It therefore seems that the human brain is a very powerful determinant and expression of socio-cultural factors. In fact, it is very clear that once the brain is mapped in a certain way, it is very difficult to change the mapping. Unless children are able to obtain a sense of self esteem and self-worth during the early years of their lives, it is very difficult to achieve this later.

A famous experiment has shown that if a child is born with a cataract, the child will still not be able to see with that eye even though the cataract has been removed in the neo-natal period. This is because the appropriate "brain-wiring" for sight has not been allowed to occur in the earlier stages of development.

When the brain models itself, it models the apperceptive pointers within the total environment. It is the fusion of the individual and the environment that creates the person. We are not isolated individuals. We are interconnected with, and are intrinsically a part of our society. The key to the future is a society which is positively interconnected with co-operation and compassion. This is a cultural precedent for a successful nation.

The Threat of Loss
One of the greatest sociological and psychological factors facing an individual child is the threat of loss. The threat of loss or separation is one of the greatest emotional traumas that a human being can face. It may be the threat of separation from parents, family, peers, teacher, friends, from familiar surroundings, from society, and ultimately from life itself. This threat of loss, or feeling of hurt, which is innate in all individuals, is expressed and determined in certain ways depending on early childhood rearing.

The child who is nurtured, touched and loved is able to cope with these feelings. But a lot of children are not able to do this and end up with feelings of hurt, shame, guilt, aggression and fear, and this is the basis on which psychoanalysis and psychotherapy function.

What a society in rapid change and renaissance, or rebirth, needs, is to give everyone the opportunity to connect with each other at a core level which transcends all differences. We would be thus connecting with the basic life giving attributes of the self, which Freud called the Eros. This is a universal form of orientation and devotion based on true value within the community at large.

The Search for Truth and Authenticity
Currently there is a change occurring in the way people view themselves and society. There is a sense in which there is an urgent need for love and truth. This is not necessarily a religious process, but it is certainly based on the deepest recesses of the bio-mind matrix and its connection with the universe itself.

Vaclav Havel, President of Czechoslovakia has said, "Without a global revolution of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better in the sphere of being as humans and the catastrophe towards which this world is headed, be it ecological, demographic, social or the general breakdown of civilisation, will be unavoidable."