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This is a very long and expensive book, and it is worth every penny. Written by one man and therefore carrying its integrity from within that man's brain, it will not be superseded for a good many years - a good investment for researchers, scholars and teachers and fascinating background reading for clinicians, if we are content to browse rather than agonize over every single phrase. As a sample, here is a passage from Chapter five, the chapter that summarizes the arguments Schore is going to substantiate at length in the rest of the book. The italics are mine.
The central thesis of this book is that the early social environment, mediated by the primary caregiver, directly influences the evolution of structures in the brain that are responsible for the future socio-emotional development of the child. The resulting variety of dyadic affective interactions between the caregiver is imprinted into the child's nervous system… Different types of stimulation are embedded in these… interactions and they elicit distinctive psychobiological patterns in the child… In response to socio-environmental experiences, hormonal and neurohormonal responses are triggered, and these physiological alterations are registered within specific areas of the infant's brain which are undergoing a structural maturation. (p. 62)
…The mother's role as an external regulator of the child's internal affective state is essential in providing the child's limited nervous system with the modulated stimulation that optimally enhances the growth of (the infant's) affect-regulating structure… She directly influences the growth and assembly of brain structural systems… that perform self-regulatory functions (in the child)… This emergent adaptive function essentially mediates the individual's interpersonal and intrapersonal processes throughout the lifespan. (p. 63)
For once, I am willing to forgive the condensed and highly abstract style of writing, with its long meandering sentences. To have written this book i