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It is not often that one gets to read a book discussing psychoanalytic research that studies the development of individuals from birth through eighteen years of age and beyond. This alone would make Sylvia Brody's Beginning to Grow: Five Studies an interesting and valuable one. Brody is a psychoanalytic researcher who has published a number of books and articles on longitudinal developmental studies focusing on the impact of the child's early experiences, especially in interaction with parents, on the emergence of character structure. This fact only adds to the interest one experiences in approaching this book.
The centerpiece of the present book is a detailed summary of the findings of Brody's research on five of the 131 children who were the subjects of her earlier studies.
There are two main themes, the first announced in the opening words of the preface: “One day when I was ten … I came upon an article entitled, ‘Children Are People.’ I was astonished that someone else in the big world outside also realized that. By the time I was twelve, I was sure that if I were ever in a position to do anything about it, I would establish a law that no one could have a child without a license.”