Response to commentaries

Introduction

I would like to thank my colleagues for making such interesting and insightful contributions to this target article format. Considering the open-ended nature of the word “commentary,” I thought I might have a difficult time finding one or two common themes for the group as a whole. But I can see two groups. Four of the commentators seem to have been stimulated to add new thoughts, research findings, and ideas from their own research and thinking. They each focused on a different segment of the paper and have thus contributed a great deal to the overall scope and direction of the “synthesis” I've tried to convey in my article; for this I am very grateful. The second group of two commentators drew from their own research and theoretical work to focus on something they felt I had missed and/or misconceived: the fundamental unity of animal and human minds and of brains and minds themselves. They represent an important point of view, I think, and I hope my description of my reasons for disagreeing with them, as well as the argument itself, may be of some interest to readers of both persuasions.

Individual replies

In the initial group of four, I will begin with Beatrice Beebe – not only as the earliest in the alphabet, but also because she gives a concise and yet inclusive summary of my paper that may be useful to readers who have long ago lost track of what I had written. One of the exciting aspects of Beatrice Beebe's commentary for me is her way of making seamless links between her own work studying human infants, their mothers, and the mental representations formed by their interactions, across what is often viewed as a chasm, to the biological/behavioral research presented in my paper.

Her work is unique in her analysis of early human relationships into their component parts at the behavioral level, in a way that connects these observations to the realms of emotional engagement, sensitivity, and attunement that are at the core of human relationships. To my m