This book updates psychodynamic approaches by adding the essential biological and social perspectives that they often lack. We know that everyone is born with innate, highly individual inner characteristics, some of which are biologically based. These traits - a quickness to anger, an easy smile, a way of being calm or fidgety, a lively curiosity, a tendency to melancholy - are not easily visible, yet they play a crucial role in shaping the course of a person's life.

We also know that each of us is born into an outer world with great specifications of its own: time, place, class, race, family, community, country, ethnic group, religion, political-economic climate. An African-American baby, a Korean-American baby, and a Swedish-American baby born on the same day in the same hospital will each be strengthened or assaulted by very different outside forces.