The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Healing the Social Brain (Second Edition) (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) [Hardcover]
Louis Cozolino (Author)
Review
[E]xcellent….Psychotherapists and physicians alike could benefit from absorbing the challenges posed by the author, particularly his wish to see the psychotherapy of the future integrated with neurology. (Dr. Bryan Knight – Hypnosis Depot )
If Kandel brought the viewpoint of a Nobel Prize neuroscientist, Cozolino delivers the informed perspective and integrative thinking of a master clinician in this updated edition….This beautifully written book is indispensable for anyone involved in the fields of mental health or public policy. (Psychiatric Times )
Cozolino is a brilliant writer and wonderful story teller….Regardless of the level of neuroscience a psychotherapist wishes to add to their expertise I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The book also will be a valuable addition to the bookshelves of neuroscientists themselves, clinicians, policy makers and especially public mental health workers. (Metapsychology Online Reviews )
This is a significant updating of Cozolino's previous volume, containing many new neuroscientific studies, and even more clinically focused. This rich text is highly recommended to clinicians, scientists, and policy makers alike. (Allan N. Schore, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine )
In his revised edition, Cozolino artfully traverses the gap between clinical practice and the emerging literature in neuroscience. By cleverly juxtaposing clinical examples with brain research, he demystifies psychiatric disorders and places them within an easy-to-understand neuroscience framework. Readers will come away knowing just how and why psychotherapeutic processes have a positive impact on the nervous system. (Stephen W. Porges, PhD, Director, Brain-Body Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago )
A master clinician, outstanding teacher, and avid interpreter of a burgeoning literature, Dr. Cozolino is a welcome guide to this fascinating intersection of talk therapy, developmental psychology, anatomy, and neuroplasticity. In a reprise of his outstanding first edition, Dr. Cozolino brings readers up to date with this essential revision. Ten years of updates and a great deal of polishing will more than reward the returning reader or curious newcomer. (John D. Wynn, MD, Medical Director, Division of PsychoOncology, Swedish Cancer Institute, and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine )
Product Description
How the brain's architecture is related to the problems, passions, and aspirations of human beings.
In contrast to this view, recent theoretical advances in brain imaging have revealed that the brain is an organ continually built and re-built by one's experience. We are now beginning to learn that many forms of psychotherapy, developed in the absence of any scientific understanding of the brain, are supported by neuroscientific findings. In fact, it could be argued that to be an effective psychotherapist these days it is essential to have some basic understanding of neuroscience. Louis Cozolino's The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy, Second Edition is the perfect place to start.
In a beautifully written and accessible synthesis, Cozolino illustrates how the brain's architecture is related to the problems, passions, and aspirations of human beings. As the book so elegantly argues, all forms of psychotherapy–from psychoanalysis to behavioral interventions–are successful to the extent to which they enhance change in relevant neural circuits.
Beginning with an overview of the intersecting fields of neuroscience and psychotherapy, this book delves into the brain's inner workings, from basic neuronal building blocks to complex systems of memory, language, and the organization of experience. It continues by explaining the development and organization of the healthy brain and the unhealthy brain. Common problems such as anxiety, trauma, and codependency are discussed from a scientific and clinical perspective. Throughout the book, the science behind the brain's working is applied to day-to-day experience and clinical practice.
Written for psychotherapists and others interested in the relationship between brain and behavior, this book encourages us to consider the brain when attempting to understand human development, mental illness,
and psychological health. Fully and thoroughly updated with the many neuroscientific developments that have happened in the eight years since the publication of the first edition, this revision to the bestselling book belongs on the shelf of all practitioners.
See all Editorial Reviews
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After over a century of the 'talking cure' helping people with their mental suffering, we finally are able to shine a light on the physical, neurological basis for the changes that happen in the brain after a prolonged therapeutic interaction between patient and therapist. Louis Cozolino is an excellent teacher and with great ease and clarity shows how the brain changes as a result of experiences, both traumatic and healing. He explains how it can become a strong and integrated organ that regulates our emotional states and focusses us towards our goals, if the person it inhabits has a successful experience of attaching securely to the caretaker. He also illustrates the damage that the brain suffers when deprived of the needed opportunity for a secure relationship. Fortunately our brains are able to change given new experiences. This 'plasticity' is what allows us to learn new things at any age, by growing new neurons and new pathways between them and prior structures. The author illustrates in great deal the regulatory architecture of the brain, and how psychotherapy when based on a trusting, safe and emotionally significant relationship helps the rational left brain sooth and modulate the affective right hemisphere, and the cortex in general to exert top down inhibition of the emotion generating limbic system. Excellent and highly recommended.
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Any individual who has faced, or is facing, the need to replace destructive or unproductive patterns of behavior and thought engrained in them from childhood, will be absolutely inspired by Dr. Cozolino's revelations in this book. This book should be required reading for every professional serving the mental health field, and for every parent who wants to send healthy children into their adult years. You don't need to be a psychologist, psychiatrist or any other medical professional to glean enormous value and insight from this work!
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Bringing toghether psychodynamic, experiential,attachment,cognitive paradigms with neuroscience is not an easy task.Validation of the therapy by modern neuroimaging techniques is the option proposed by the author. Easy to read and very useful for clinical psychologists, psychotherapists, physicians and "humanities practitioners".
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The title says it pretty well: this book explains the physical aspects of the brain and how they are formed and changed by what the person experiences, starting from birth. While not set in stone, aspects of our personalities are actually set in the shapes and activity of our brains. It's a circular effect: what happens to us shapes our brains, and then the shape of our brains sets how we react to things. But thankfully, our brains can and do continue to change throughout our lives.
There are actual differences in the brain structures of people with OCD, ADHD, borderline personality disorder and many more psychological disorders. These physical differences can frequently be traced to how the person was treated by its parents as a baby- being nurtured results in a brain shaped one way; being ignored shapes it in another way. PTSD changes the brain. We know that some of these differences are from environment rather than genetics because of animal testing. What this tells us is that depression, PTSD, and other mental disorders are actual physical illness, not the result of having a weak character, and that people with these disorders should not be looked down on and should not be ashamed to seek help.
The shape of our brains comes from evolution; our brains have evolved through the primitive lower brain and added on the midbrain and the upper `thinking' part through the millennia. All our reactions must go through all these layers, and the amygdala, which is constantly on the alert for danger, reacts much faster than the upper, logical part of the brain- no matter how fast you can consciously think about something, your lizard brain has already reacted. Your lizard brain has already spewed out adrenaline many, many milliseconds before your upper brain can say "That's just a backfire down the street, not gunfire aiming towards me" From this comes fears that seem irrational, and `fight or flight' reactions to mental stress. This is but a small part of what our brain structure does to and for us.
Psychotherapy can change the brain. By allowing the person to explore stressors in a safe environment, the lower brain can be lulled and reshaped into something that doesn't react with adrenaline to non-threatening situations. This doesn't just apply to PTSD, but to many disorders where the person learned as a baby, a child, to react in certain ways to save themselves- even if it's a case of a child learning to always be pleasant and accommodating to a parent or they'd be punished, thus setting them up for an adult life of being a doormat.
This is a very technical book. It's mostly neurology and neuroanatomy, with psychotherapy laid over it. It's not neurology vignettes a la Oliver Sacks. It's very clearly written and all terms are well explained, but it is slow going if you aren't at least somewhat knowledgeable about neuroanatomy. It wasn't until near the end of the book that I discovered it was actually written for the therapist-in-training; that made me feel better about how long it took me to read it! But even as a layman who had to digest all the anatomy, I still found it very interesting and worth the read.
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This is a well written book, an easy to understand read. The information is well integrated, and sheds light on the more stubborn aspects of the personality. In addition, it gives good insight on changing, and re-framing our outlook towards the world around us.
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