ABSTRACT
I came from a very medical family, with both my father and grandfather working as general practitioners and then taking Public Health appointments. My interest in psychology was first stimulated at school by my physics master who introduced me to the writings of Sigmund Freud. I was intrigued by what Freud had to say on mental mechanisms but I thought that his account of psychosexual development was very unlikely to be correct (as shown later in the systematic review that I did on the topic). I trained myself to wake every time I had a dream and to write it down immediately before turning back to sleep. It was an interesting project that, although it produced no answers, excited my scientific curiosity. I left school at the age of 16 and went straight on to medical school (at an age below that which was officially allowed), with the intention of becoming a general practitioner. However, I became interested in the interconnections between brain and mind, both as a result of various readings and also my experience working on psychiatric, neurosurgical, and neurological units. An important turning point came with an elective with Professor Mayer-Gross who advised me to obtain a broad training in neurology and medicine before going on to psychiatric training at the Maudsley Hospital. He was the first person to emphasize the value of engaging in research and I knew that if I went to the Maudsley Hospital I would have to do that. Initially, I was somewhat put off because I thought I knew that I would not be interested in research and I would not be good at it. As it turned out, I was wrong on both counts because the voyage of discovery that is intrinsic to research proved quite compelling. Some developmental researchers have been very concerned that their research should confirm all their own hypotheses. That always seemed to me a bizarre aim because, if it proved to be the case, it would mean that the whole of one's research career had been a waste of time. Instead, it is the discovery of the unex-pected that makes research so addictive.
