Self/other organization in human psychological development

Author(s): Trevarthen, C.

Journal/Book: Dev Psychopathol. 1997; 9: 40 West 20TH Street, New York, NY 10011-4211. Cambridge Univ Press. 653-677.

Abstract: Evidence from the evolution of human cultural behavior and learning, embryology and genetics of the brain, and the behavior of human infants indicates that the critical and uniquely human motives for cooperative imagination and joint interest in objects and tasks are determined by expression of genes and epigenetic neural systems elaboration long before birth, along with essential peripheral organs of perception and motor expression that will serve in communication by rhythmic facial, vocal, gestural, and body movement signals. These cerebral motives continue to exercise their influence on neural development and behavior throughout life, transforming the behaviors of the developing individual through a succession of phases to which other individuals and cultural institutions are constrained to adapt. We discuss the theory of innate intersubjectivity and relate it to the hypothesis of an Innate Motive Formation that emerges in brain development as regulator of morphogenesis in neural systems, and that continues to function, postnatally, as generator of motives and emotions by which human contacts and relationships are regulated. We suggest that differentiates of the primary motive formation in the embryo brain later serve to generate intelligent exploration of the objective environment, and the emergence of an additional dialogic mechanism that represents the self-subject as a partner for an other-subject, intersubjectively. Intersubjective communication in infancy leads, through systematic age-related transformations of the brain and behavior, to preverbal mimetic negotiation of cooperative awareness and joint task performance. Finally we discuss, in relation to this theory, interpretations of faulty communication and development at different stages of the life cycle that result from maternal postnatal depression, autism, premature birth, and schizophrenia.

Note: Review Aitken KJ, Hosp Sick Children, Dept Clin Psychol, Edinburgh, Midlothian, SCOTLAND

Keyword(s): DEPRESSED MOTHERS PERCEPTIONS; POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY; TO-FACE INTERACTION; FRAGILE-X-SYNDROME; FRONTAL-LOBE; CEREBRAL LATERALIZATION; BIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS; BRAIN-DEVELOPMENT; POSTNATAL DEPRESSION; CORTICAL DEVELOPMENT

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