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 - An important new scienceThere is something very intriguing to the concept of neuroplasticity. Many will find the idea that you can rewire or rezone the brain by the force of will is a welcomed revelation by people, stricken by brain illness or not. For those who are ill, it is a chance for a cure. For those who are not, the people who care to control their life, they will find neuroplasticity a revelation. Control your brain, and may then, life. Another thing that is fascinating is this book is that it recounts the development of a new science that will shape psychology and neuroscience forever. Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley recount how the polemic idea of neuroplasticity began and by force of undeniable empirical findings began to be accepted. The findings of the pioneering scientist gave rise to new effective therapies to cure a variety of mental illnesses. An example is a treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder. It is appalling to find out the draconian, humiliating, and unsafe methods to "treat" OCD patients, now that humanity understands neuroplasticity, illnesses such as OCD can be treated more humanely and safely. The people and places behind this new science make for a quite fascinating reading, they have had to overcome many obstacles, and the experimental work itself is grueling, someone even got convicted of a crime. While the main topic is neuropalsticity Schwartz toggles subjects covered back and forth. The philosophy of the mind is covered, which makes for dense reading, be that as it may, I can't take off a star for this. This is not a self-help book, if it is such, then it would be a highbrow one. There are other books that take up that topic. At times I was astonished with what was written in the book. But more importantly for me, I came way feeling that I was now in the know about an important emerging new science. Rating: - Turn your thoughts into REALITY!This book is interesting from a psychological perspective- the author conducted his own experiments proving the capability for subconsciously willed manipulation of brain restructuring. Rating: - The dissolution of mind and matterNeuropsychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz stood at the precipice of a great divide: a divide between classical physics and quantum physics, between behaviorism and cognition, between physiological determinism and free will, between John B. Watson and William James. Behaviorist John B. Watson, an adherent to the philosophies of classical physics, functionalism, and determinism believed that consciousness is nothing more than the product of causal events in the brain. These notions implicitly deny the ideas of consciousness and free will, and his writings served as the guiding philosophy for the behaviorists who were providing therapy for obsessive/compulsive (OCD) patients in the 1980s. "In the United States, therapists in the forefront of developing these techniques have had patients rub public toilet seats with their hands and then spread...whatever they touched all over their hair, face, and clothes. They have had patients rub urine over themselves...They have had patients bring in a piece of toilet paer soiled with a minuscule amount of their fecal material and rub it on their face and through their hair during therapy sessions...In other cases patients are prevented from washing their hands for days at a time, even after using the bathroom"(3). Jeffrey Schwartz was appalled at this inhumanity. A student of Buddhism, Schwartz believed that mindfulness or "bare attention" might be more suited in helping his obsessive/compulsive patients than the cruel and unnecessary treatment at the hands of the behaviorist therapists, and decades of research backed us his ideas that the mind is not immutable. These experiments conclusively showed that the adult brain has the ability to form new connections as well as grow entirely new neurons from stem cells in the hippocampus of the brain. These finding were largely ignored by behaviorist therapists treating patients with obsessive-compulssive disorder. Schwartz began to recuit his own OCD patients. He convinced them that the obsessive thoughts were the result of the faulty functioning of their brains. In a four step prcess of "relabeling", "reattributing", "refocusing", and "revaluing", he was able to instill in his patients a method of self-induced therapy. Over time these procedures altered brain chemistry, brain function, and produced long term favorable and measurable changes in the physical structure of the brain. These successes were not limited to OCD patients. Similar procedures, which rely upon focused attention, produced equally successful therapies for patients of stroke, depression, turrets syndrome, and autism. Schwartz coined the term "mental force" implying that the mind affects matter and he states: "Mental force affects the brain by altering the wave functions of the atoms that make up the brain's ions, neurotransmitters, and synapic vesicles"(318). Seeking a more rigorous quantum mechanical description of his idea, it seemed only fitting that in the spring of 1988 he would meet quantum physicist Henry Stapp. Both he and Stapp had been profoundly influence by the writings of William James. Stapp, like James, believed that a materialist view of the mind was untenable. The brain, Stapp insists, is a quantum mechanical system subject to all the properties of quantum mechanics such as non-locality, quantum tunneling, and the principle of uncertaintly. In particular, the ion channels, which are the chemical gateways that connect neurons across the synaptic gaps, are extremely narrow providing a large amount of uncertainty. As a result a quantum superpositon of states is created in which the neuron both fires and does not fire, both possibilities existing simultaneously. At the moment of observation, the superposition of states of the brain and of the aspects of nature being probed, collapse into a definitve state in which informtion or meaning is gained. The dualistic boundary between mind and matter collapses. The role of the observer, Stapp suggests, is to decide which questions to pose. The mind chooses which deterministic thoughts welling up in the brain should be held in consciousness in what William James called the "stream of consciousness" and what physicists call the "quantum Zeno effect", named after the Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea. The quantum Zeno effect, describe what happens when certain quantum attributes exist in a superposition of states. An observation will collapse the superposition into one particular state and hold it there indefinitely. This then is the essence of free will, and this is what gave OCD patients the choice not to act upon the unwanted thoughts that welled up in their brains as a result of deterministic processes. Schwartz' effort was a triumph of quantum physics over classical physics, of cognition over behaviorism, of free-will over determinism, and of the ideas of William James over the ideas of John B. Watson. This was a masterful and well researched book that documents many years of Jeffrey Schwartz's professional career, from his early influence by William James to his groundbreaking work with OCD patients and culminating in his fortuitous meeting with physicist Henry Stapp. This book had an influential affect on my philosphy of the nature of reality. Qreality1@aol.com Rating: - The Mind and how it affects the BrainExcellent reading portraying how the mind can affect the physical brain. This can be achieved through conscious efforts of volitional attention resulting in mental forces that alters the material brain utilizing the concepts of quantum physics. The author uses several documented examples of successful uses of techniques utilizing these concepts especially with patients suffering from obsessive compulsive behavior. Rating:  - great psychology bookthis book is great in terms of psychology- full background on studies that support the authors point of view, can read as repetitive, but then again, isn't repetition key for retention? the book isn't as bad as the negative reviews have it, nor as miraculous as the positive reviews do. it's great for the psychology of learning and neuroplasticity... however, as for it's metaphysical content, post introductory run-down of the various viewpoints of philosophy of the mind (materialism, epiphenomenolism, etc.) in the beginning, the rest of the book is mysteriously void of the corresponding qualia debates (although i suppose the author is an M.D., not a Phil. Ph.D.). but if he would like to claim that mind is something other than matter, it would be nice to touch on this (especially concerning causal efficacy of non-material mind). i'll agree with other reader/reviewers that invoking quantum mechanics has become somewhat fashionable, but those parts were interesting reading, even if it didn't seem clear how he meant to invoke immaterial mind into the equation. at least it makes you think about all these issues- to the negative reviews, no one book should be your single source anyway- schwartz has a captivating theory, which (just like anyone else's) should be taken with a grain of salt, open to interpretation and evolution... In association with Amazon.com | |