ABSTRACT
This part of the book has set out the scientific basis for understanding babyhood as a crucial time in emotional development. The basic systems that manage emotions – our stress response system, the responsiveness of our neurotransmitters, the neural pathways which encode our implicit understanding of how intimate relationships work – none of these are in place at birth. Nor is the vital prefrontal cortex of the brain yet developed. Yet all of these systems will develop rapidly in the first two years of life, forming the basis of our emotional management for life. Although later experience will elaborate our responses and add to the repertoire, the path that is trodden in very early life tends to set each of us off in a particular direction that gathers its own momentum. The longer we stay on a particular pathway, the more difficult it becomes to choose another and the harder it becomes to retrace our footsteps.
