Includes references and index

1: The birth of a human being: what makes us who we are? -- 2: Below the surface: unconscious processes and psychodynamic insights -- 3: A secure base: the importance of attachment -- 4: Learning to think: the developing ability to reason -- 5: Learning without thinking: ideas from behaviorism -- 6: Boy or girl? the development of sex and gender -- 7: Who am i going to be? adolescence, identity and change -- 8: Acting to adulthood: challenges of adulthood -- 9: Access to adulthood: growing up with disability -- 10: No one is an island: family system and their life cycle -- 11: It takes a village: the wider context -- 12: Coming to a conclusion: the experience of growing old -- 13: That good night: death, dying and bereavement