Growth of the Mind: And the Endangered Origins of Intelligence

In The Growth of the Mind Stanley Greenspan offers a profoundly new view of the origins of our minds' highest capacities. Contrary to traditional notions, he finds that intelligence per se does not arise from cognitive stimulation, but along with morality, empathy, and self-reflection has a common foundation in specific early emotional experiences. Distilled from two decades of research and practice in human development and adult and child psychiatry, this compelling book reveals the six fundamental levels that form the architecture of our minds. The growth of these levels, four of which are deeper even than the unconscious, depends on a series of critical but subtle emotional transactions between an infant and a devoted caregiver. In mapping these mind-building interactions, Dr. Greenspan clearly formulates the elusive building blocks of creative and analytic thinking, and the sense of self. He thus provides an exciting missing link between recent discoveries in neuroscience and the qualities that make us most fully human.