The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience

We know that what other people do and say to usAespecially when we're youngAhelps shape our later ideas and emotions. We also know more than ever about how neurons, neurotransmitters and the structures in our brains create and affect our minds and personalities. Siegel, who directs the Infant and Preschool Service at UCLA, connects our life among others to the life in our brains: his hefty, ambitious work tries to show how both create our selvesAhow "human connections shape the neural connections through which the mind emerges." A chapter on memory explains how "neural networks," "engrams" and "retrieval cues" help us form stories about our pasts; a chapter on our attachments to parents and others links current neuroscience to some of the most exciting and useful work in recent clinical psychology. Why can't we remember what we did at age three? Why are some children unusually shy? What is the biochemistry of humiliation, and how can it be "toxic to the developing child's brain"? New and plausible answers to these questions emerge from Siegel's synthesis of neurobiology, research psychology and cognitive science. Siegel explains all the technical terms he uses, and assumes no prior knowledge. And despite his frequently dry and quite detailed prose, his subjectAhow we become the people we areAdeserves to hold many readers spellbound.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The mind is a fascinating but not a simple subject. Siegel's current, thorough, closely argued text will reward those who stick with it. A psychiatrist specializing in children and families, Siegel is intrigued by the processes of human development and the relationships between individuals. The broad field of neurobiology has many theories, much data, and a variety of viewpoints to offer the lifelong student, and accordingly, Siegel presents a vast amount of material, carefully ordered in sequence of presentation to point up the lessons it has to teach. Genetics and experience help produce the mind, he shows, but also combine and react with each other. One of Siegel's major gifts is for presenting anatomical, neurological, research, and clinical information while still pointing out what remains unknown. He explores infant-parent relationships, emotions, states of mind, and how knowing about them can help one improve one's relationships and capabilities for developing successfully. William Beatty