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 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 Institutes 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–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.