Research on animal behavior has identified the earliest emotional learning experiences as the most important in the life of higher fauna: what a young bird or mammal experiences in this highly sensitive period cannot be changed later on - these early experiences are irreversible, which is known as imprinting. Depth psychology has attempted to describe the same phenomenon with the term "the unconscious".
The evolution of mammals can help us understand the primal needs and fears of human infants, their main experiences and their behavior. There are three different types of early parent-child relationship among the mammals.

1. Among the "nidifugous" (for example horses or buffaloes) the newly-born young stands up immediately after birth and follows its mother and the herd. If it had no separation anxieties it would be condemned to death. It is exactly these separation anxieties which the human child develops when, at the end of its first year of life it begins to crawl, and then, in the second year, to walk. This is its greatest fear in this period of life. On the other hand, it uses its mother as a secure base from which to explore and "conquer" the world.
   
   
2. Among the "nidicolous" (for example mice and cats) the young come into the world with closed eyes and without fur. The mother lays them in a nest. She herself hunts for food for her offspring. When the young open their eyes and begin to crawl, they have to be scared of a foreign environment; otherwise they would go too far away from the nest and would thus be condemned to death. This is equivalent to the strongest fear of a human infant in the second half of its first year of life - the fear of strangers. It thus demonstrates that it feels safely bound to its mother.
   
   
3. There is a third type of early mother-child relationship among the mammals. Among the primates, i.e. the monkeys, the mother herself is the nest. The young animal clings tightly with hands and feet to its mother's fur after the birth and is carried continuously by her, or by another carer. If the baby cries or screams - and the monkeys are frequently up in the trees - then it is in mortal danger. A monkey mother therefore reacts immediately to this warning cry. The basic need of a human infant in its first phase of life is thus for closeness, physical contact with its mother or another human being. Its strongest fear is the fear of loss of body contact.

The advantage of this developmental model is that it no longer places the experiences of taking in and excreting nutrients in the forefront as psychoanalysis has done, but is oriented towards the actual experience and behavior of the infant.

The primates carry their children around with them continuously and so do the traditional cultures. Babies and infants never cry, and if they do cry their parents or carers react immediately. Crying or screaming are still understood as a warning signal in these traditional societies and are reacted to with corresponding promptness. The opposite is true in all developed societies where mother and infant are separated; and the more developed a society, the more radical the separation. This separation is understood as the emotional adaptation into the alienated life in urban settings. The ruling class, the aristocracy, implements the separation of mother and child totally. The newborn infant is handed over to a wet-nurse. This is the emotional adaptation to life in the upper class - spread over the whole world.

Thus, in the depth of the human soul in all the developed societies is hidden a crying and screaming, a desperate and furious baby; to a greater or lesser degree. At the same time this melting pot of powerful emotions is the source and beginning of all human creativity. It is, at the same time, the source of our curiosity; the emotional root of all our scientific and technical advances.

In my book I show, with the examples of three different cultures, 2 islands in the south-west Pacific and a village high up in the mountains of Mexico, how each group treats its babies and infants in such a way that they can later live as fully integrated members of their society. At the same time this is an aid and a challenge to parents to seek their own way of treating and raising their children.