Nature's Thumbprint: The New Genetics of Personality [Hardcover]

Peter B. Neubauer (Author), Alexander Neubauer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1990

-- Albert J. Solnit, M.D., Yale University

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Psychoanalyst Peter Neubauer and his son, a free-lance writer, argue that the nature/nurture controversy in human behavioral development has too long favored the role of environment. They contend that newer research supports the conclusion that one's genes strongly influence personality and physiology. Our ability to respond and adapt to stress, for example, appears to have a strong genetic component. The authors do not totally dismiss the environmental influence, but view it and heredity as being interactive. This is not a rigorous survey of research (only two recent, major studies are cited), but the arguments are nevertheless enlightening and persuasive.
- Laurie Bartolini, Lincoln Lib., Springfield, Ill.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

A real catch for psychoanalysts, biologists, and for all enlightened readers who cannot resist the need to know that it is not nature or nurture, but always nature and nurture. -- Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 223 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley; 1ST edition (May 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201092549
• ISBN-13: 978-0201092547
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,423,800 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating book, November 11, 2001

By 

B. Falk "eoi" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nature's Thumbprint: The New Genetics of Personality (Hardcover)

Genes determine our eye color, blood type, and tendency toward certain diseases. That much is clear. But when it comes to our psychological traits-who we are and what we can become-few people would credit genes with a major role in human development. For most of this century, we have considered parents and the general environment to be the primary sculptors of personality, and have bestowed on them all the credit for our triumphs and the blame for our failures.

Now, in a book that will change forever the way we think about ourselves and our children, Peter B. Neubauer, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at New York University, and his son Alexander Neubauer, right the balance in the nature-nurture debate. They show how our genes affect the way we react to the world, interact with it, and behave in many situations. The authors delineate the genetic roots of our personalities, even as they remain faithful to Freudian psychology.

Based on Peter Neubauer's fifty years of clinical practice as a psychoanalyst and researcher, and on studies of identical twins, Nature's Thumbprint explores the range of inborn inclinations upon which personality is later built: individual timetables of maturation; adaptation to the family and the environment; reasons why some children are more vulnerable to environmental obstacles than others; and why some parents are stymied by children who do not match their expectations, while others respond in positive ways. Sure to redefine thinking in psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy, Nature's Thumbprint will also give parents a new understanding of their children. It offers a hopeful message to us all, for only when we understand the biological as well as the psychological underpinnings of personality can we come to a genuine understanding of ourselves and our lives.