Brainspotting: The Revolutionary New Therapy for Rapid and Effective Change


David Grand - 2012
    Now Dr. David Grand presents the next leap forward in psychological care—combining the strengths of brain-based and talk therapies into a powerful technique he calls Brainspotting. In Brainspotting, Dr. Grand reveals the key insight that allowed him to develop this revolutionary therapeutic tool: that where we look reveals critical information about what's going on in our brain. Join him to learn about:The history of Brainspotting—how it evolved from EMDR practice as a more versatile tool for brain-based therapy• Brainspotting in action—case studies and evidence for the effectiveness of the technique• An overview of the different aspects of Brainspotting and how to use them• Between sessions—how clients can use Brainspotting on their own to reinforce and accelerate healing• Why working simultaneously with the right and left brain can lead to expanded creativity and athletic performance• How Brainspotting can be used to treat PTSD, anxiety, depression, addiction, physical pain, chronic illness, and much more"Brainspotting lets the therapist and client participate together in the healing process," explains Dr. Grand. "It allows us to harness the brain's natural ability for self-scanning, so we can activate, locate, and process the sources of trauma and distress in the body." With Brainspotting, this pioneering researcher introduces an invaluable tool that can support virtually any form of therapeutic practice—and greatly accelerate our ability to heal.

The Girl in building C


Mary Krugerud - 2018
    She entered Ah-gwah-ching State Sanatorium at Walker, Minnesota, for what she thought would be a short stay. In January, her tuberculosis spread, and she nearly died. Her recovery required many months of bed rest and medical care.Marilyn loved to write, and the story of her three-year residency at the sanatorium is preserved in hundreds of letters that she mailed back home to her parents, who could visit her only occasionally and whom she missed terribly. The letters functioned as a diary in which Marilyn articulately and candidly recorded her reactions to roommates, medical treatments, Native American nurses, and boredom. She also offers readers the singular perspective of a bed-bound teenager, gossiping about boys, requesting pretty new pajamas, and enjoying Friday evening popcorn parties with other patients.Selections from this cache of letters are woven into an informative narrative that explores the practices and culture of a midcentury tuberculosis sanatorium and fills in long-forgotten details gleaned from recent conversations with Marilyn, who "graduated" from the sanatorium and went on to lead a full, productive life.

Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction


Judith Grisel - 2019
    With more than one in every five people over the age of fourteen addicted, drug abuse has been called the most formidable health problem worldwide. If we are not victims ourselves, we all know someone struggling with the merciless compulsion to alter their experience by changing how their brain functions.Drawing on years of research--as well as personal experience as a recovered addict--researcher and professor Judy Grisel has reached a fundamental conclusion: for the addict, there will never be enough drugs. The brain's capacity to learn and adapt is seemingly infinite, allowing it to counteract any regular disruption, including that caused by drugs. What begins as a normal state punctuated by periods of being high transforms over time into a state of desperate craving that is only temporarily subdued by a fix, explaining why addicts are unable to live either with or without their drug. One by one, Grisel shows how different drugs act on the brain, the kind of experiential effects they generate, and the specific reasons why each is so hard to kick.Grisel's insights lead to a better understanding of the brain's critical contributions to addictive behavior, and will help inform a more rational, coherent, and compassionate response to the epidemic in our homes and communities.

Brainstorm: The Teenage Brain from the Inside Out


Daniel J. Siegel - 2011
    Between the ages of 12 and 24, the brain changes in important and often maddening ways. It's no wonder that many parents approach their child's adolescence with fear and trepidation. According to renowned neuropsychiatrist Daniel Siegel, however, if parents and teens can work together to form a deeper understanding of the brain science behind all the tumult, they will be able to turn conflict into connection and form a deeper understanding of one another. In *Brainstorm*, Siegel illuminates how brain development affects teenagers' behaviour and relationships. Drawing on important new research in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, he explores exciting ways in which understanding how the teenage brain functions can help parents make what is in fact an incredibly positive period of growth, change, and experimentation in their children's lives less lonely and distressing on both sides of the generational divide.

The Mind of a Mnemonist


Alexander R. Luria - 1965
    From his intimate knowledge of S., the mnemonist, gained from conversations and testing over a period of almost thirty years, A. R. Luria is able to reveal in rich detail not only the obvious strengths of S.’s astonishing memory but also his surprising weaknesses: his crippling inability to forget, his pattern of reacting passively to life, and his uniquely handicapped personality.

Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain


Sarah-Jayne Blakemore - 2016
    And yet, until very recently, scientists believed our brains were fully developed from childhood on. Now, thanks to imaging technology that enables us to look inside the living human brain at all ages, we know that this isn't so. Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, one of the world's leading researchers into adolescent neurology, explains precisely what is going on in the complex and fascinating brains of teenagers--namely that the brain goes on developing and changing right through adolescence--with profound implications for the adults these young people will become.Drawing from cutting-edge research, including her own, Blakemore shows:How an adolescent brain differs from those of children and adultsWhy problem-free kids can turn into challenging teensWhat drives the excessive risk-taking and all-consuming relationships common among teenagersAnd why many mental illnesses--depression, addiction, schizophrenia--present during these formative yearsBlakemore's discoveries have transformed our understanding of the teenage mind, with consequences for law, education policy and practice, and, most of all, parents.

Life on a Knife’s Edge: A Brain Surgeon’s Reflections on Life, Loss and Survival


Rahul Jandial - 2021
    He followed his head over his gut and Karina was left permanently paralysed, altering both patient and surgeon's lives for ever. This decision would haunt Rahul for decades, a constant reminder of the fine line between saving and damaging a life.As one of the world's leading brain surgeons, Rahul is the last hope for patients with extreme forms of cancer. In treating them, he has observed humanity at its most raw and most robust. He has journeyed to unimaginable extremes with them, guiding them through the darkest moments of their lives.Life on a Knife's Edge is Rahul's beautifully written account of the resilience, courage and belief he has witnessed in his patients, and the lessons about human nature he has learned from them. It is about the impossible choices he has to make, and the fateful consequences he is forced to live with.From challenging the ethics of surgical practices, to helping a patient with locked-in syndrome communicate her dying wish to her family, Rahul shares his extraordinary experiences, revealing the depths of a surgeon's psyche that is continuously pushed to its limits.

Zen and the Brain


James H. Austin - 1998
    What are the peak experiences of enlightenment? How could these states profoundly enhance, and yet simplify, the workings of the brain? Zen and the Brain presents the latest evidence. In this book Zen Buddhism becomes the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness. In order to understand which brain mechanisms produce Zen states, one needs some understanding of the anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of the brain. Austin, both a neurologist and a Zen practitioner, interweaves the most recent brain research with the personal narrative of his Zen experiences. The science is both inclusive and rigorous; the Zen sections are clear and evocative. Along the way, Austin examines such topics as similar states in other disciplines and religions, sleep and dreams, mental illness, consciousness-altering drugs, and the social consequences of the advanced stage of ongoing enlightenment.

Emotional Chaos to Clarity: How to Live More Skillfully, Make Better Decisions, and Find Purpose in Life


Phillip Moffitt - 2012
    Now, in" Emotional Chaos to Clarity, "he provides the antidote by showing us the path of skillful living. Grounded in Western psychology and Buddhist philosophy, each chapter introduces a mind state that prevents us from living skillfully, narrates stories from Moffitt's hundreds of students and clients, and provides step-by-step exercises for readers to find clarity in their own lives. Among the many benefits of skillful living are being able to gain wisdom from both pleasant and unpleasant experiences and having an inner life which can flourish, even if our outer life is filled with difficulty.

The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes


Donald D. Hoffman - 2019
    How can it be possible that the world we see is not objective reality? And how can our senses be useful if they are not communicating the truth? Hoffman grapples with these questions and more over the course of this eye-opening work.Ever since Homo sapiens has walked the earth, natural selection has favored perception that hides the truth and guides us toward useful action, shaping our senses to keep us alive and reproducing. We observe a speeding car and do not walk in front of it; we see mold growing on bread and do not eat it. These impressions, though, are not objective reality. Just like a file icon on a desktop screen is a useful symbol rather than a genuine representation of what a computer file looks like, the objects we see every day are merely icons, allowing us to navigate the world safely and with ease.The real-world implications for this discovery are huge. From examining why fashion designers create clothes that give the illusion of a more “attractive” body shape to studying how companies use color to elicit specific emotions in consumers, and even dismantling the very notion that spacetime is objective reality, The Case Against Reality dares us to question everything we thought we knew about the world we see.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God


Carl Sagan - 2006
     Carl Sagan is considered one of the greatest scientific minds of our time. His remarkable ability to explain science in terms easily understandable to the layman in bestselling books such as Cosmos, The Dragons of Eden, and The Demon-Haunted World won him a Pulitzer Prize and placed him firmly next to Isaac Asimov, Stephen Jay Gould, and Oliver Sachs as one of the most important and enduring communicators of science. In December 2006 it will be the tenth anniversary of Sagan's death, and Ann Druyan, his widow and longtime collaborator, will mark the occasion by releasing Sagan's famous "Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology," The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God. The chance to give the Gifford Lectures is an honor reserved for the most distinguished scientists and philosophers of our civilization. In 1985, on the grand occasion of the centennial of the lectureship, Carl Sagan was invited to give them. He took the opportunity to set down in detail his thoughts on the relationship between religion and science as well as to describe his own personal search to understand the nature of the sacred in the vastness of the cosmos. The Varieties of Scientific Experience, edited, updated and with an introduction by Ann Druyan, is a bit like eavesdropping on a delightfully intimate conversation with the late great astronomer and astrophysicist. In his charmingly down-to-earth voice, Sagan easily discusses his views on topics ranging from manic depression and the possibly chemical nature of transcendance to creationism and so-called intelligent design to the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets to the likelihood of nuclear annihilation of our own to a new concept of science as "informed worship." Exhibiting a breadth of intellect nothing short of astounding, he illuminates his explanations with examples from cosmology, physics, philosophy, literature, psychology, cultural anthropology, mythology, theology, and more. Sagan's humorous, wise, and at times stunningly prophetic observations on some of the greatest mysteries of the cosmos have the invigorating effect of stimulating the intellect, exciting the imagination, and reawakening us to the grandeur of life in the cosmos.

The Prescriber's Guide: Stahl's Essential Psychopharmacology


Stephen M. Stahl - 2004
    Easy to navigate and easy to use, the Prescriber's Guide combines evidence-based information with clinically informed guidance to support clinicians in making the most effective prescribing decisions for the good of their patients. With coverage of twelve brand-new drugs including antidepressants, antipsychotics, hypnotics, nonstimulants for ADHD, and medical foods and incorporating information on the newest indications, new formulations, new recommendations, and new safety data, this edition continues to provide the essential practical support required by anyone prescribing in the field of mental health."

Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil


Paul Bloom - 2013
    Many of us take for granted that babies are born selfish and that it is the role of society—and especially parents—to transform them from little sociopaths into civilized beings. In Just Babies, Paul Bloom argues that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality. Drawing on groundbreaking research at Yale, Bloom demonstrates that, even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; feel empathy and compassion; act to soothe those in distress; and have a rudimentary sense of justice.Still, this innate morality is limited, sometimes tragically. We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry. Bringing together insights from psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations. Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, violent psychopaths, religious extremists, and Ivy League professors, and explores our often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion, and race.

How the Body Knows Its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel


Sian Beilock - 2015
    In her groundbreaking new book, Sian Beilock, author of the highly acclaimed Choke, which Time magazine praised for its “smart tips...in order to think clearly...and be cool under pressure,” draws on her own cutting-edge research to turn the conventional understanding of the mind upside down in ways that will revolutionize how we live our lives. At the heart of How the Body Knows Its Mind is the tantalizing idea that our bodies “hack” our brains. The way we move affects our thoughts, our decisions, and even our preferences for particular products. Called “embodied cognition,” this new science—of which Beilock is a foremost researcher—illuminates the power of the body and its physical surroundings to shape how we think, feel, and behave. Beilock’s findings are as varied as they are surprising. For example, pacing around the room can enhance creativity; gesturing during a speech can help ensure that you don’t draw a blank; kids learn better when their bodies are part of the learning process; walking in nature boosts concentration skills; Botox users experience less depression; and much more. From the tricks used by advertisers to the ways body language can improve your memory, Beilock explains a wealth of fascinating interconnections between mind and body and how mastering them can make us happier, safer, and more successful.

The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry


Henri F. Ellenberger - 1970
    In an account that is both exhaustive and exciting, the distinguished psychiatrist and author demonstrates the long chain of development—through the exorcists, magnetists, and hypnotists—that led to the fruition of dynamic psychiatry in the psychological systems of Janet, Freud, Adler, and Jung.