Your
development
That we feel any sense of a coherent self through our lives is little short
of a miracle. Our bodies grow, blossom, mature, age and shrivel, so
that externally we end up bearing little resemblance to our youthful
origins. We change jobs, relationships, homes, sometimes even names
and sexes. However, amidst all this confusion and drama there are
discernible life-stages that we all live through: from our time in the
womb, through to infancy and childhood, to adolescence, adulthood
and ultimately retirement and old age. Historically, psychologists
have focused mainly on the early stages, attempting to solve the
enduring mystery of how a ball of cells becomes a fully-fledged
person with hopes and regrets. Recently, however, that’s begun to
change, with the teenage and retirement years in particular attracting
the interest of new research.
Embryonic psychology
It’s dark and thunderously noisy and for approximately the first 38 weeks
of your life, the womb is your home. Although it’s the convention of
many cultures to neglect the importance of this period, researchers are
increasingly interested in foetal psychology. It’s a time of astonishingly
rapid change. At peak production, 250,000 new brain cells are created
every minute and 1.8 million new neural connections formed every
second. Double the number of brain cells are created that will ultimately
be needed, with a later process of systematic pruning disposing of those
cells that aren’t required.
Pregnant mothers don’t usually report feeling their baby’s first move-
ments until around sixteen to eighteen weeks, but thanks to ultrasound
we know that foetal movements – which eventually include a repertoire
of kicking, yawning, thumb-sucking and stretching – can actually begin
from between seven to eight weeks. Remarkably, right- or left-handed-