Introduction

Abstract

The first chapter in the book outlines the relevance of this third book in a series of three books on the topic of causality and development (see Young, Development and causality: Neo-Piagetian perspectives. Springer Science + Business Media, New York, 2011; Unifying causality and psychology: being, brain and behavior. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016). The first part of the book deals with the causality of handedness /hemispheric specialization development , and it includes the role in this regard of the author’s developmental model and causal thinking . It emphasizes the centrality of activation – inhibition coordination in helping to describe both behavior and brain function . The second part of the book elaborates the Neo-Eriksonian portion of the author’s Neo-Piagetian/Neo-Eriksonian 25-step developmental model . It shows how the model can inform not only development but also therapeutic practice. The chapter emphasizes the needed integration of causality as a unifying theme in psychology and that causality and development are not dissociable. The first part of the book on handedness/hemispheric specialization provides an extensive literature review and, in this sense, is empirically driven. Also, the Neo-Piagetian model is based on Piaget’s rich observations of his children in the first year of life and also on other data that were used to support the competing models of Case and Fischer, in particular, and that apply as well to the present model. The Neo-Eriksonian portion of the book begins with the presentation of the concept of neo-stage , which permits empirical investigation of networking on sub-stage components and their advancement into more advanced sub-stages. However, the Neo-Eriksonian portion of the present model will require clinical application and insight before more rigorous empirical investigation can be undertaken. Nevertheless, the extent to which it greatly elaborates the Eriksonian lifespan developmental model of eight stages (not to mention Freud’s precursor model of five stages) into a 25-step model warrants its investigation and also supports its potential utility and validity .