The Myth of Normal 50

minds are not independent operators, functioning in isolation from other brains and minds. In fact, nothing about us, mental or physical, can be comprehended apart from the many-faceted milieu in which we exist. We can perhaps treat human biology as strictly self-contained in an artificial setting like a medical laboratory or pathology theater, but not in real life. “Interpersonal neurobiology is both a way of understanding the world through many disciplines and it is also the reality of our interconnected nature,” Dan told me in an interview. My amendment is to remove the “neuro-” prefix—leaving us with the broader “interpersonal biology,” which places not only the brain and nervous system under the interpersonal banner but our entire mental-physical makeup. The brain itself is the central organ of a supersystem that extends throughout the body and influences every aspect of physiological functioning, from the caliber of blood vessels to the contractions of our intestines, the beating of our heart, the manufacture of immune cells in our bone marrow, the secretions of hormones from our sex glands, and the functioning of our kidneys. Again, it’s all one: emotions affect nerves and vice versa; nerves act on hormones; hormones on the immune system; the immune system on the brain; the brain on the gut; the gut on the brain; and all of these act on the heart, and vice versa. In turn, our bodies influence our brains and minds and, necessarily, the brains, minds, and bodies of others. We all know the power of interpersonal biology from a lifetime of personal experience. Think of the effect that other people can have on you: it can be quite literally visceral. Poets and songwriters tell of being weak in the knees, shot through the heart, or even, in Bruce Springsteen’s vivid image, stabbed in the brain by a dull, serrated blade. [] Jerry Lee Lewis was right: we really do shake each other’s nerves and rattle each other’s brains. [] Unsurprisingly, the closer we are to someone, the more our physiology interacts with theirs. Accordingly, the phenomenon of interpersonal biology has been well studied in the case of intimate relationships. Married people have lower rates of mortality than their age-matched single contemporaries, whether the latter were separated, divorced, widowed, or had never married. [6] Single people showed an elevated risk for heart disease and cancer, for