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Summary: Important now - more important in 5 years
Review: "The neuroscience of psychotherapy" will probably be cited for years to come. It is a groundbreaking, good piece of work trying to integrate two traditionally opposing views: psychotherapy and neuroscience. The book is clearly written - mostly. There is also, as Cozolino himself points out, some speculations entangled with the research references. I would personally have wished that Cozolino would use more space to discuss more of the conflicting results in the neuroscientific field. Some places I was stuck with the feeling that this book presented the crosspoints of these fields to simple. However; this does not take ANY credit from Cozolino in writing a solid piece about an extremely important subject, a subject that will be more and more important in the coming years - hand in hand with the neusro-research.
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Summary: Excellent insightful and integrative book
Review: As a psychotherapist opposed to the dominance of the medical model of human problems, yet intrigued by the developments in neuroscience, I welcome this book as an enlighted integration which traces causation in both directions, detailing what Roger Sperry called "top-down" as well as "bottom-up" causation.
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Summary: Merging Neuroscience and Psychotherapy
Review: Dr. Cozolino has effectively addressed the fragmentation of physiological and psychological approaches to clinical disorders, laying a groundwork for the inevitable meshing of these two broad approaches to dealing with human problems. Increasingly our growing understanding of brain physiology provides opportunities to look for psychological correlates to various brain states. Covering the spectrum of psychological disciplines and relating them to physiological research, he demonstrates cases where a two-pronged therapy makes sense. His book is interspersed with actual case history examples from his practice, and fascinating contemporary neuroscience research. Whereas there is an interesting summary of brain physiology and a broad view of research, the book is clearly written, nicely organized and absorbing in its coverage. Recommended for those who want a view of where treatment of psychopathology is headed, balancing and integrating the psyche and soma.
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Summary: Pepperdine Review
Review: Dr. Louis Cozolino, professor of psychology at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology and a psychologist in private practice, has written a new book entitled The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy (W.W. Norton, 2002). The book represents a landmark in the history of communication between psychotherapists and neuroscientists-fields of study that have been estranged for more than a century.
Findings within the growing branches of neuroscience are coming to support the benefits of psychotherapy and helping us to understand the neurobiological mechanisms underlying new learning and positive change. Cozolino suggests in his book that the "unscientific" use of language and emotional attunement may actually provide the best medium for neural growth, plasticity, and integration. His basic premises are that the brain is an organ of adaptation that is first built by early experiences and that psychotherapy is an interpersonal environment capable of rebuilding it.
"Neuroscience teaches us that there are parts of us that you can't reach with language and that it's very important for therapists to know how to access them," says Cozolino. "It also teaches us about the importance of simultaneously activating dissociated networks in the brain-the fear circuits, and language circuits, for instance-in ways that enable clients to reorganize their neural connections." Of Cozolino's book, Daniel Siegel M.D. writes, "The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy offers a unique perspective for clinicians, focusing on the growth of the mind by integrating neuroscience and psychotherapy research findings with the wisdom of an experienced and compassionate clinician."
Dr. Cozolino has diverse clinical and research interests and holds degrees in philosophy and theology in addition to his doctorate in clinical psychology. He has conducted empirical research in schizophrenia and the long-term impact of early stress and abuse. In recent years Dr. Cozolino's interests have turned to the synthesis of biobehavioral sciences and psychotherapy. In addition to The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy, he has authored numerous articles and book chapters. Besides teaching and lecturing, he maintains a clinical practice in West Los Angeles. He is also an amateur drummer, carpenter, and cyclist.
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Summary: Wonderful insight
Review: What a wonderfully honest book! It shares the heartbreak of what rape does to the human soul. I also highly recommend reading Peaceful Heart: A Woman's Journey of Healing, by Aimee Jo Martin....a book that is a true testament to the human spirit.
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Summary: Metaphors of the Mind
Review: What this book does - splendidly - is nothing new. By grounding psychotherapy in the ins and outs of the brain it does both disciplines a favor. Yet, many scholars disparage any attempt to map psychotherapeutic insights into hard wired neurological facts. The brain (and, by implication, the mind) have been compared to the latest technological innovation in every generation. The computer metaphor is now in vogue. Computer hardware metaphors were replaced by software metaphors and, lately, by (neuronal) network metaphors. Metaphors are not confined to the philosophy of neurology. Architects and mathematicians, for instance, have lately come up with the structural concept of "tensegrity" to explain the phenomenon of life. The tendency of humans to see patterns and structures everywhere (even where there are none) is well documented and probably has its survival value. Another trend is to discount these metaphors as erroneous, irrelevant, deceptive, and misleading. Understanding the mind is a recursive business, rife with self-reference. The entities or processes to which the brain is compared are also "brain-children", the results of "brain-storming", conceived by "minds". What is a computer, a software application, a communications network if not a (material) representation of cerebral events? A necessary and sufficient connection surely exists between man-made things, tangible and intangible, and human minds. Even a gas pump has a "mind-correlate". It is also conceivable that representations of the "non-human" parts of the Universe exist in our minds, whether a-priori (not deriving from experience) or a-posteriori (dependent upon experience). This "correlation", "emulation", "simulation", "representation" (in short : close connection) between the "excretions", "output", "spin-offs", "products" of the human mind and the human mind itself - is a key to understanding it. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited".
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