This book explores how experience, that is,
interactions with the environment, might shape the development of the brain. It
does this in a way that integrates neurobiology with subjective experiences,
particularly those that occur in the reciprocity of interpersonal
relationships. Siegel, a psychiatrist who specializes in the mental health
problems of children and families, does not recapitulate the age-old dilemma of
western science, that is, how to resolve the so-called ‘hard problem’, namely,
how the matter of the brain generates the non-substantial mind; instead he
enters into the thicket of his topic. His is a strictly scientific argument,
yet one that seeks to improve, as well as explain, social interactions as it
changes the very fabric of our neuropsychology.

Siegel’s interactive relationship
environment-neurobiological approach elucidates further what other contemporary
neurological research has found: that the brain is a relatively plastic organ
and thus capable of change throughout life.  Such insight is heartening for
those engaged in providing psychotherapy to clients, for it gives understanding
to the mechanisms involved in transforming maladaptive psychosocial patterns. 
This is the author’s aim, in fact, for this highly readable book.

Current research into emotional development, memory,
cognitive science, neurobiology, systems theory are combined in the book; the
latter forming the model of explanation for the relationship of the brain to
the development of the mind through interpersonal encounters. The subtitle to
the paperback version of this book ‘How Relationships and the Brain Interact to
Shape Who We Are’ is interestingly different to the hardback copy, ‘Toward a
Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience’ — a subtle change of emphasis of
purpose. The former looks to be marketed at a popular readership, rather than
perhaps the more scholarly one of the latter title. Whichever title, the book
combines both deep scholarship and relatively easy access to its ideas.

What of systems theory when applied to the
interaction of environment and human neurobiology, given that this theory was
first developed to describe the shape-changing behaviour of clouds?  It should
be noted that interdisciplinary use has been made of systems theory since the
1940s, and its application to cognitive science is well established. Gregory Bateson,
most notably, applied the non-linear dynamic model of systems theory, of which
complexity theory is part, to problems of the mind in his 1971 book, Steps
to an Ecology of Mind.  

Systems theory argues that however complex or
diverse the world that we experience, we will always find different types of
organization in it, and such organization can be described by concepts and
principles that are interdependent with the specific domain at which we are
looking.  By considering the brain as complex system whose processes organize
its own functioning, and, as Siegel does, say that the ‘mind emanates from the
activity of the brain’ (p.215), then we might agree with him that the mind is
also a dynamical system with self-organizing properties, is open to novel
response and adaptation to the environment, and has emergent patterns with
recursive features. Using this systems approach, rather than the more
traditional analytic approach (which grapples endlessly with philosophic dualism),
Siegel emphasizes the interactions and connectedness of the different
components of the system that is the human being in relationship with others.
Complexity, adaptation, and self-regulation occur by a feedback looping process
in an on-going relational response. Repeated patterns of behaviour become "engrained",
‘meaning that they are made more likely to be reactivated in the future’ (p.
211).  Siegel uses the analogy of what the Buddhists call ‘laying down the path
in walking’ to describe how the process of engrainment might occur — although
he does not make reference to this (cf. also Varela, Thompson and Rosch’s book The
Embodied Mind, Cognitive Science and Human Experience, 1993 (not, by
the way, in the list of references in Siegel’s book).  The gist of the analogy
is this: you walk down a hillside making a path as you go along. Then you walk
up the hillside choosing the same pathway, so as not to tread down more grass.
Day after day, hikers continue to use that pathway, for it is now recognizable
as one. The path we make and walk is like the way we customarily behave, the
process of which engrains particular states of mind. So, ‘the brain is more
likely to activate this clustering of processes in the future as cohesive state
of mind.’ Repeated ‘states of activation at critical early periods of
development shape the structure of neuronal circuits, which then form the
functional basis for enduring patterns of states of mind within the individual.’ 
(p.219)  Neuronal activation is specific to their use, thus particular pathways
are made.  This does not mean, however, that variability cannot happen;
contrarily, the dynamical system that is the brain in interaction with the
social environment means that it is sensitive to change. A balance needs to be achieved
between novel response and familiar response, however, for the mental health of
a person is at stake here. Too much variation and a sense of self is lost in
erratic behaviour; not enough and a person’s behaviour become stereotypical.
Central to a sense of self, though, is a sense of a meaningful narrative or
reasonable story. ‘Is this [story-making function],’ the author asks, only ‘related
to a drive to create coherence among the disparate aspects of one’s own mind?’
(p. 322) Not necessarily, he concludes. Having a story also allows us to make
sense of other people’s behaviour; it gives us access to social experience, a
sharing in another’s life world.

This book works on many levels and neatly
fulfils the author’s intention for it: ‘to provide an overview and integration
of [various] scientific perspectives, in order to build a foundation for a
neurobiology of interpersonal experience’ (p. 1). Highly recommended.

© 2003 Elizabeth McCardell

Elizabeth McCardell, PhD, Division
of Social Science, Humanities & Education, Murdoch University, Western
Australia

Categories: Psychology