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In the Spring 2001 issue (vol. 17, no. 3) the BJP published the seventh Annual John Bowlby Memorial Lecture given by Allan Schore in March 2000 with the title ‘Minds in the Making’. The dialogue between neuroscience, attachment theory and psychoanalysis has since gathered momentum with the publication of numerous books and papers. Margaret Wilkinson's book which includes a foreword by Allan Schore is a welcome and important addition. It makes cutting-edge research accessible and offers a lucid overview of contemporary neuroscience. Yet at the same time Wilkinson puts clinical material at the heart of her book. Each chapter contains clinical examples which help to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and in true Jungian style she includes nine coloured plates of pictures produced by her patients during analysis. It is this emphasis on the clinical relevance of neuroscience which makes this book of great interest to Jungian analysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists and counsellors alike. Clinical material is presented in a different type-face which I found helpful.
In the first chapter ‘Why Neuroscience?’ Wilkinson argues that, thanks to recent developments in the field of neuroscience, we as practitioners are now better able to understand why we do what we do in the consulting room. A recurring theme is how neuroscience is contributing to our knowledge of how human subjectivity (coming into mind) is formed developmentally, initially through the relation to the primary care-giver. Mind is made by the healthy interaction with another mind. The patterns of the early attachment, laid down in the right hemisphere of the brain, are recreated in the relationship with the analyst as transference and countertransference. It is the understanding of these patterns which will be crucial for effective work to occur at a rational level (connecting right brain to left). This process continues