The Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development & Clinical Practice (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

The Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development & Clinical Practice (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

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Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
The Healing Power of Emotion:Affecetive Neuroscience,Development and Clinical Practice Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiolo - This is far and away the most integrated, substantiated,and thoughtful book I have read about human behavior in years. After DSM111 was introduced we as clinicians learned to look at a symptom in a clinical way. Sadly, many symptoms are shared between diagnostic catagories. We wanted something that would be clear, bridge the gap between the behaviorists, analysts, jungians and family systems. It was useful, especially to the insurance companiies but also clinicians who had to look thoughtfully at the symptom picture. What I found lacking was the integration I find in The Healing Power of Emotions:Affective Neuroscience, Development and Clinican Practice. It emphasizes the interpersonal impact beautifully. It is extremely well written, each chapter striking a different tone but in its whole helps us look at people as they really are, complex, not a mere balance of letters and numbers. It reads beautifully and each of the authors is well known and respected in their field. A real find! Its emphasis on attachment and emotion is critical as we look at people dealing with sexual abuse, trauma, and our troops coming home with a different persective. Our colleague group is taking one chapter at a time to discuss when we are finished with our 'emergent' clinical issues. Reading it together gives us other eyes to see through and makes for a tremendous session on critical thinking! Katharine A Lofgren, LICSW NH

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Perfect for college-level health and psychology collections - A recommended pick is Diana Fosha, et.al.'s edited THE HEALING POWER OF EMOTION: AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE, DEVELOPMENT AND CLINICAL PRACTICE, a survey of basic emotions and powers of the human mind and body and how they play roles in mental health and cultural health alike. Leading researchers and clinicians explore emotion and transformation in scholarly articles perfect for college-level health and psychology collections.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
What a rich book! - Wow--what a rich book! However, don't expect to get through this book quickly (you won't want to) because it's chock-full of useful information. It is complete with up-to-date research presented by some of the most cutting edge scientists/clinicians.

While the book is written by eleven individuals (one person writes each chapter), it is both thorough and integrated. I can only imagine how much effort and intention it took to have the chapter's authors working with each other. Many authors refer to the other chapters' content within the book, which helps to pull it all together for the reader (e.g. if one author used a term that was different than another's, but represented a similar idea, the author tended to point this out).

The first six chapters of the book address the neuroscience and developmental aspects of emotion. While these chapters will be particularly dense for readers less familiar with neuroscience, each contained valuable, up-to-date information that is worth becoming familiar with. (I also refer readers to Norman Doidge's book on the brain, which is fascinating and easily digested.) The last five chapters focus on specific clinical applications, including individual, couples, and family work. These authors each gave beautiful excerpts of actual cases which bring to life the concepts addressed in the chapters.

I found the book to be an incredible presentation of understanding the concept of emotion and as the title states "the healing power of emotion". It's worth both reading and referring to for many years to come.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Delicious. - Review of The Healing Power of Emotion

If you are unacquainted with any of the authors of the chapters of this volume (or several of them), and have an interest in contemporary clinical neuroscience of emotion, stop reading this review, get--and read--this book. You really wont find a better group to discuss the nuances and perspectives on this topic. If you are on the fence, well-versed in the area, or interested in this book's overall treatment of the topic, read on. In the sprit of disclosure, I am writing as a practicing psychiatrist and psychotherapist already well-acquainted with the larger body of work of each of these authors before I read this book. I also enjoy reading reviews of books I have read, and this longer review--of both the book and the topic--is aimed at like-minded individuals.

Compendiums like "The Healing Power of Emotion" are like a sampler platter, helping the r-eater decide if she likes something enough to buy the entre the next time around. This sampler contains more than enough artfully prepared and nutritious morsels to justify its purchase. Essentially, this book contains a small sample of the writings of some of the preeminent researchers and clinicians on the science of emotion (affective neuroscience), it role in development (infant research), and working with it in several modes of therapy (individual, couples, and family systems). Novitiates to any of these authors will find these "bites" delectable; readers familiar with any of the author's primary works, though, may find few new tastes. Though each of the authors pepper their chapters with recent studies, and a few new ideas, their central themes remain the same. For example, from the dextrophilic Schore we hear about the right brain, from Panksepp the primacy of core affects and the import of cross-species research, from Siegel, a broad, synthetic theory-of-almost-everything (integration) and a profusion of acronyms. One should not expect these great authors and scientists to re-invent themselves anew with each iteration. But if you have read the primary works of any of them, you may want to devote your time to the newer chapters. Each of these prestigious, productive and polymath authors has written longer, more comprehensive works detailing their theories, ideas and views: if you are wondering which of these larger works invest in, I recommend the sampler as a nice representation of each of their writings.

Individually, each of the authors in this volume is a true pioneer, and brings something unique to the table. The writing is superb, and in many cases (i.e., Fosha's chapter), sublime. The editing is also artful: each author cross-references the others, and the prologue does a nice job of setting the table for the smorgasbord to follow. Each of the authors has a distinctive writing style and discreet area of interest which emerges in their individual chapters. It is clear, however, that each of them is aware of not only their work, but the work of the other authors in this volume and wider voices in both fields. This marbling and overlap adds nuance, integration, and depth to the book. There are few contemporary theoretical perspectives left out. A devoted reference-checker, I liked that the entire stock of references were consolidated and amassed at the end of the book

That said, I have several comments about the book that flow from two unrelated streams: the nature of the task taken up by the editors, and a stance as a skeptic on the most superficial reading of the book's overall theme: that "emotions heal".

To begin, the word "emotion" is a too-small word for a too-large world: a pubmed search using the keyword "emotion" yields 132,452 entries. "Working with emotion in psychotherapy" is an amalgam of equally ambiguous terms. Even after reading the book, I have no more manageable definition for emotion than when I started. A fundamental problem then, one that runs through each chapter, is that they are about--and differently about--an underspecified, and perhaps unspecifiable term. This inherently means that a definitional sojourn feels like hamlet running through the woods after his father's ghost, who disappears after a brief conversation. Each of these authors strikes at this ghost with his partisan (the ever-mightier pen), each hits the mark. but the marks are different. This scattering of marks brings to mind Borge's apocryphal--and disjointed--division of animals, which includes: (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) fabulous ones, (e) those that are included in this classification, (f) those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, (g) others. In this volume, emotions are variably defined as: (a) associated with survival, (b) associated with in the midbrain, vagus, subcortex, and cortex, as well as the body and viscera (c) "integration", (d) "change", (e) "movement", (f) "related to homeostasis", (g) "motivation", (h) "completion", (i) Fosha's felicitous "arc between a problem and its solution", (j) "beacons", (k) "furies to contend with", (l)"disruption". Everything and No-thing at once.

Seigel, both an author and editor in this work, has in the past made a suggestion to contend with this problem: that we chuck the term. This solution, though it has a pleasing economy, means we can't talk to each other and patients about this part of reality. His solution: the reduction to another part of speech (a verb) and to another term (integration) feels like a shell game. In the end, an effort to winnow this aspect of mammalian reality into a single word--or chapter--or book--is doomed to fail. This problem is recognized in the prologue which evolkes the proverbial palpated pachyderm. In the end, after all these experts weigh in, I still experience a quiet but nagging unrest that the ghost has escaped our grasp (though we certainly felt him). At the same time, though the he escaped our nets, this book gave us a grand hunting.

A second concern about the topic comes from my individual perspective of a practicing psychiatrist who has treats a wide variety of patients with brain-based problems. In this role, I cannot exorcise myself from an affliction of the specific: the devilish details of specific patients. Can a "focus on emotions" cast out these demons ? In some cases, perhaps, though it of course depends on what the term "emotions" and "focus on" means. Psychotherapy, another too-broad verbal brush, is not and cannot be a unitary enterprise, given the diversity of people and problems. For example, is a focus on emotions--specifically, or in general--the best way to address the schisms in schizophrenia, the cravings of substance abuse, the solipsism of autism, or the illogic of eating disorders ? Not always. Though the articulation of broad, generalist principles (i.e. coherence) is useful in a generic sense, its not always clear its application in relation to any specific condition. For example, a young patient of mine recently was struggling (and not struggling) with a "part of him that wanted to die". My erstwhile focus on his present feeling in the moment led to him to feel worse (we discovered after several sessions), whereas liberal, conscious use of distraction and mood-stabilizing medication was most salutary. In that the book only rarely mentions many of the specific clinical conditions that practitioners may encounter, it may leave some of us "possessed" by a myriad of specific problems looking for a practical, earthly deliverance.

A third general concern is that there is more passion and theory (albeit well-referenced) than data to support the premise that emotion heals here. Though Johnson cites data that her EFT has been demonstrated to be effective, I would have overall liked to see more empirical support: not that emotions are in general important, not that it feels right to be empathic and mindful, not that humans are wired for emotion, but that these stances and practices actually help people who sit in my waiting room. Though I support all of these general principles, and practice emotion- and attachment-focused therapy, the skeptic in me wanted a bit more light and less heat in this area. For example, take the painful, disabling, and common ailment major depressive disorder. Therapists and reasearchers alike see this in their patients, spouses, and friends, if prevalence data are to be believed. It is unclear, from a definitional standpoint, whether this condition is due to too much negative emotion (sadness, guilt, fear), too little positive (joy, interest, excitement), both, or something else. Outcome research in the ultimately emotion-focused short-term dynamic therapies (i.e. the many publications of Alan Abbass, and reviews of such)--and recent publications showing that in some cases CBT does as well as more emotion-focused therapies--are given short shrift. Though I choose to practice an emotion-focused therapy, as a scientist and researcher, I am all too aware of the massive database of randomized trials which shows that CBT is both cost-effective and in many cases better than medication, and that any single focus--on emotion, medication, or cognition--does not cover the waterfront of human suffering.

A final comment--from an entirely different half of the brain--involves the book's lack of visual vibrancy. Though it contains helpful line drawings, and some lovely vintage black-and-white photographs, in our visual age, color illustrations would have added a nice touch. If my children can watch an insanely vivid talking tomato and a believably dancing dog, certainly an illustrator could have tittilated my rods, cones and right brain a bit more. This is, after all, a book about blues moods, red rages, and white, wide-eyed fear. The reading is often dense, and a stimulating right-brain stimulating visual (as in Posner's "Images of Mind" or Matthew's "The Bard on the Brain") would have complemented the text, without diluting the scholarship.

In toto, and despite the broader concerns above, The Healing Power of Emotion is a sumptuous palate, and serves up a deftly-edited, well-arranged and masterfully-written smorgasbord of diverse tastes from the messy kitchen of emotion. Bon appétit.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
If you can buy just one book - make it this one. - I loved this book. It is an extraordinary 5 star buffet of articles by cutting edge neurobiology researchers and psychotherapy clinicians, a who's who in the field. Both the articles on the brain and psychotherapy are consumately well written, and clinical articles have great case illustrations. The psychotherapies described here are moving beyond exploration of pathologies to the transformative experiences where joy, new energy, and delight become possible; that and helping people regulate their dysregulated nervous system. This book is a weaving together of two disciplines that demonstrate what this new frontier looks like. If you have one book to buy --- make it this one. Judi Goodman, LICSW
Lexington, MA

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