The Growth of the Mind: And the Endangered Origins of Intelligence

Intelligence is shaped by felt experience, claims psychiatrist Greenspan (The Challenging Child, etc.). Meaningful development occurs when, as children, we experience feelings of warmth and compassion. Our sense of self, of intelligence, and the mental and social health of our nation suffer when we miss any of the required steps of emotional experience. Greenspan disagrees with the theories of Kant and Piaget but amplifies those of Freud to show the overriding importance of emotions (""lived experience"") in the development of intelligence. This influence, a sort of ""dual coding,"" begins much earlier than Freud hypothesized, according to Greenspan. It also has physical correlates in the actual structure of the brain. The author draws upon a broad range of research in a number of disciplines, plus decades of his own involvement with autistic children, normal children and multiproblem families. His conclusions about the necessity of a stable, caring environment for the full fruition of intelligence lead him to make wide-ranging, radical suggestions to reorganize child-raising, and to transform the educational system and to reconstruct the workplace. These changes would, he claims, reduce violence, improve international understanding and reform the practice of psychotherapy. Greenspan discusses the physiology of the brain and provides fascinating insights into the processes of memory, consciousness and the subconscious. His approach is scholarly and rather technical, but the ideas he presents are important ones, worthy of hearing by the general public as well as by his professional peers. (Feb.)