exposure and developmental trauma. (The latter term refers to injuries to a child’s brain…