“What game are we playing?”, Anne asks her 4-year-old playmate; “Cowboys!”, he replies. “Why don’t’ we play House?”, asks Anne, puzzled. After a while, since the situation doesn’t seem to change, she adds: “Ok, let’s play Cowboys living in a House”. Are empathy and interest for others intrinsic to human nature? Although the perspective of the Self has been widely explored in psychoanalytic and philosophical terms, the meaning of Us – that is, the ties that bind us to others – is a relatively recent topic. This book re-assesses this basic facet of human experience, explains its evolutionary success, and describes recent discoveries in neurobiology involving the brain’s predisposition to interact with others. The author addresses the relationships that the Self establishes with others – from its first contacts with its parents to its dealing with peers, up through adulthood – in the age of web-based hyper-sociality.

Massimo Ammaniti, one of the most authoritative Italian psychiatrists, teaches General Developmental Psychopathology at the Sapienza University in Rome.