Jane Loevinger (1918-2008) was an American psychologist working in the 20th century who focused on the idea of ego development across the lifespan. According to Loevinger (who worked as an assistant to Erik Erikson in graduate school), the ego (originally formulated by Sigmund Freud) was not a ”thing” but rather a ”process.” Loevinger believed that...Read More

New studies have revealed that screen time (TV, video games, Internet etc.) modifies brain structure and cognitive functioning.  In one study where children between the ages of 3 and 5 had their brains scanned, those kids whose screen time exceeded the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines had lower levels of white matter integrity in...Read More

A mother’s relationship to her infant during the first few months of life is an archetypal one. That means that baby sees the mother not as a personal mother, but as the “great mother” — the all sustaining mother earth.  The infant’s connection to the mother is very much a primal one, for he depends...Read More

Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development model represents probably the most well-known and highly regarded map of the human life cycle in contemporary western culture.  This theory was first articulated in 1950 in chapter seven (“The Eight Ages of Man”) of his book Childhood and Society, and further developed in later books and articles. Erikson...Read More

On a typical day in America, 68% of infants (aged 0-2) are watching television.  Up to 20% of American babies have a television in their bedrooms.  That’s what a survey in the journal Pediatrics reveals.  Pediatrics is published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which recommends in its media guidelines to parents that children from...Read More