Missing Each Other: How to Cultivate Meaningful Connections

A Next Big Idea Club Winter 2021 Must Read

The ability to connect with another person's physical and emotional state is one of the most elusive interpersonal skills to develop, but this book shows you just how approachable it can be. In our fast-paced, tech-obsessed lives, rarely do we pay genuine, close attention to one another. 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 to be able to really listen to each other. Often, we misunderstand or talk past each other. Many of us are left wishing that the people in our lives could really listen, understand, and genuinely connect with us. Based on cutting-edge neuroscience research and years of clinical work, psychiatrist Edward Brodkin and therapist Ashley Pallathra take us on 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 pillars of human connection: Relaxed Awareness, Listening, Understanding, and Mutual Responsiveness. Accessible and engaging, Missing Each Other explains the science, research, and biology underlying these pillars of human connection and provides exercises through which readers can improve their own skills and abilities in each.


About the Author
Edward S. ("Ted") Brodkin, M.D. is 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.
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 autism research, social neuroscience, and social-emotional functioning in youth. Her current research and clinical work center around strengthening social competence and building resilience in children and adolescents from diverse community settings.
Ted and Ashley have collaborated since 2014, when they first worked together at the University of Pennsylvania. Through their shared interests in neuroscience, psychology, social and emotional development, music, and martial arts, and their passion for making the world feel a little less lonely, Missing Each Other was born. Learn more at MissingEachOther.com.