What it means to have thoughts, and what gives us the capacity to think, have been subjects of debate for centuries. The Cradle of presents a new and challenging theory about the nature and origins of uniquely human thinking, suggesting that it is the quality of a baby's exchange with its parents and carers during the first eighteen months of life that lays the foundations for emotional engagement and entry into the realm of comnmnication and culture.

Peter Hobson is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the Tavistock Clinic and at the department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at University College, London. He works dinicaUy as a psychotherapist, with adults, as well as being Director of the Unit for the Study of Lifespan Development. He is author of many original research publications and has written one previous book, Autism and the Development of Mind.

Picture Acknowledgements

Preface

One: just Think...

Two: Before Thought

Three: The Dawn of Thinking

Fou~. The Cast of Thought

Five: The Fragile Growth of Mind

Six: The Inner and the Outer

Seven: Fettered Minds

Eight: Self and Others

Nine: Understanding Minds

Notes

Index