Crenshaw's Books & Decks

Siegel is a Harvard-trained psychotherapist who has developed a branch of medicine called Interpersonal Neuro-biology, an innovative method of integrating brain science and psychotherapy, which considers the mind something that goes beyond the brain.

I really love his approach to human psychology, the fact that this is not a book about alternative medicine or self-help, but very alternative in its scientific approach to psychotherapy. The parts of the book I enjoyed the most are the pages devoted to specific medical cases that Doidge himself treated, which show how this sort of therapy works.

The two basic elements of Mindsight, which provide the individual with emotional stability and development are, according to this book, integration and flexibility. Integration is necessary for the mental and social health of the individual and is acquired in different ways: 1/ integration of consciousness. 2/ Horizontal integration (right and left hemispheres of the brain). 3/ Vertical integration (brain to body). 4/ Integration of explicit and implicit memory. 5 /Integration of our personal narrative, that is how we construct and describe our past and present to the world. 6/ Integration of our different social and emotional states. 7/ Integrating of the "I" with society and the real world. 8/ Integration of life and death, as we are born to die.

The main drawback of the book, to me, is the very long introduction describing how the various parts of the brain and how the brain operates. Page after page with too much information. The target of the book is the general public, so a shorter version, and more structured, it would have worked better. After all, the main target of the book is the general public, not the medical profession.Moreover, Doidge is not especially didactic, not even well-structured, so this part is -or it was for me- difficult to swallow.