This book answers countless questions. Deriving from the rapidly growing human givens approach to emotional health and education, this rich body of psychological knowledge will strike a chord with any lively mind. The wealth of stories and information it contains will help you improve the quality of your life and the lives of those around you.

We are all born with a rich natural inheritance — a partially formed mind containing a genetic treasure house of innate knowledge patterns. These patterns appear as physical and emotional needs that must be satisfactorily met if our minds are to unfold and develop to their fullest potential. How they connect with the world, and unfold in it, determines our own individual character, the clarity of our perceptions, our own and our family’s emotional health and happiness — as well as the maturity and humanity of the society we create around us.

This book explores these human givens and looks at what each child and adult needs from the environment in order to develop well. It suggests that, as a society, we are unwittingly damaging or squandering our natural inheritance. This results in rising levels of mental distress, such as depression, anxiety, psychosis, addiction and an explosion of primitive greed behaviours. But Human Givens also explores startling new scientific ideas and findings about how the mind works, which show us that we can overcome these distressing conditions much more easily than previously thought.

In its afterword it also offers a new, uplifting scientific metaphor — the relaton theory — about the relationship between matter and consciousness.

If our society is to progress and evolve further, the inspiring body of knowledge set out in this book will be at the heart of the process.