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Book Review: CHANGE YOUR BRAIN,
CHANGE YOUR LIFE
By Daniel G. Amen, M.D.
Times Books, 1998 ($16.80)
This remarkable book is not specifically about crime or violence, but it is the best book
your reviewer has ever read about the physiological aspects of behavior.
Neuropsychiatrist Amen is a nationally recognized expert on the relationship between
the brain and behavior, and author of Windows into the ADD Mind and Firestorms in
the Brain. He is also director of the Amen Clinic for Behavioral Medicine in Fairfield,
CA.
Dr. Amen uses brain imaging to pinpoint where in the brain tendencies toward
violence, depression, distractability, obsessiveness, anxiety, impulsivity and ADD occur.
Using a nuclear medicine technique called SPECT (for single photon emission computed
tomography) he measures blood flow and metabolic activity patterns.
From that information, Dr. Amen prescribes an all-out therapeutic approach. If his
dozens of case histories and brain scan images are to be believed, he has had
remarkable success.
A separate chapter describes each of the five brain areas most involved with
behavior, followed by a chapter of treatments for that particular area. Prescriptions can
include drugs, psychology, nutrition, exercise, meditation, self hypnosis, biofeedback,
audiovisual stimulation, even aromatherapy. The prescriptions require a real
commitment from the patient, but the evidence of dramatic improvement documented by
Dr. Amen should be a great source of encouragement.
While a great number of books have investigated the biological causes of aberrant
behavior, Dr. Amen's is one of the first we have encountered that offers a wide range of
solutions. If Dr. Amen's results are reproducible by other researchers, this could prove to
be an invaluable resource for professionals dealing with criminals, delinquents, and
other people who exhibit irrational or antisocial behavior.
Quotes from CHANGE YOUR BRAIN, CHANGE YOUR LIFE:
I have studied hundreds of children, teenagers,
and adults who exhibited violent or aggressive behavior and compared them to people who have never been violent. The brain of the violent
patient is clearly different from that of the nonviolent person.
***
When your brain works right, so can you. When your brain doesn't work right, neither
can you... Seeing these scans caused me to challenge many of my basic beliefs about
people, character, free will, and good and evil that had been ingrained in me as a
Catholic schoolboy.
***
The brain is the seat of feelings and behavior. Your brain creates your world-a radical
statement about ordinary thinking. Yet it is your brain that perceives and experiences.
Everything begins and ends in the brain. How our brains work determines the very
quality of our lives: how happy we will be, how well we'll get along with others, how
successful we will be in our profession.
***
Many people with ADD unconsciously seek conflict as a way to stimulate their own
[prefrontal cortex]. They do not know they do it. They do not plan to do it. They deny that
they do it. And yet they do it just the same.
***
What choices do we really have about our behavior? Probably not as many as we
think.
***
[With treatment,] people who had previously been unable to change developed a
capacity for new skills and behaviors. They developed more access to productive brain
activity and more ability to make changes (even though they had always had the will
to change).
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