Healing the Hardware of the Soul: How Making the Brain-Soul Connection Can Optimize Your Life, Love, and Spiritual Growth (Hardcover)

~ Daniel Amen (Author) "JOSEY experienced a living hell..." (more)
Key Phrases: basal ganglia problems, deep limbic system, marked decreased activity, Teen Challenge, Los Angeles, Amen Clinics (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As the title suggests, Healing the Hardware of the Soul is a unique blend of advanced scientific technique and fundamental religious principles. Dr. Daniel Amen, a graduate of Oral Roberts University, isn't promoting a strictly Christian agenda, but he makes it repeatedly clear that one of the crucial steps in achieving mental health is prayer. Depending on your beliefs, this insistence can range from pleasing to offensive.

His work is centered around the physical aspects of the brain--in some ways, it resembles a modern form of phrenology. Using detailed imaging technology, he has established connections between specific behaviors--panic disorders, depression, ADD--and over- or underactive areas of the brain. As with most new forms of medical research, his work is both lauded and ridiculed, and only further research will determine its ultimate validity.

For people anxious to put his findings to use, there are several chapters devoted to questionnaires that can be used in place of brain scans. Exercises and suggestions follow, and stay surprisingly simple--forming personal connections, seeking appropriate medical care and medications, and creating short-term, specific goals are a few old standbys. Regardless of what methods Amen is using to arrive at the solutions, it's clear he finds plenty of value in tried-and-true solutions. --Jill Lightner

From Library Journal

Neuroscientist/psychiatrist Amen (Change Your Brain, Change Your Life) here presents a program for repairing and strengthening personal relationships, child-rearing practices, work and study routines, and "soulful connections." This system is based on the results of 14,000 SPECT (single-photon emission computerized tomography) studies of the brain, which show activity in the brain and can also be used to indicate how various mental illnesses affect brain activity. (Amen has also used these SPECT tests in the successful treatment of mental illnesses like schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety.) To solve personal problems, he recommends developing focus and improving decision making with his one-page "Miracle for the Soul Review"; to develop superior emotional and spiritual flexibility, using prayer, meditation, and diaphragmatic breathing exercises; and to help control impulsive behavior and stabilize mood swings, learning how to form strong, positive new bonds. Unfortunately, readers have to wade through a morass of personal religious interpretation of biological wonders to get to the science and how-to instruction. Considering that Amen is a graduate of the Oral Roberts University School of Medicine, his position that the brain is the titular "hardware of the soul" is not surprising. His curious blend of religious myth with cutting-edge science targets lay readers, especially 12-step zealots, as well as mental health advocates. Recommended only for public libraries. Dale Farris, Groves, TX
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (April 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743204751
• ISBN-13: 978-0743204750
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #61,983 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

99 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Powerful Discussion of The Brain's Effect on Behavior/Mood, July 15, 2002

By	Kelly Frey (Aliso Viejo, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This book is the latest in a series of books in which Dr. Amen shines rays of light on the workings of the human brain, and discusses the relationship between brain functioning and behavior. This book takes the discussion a step further, however, into the connection between brain functioning and the human soul.

Dr. Amen asserts, "When the brain is healthy we are compassionate, thoughtful, loving, relaxed and goal directed, and when the brain is sick or damaged, we are unfeeling, impulsive, angry, tense, and unfocused, and it is very hard for our souls and our relationship with god to be at peace."

The book begins with an easy-to-follow explanation of each major part of the brain and its function, including SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) scans that show both healthy and under-functioning brains.

Dr. Amen compares the brain to a computer's hardware, with the variety of functions we perform day-to-day being the software. If a computer's hardware is not functioning correctly, it cannot successfully run software. Similarly, if one's brain is not healthy, one cannot successfully execute the "programs" of one's life, such as parenting, working, learning, teaching, coping with crises, etc.

The book includes many fascinating examples, drawn from the thousands of patients Dr. Amen has treated at his clinics. In each case, Dr. Amen describes the presenting problem, and shows, using SPECT scans, the unhealthy part of the brain that is causing the problem. In each case, after specifically treating the unhealthy part of the brain, the presenting problem diminished or disappeared.

The last half of the book includes tools for self-assessing brain functioning, and a discussion of the various methods used to optimize brain function. These methods include medication, natural supplements, cognitive strategies and breathing work.

I highly recommend this book for everyone who works with underfunctioning individuals at any level (and for underfunctioning individuals themselves). It presents a perspective that I think is imperative to the understanding of why people feel, behave, and function as they do. I think this information is a critical piece of the puzzle that we seek to solve each time we try to help an underfunctioning individual.

I can speak personally about the effectiveness of Dr. Amen's approach to understanding and treating underfunctioning individuals. We adopted our son at the age of 11, with full knowledge that he had a life-long history of violent behavior. Dr. Amen's SPECT scans and evaluation showed clearly the parts of his brain that were not functioning properly. And they showed that the medication he'd been on while in county group homes for four years was the exact opposite of what he needed. This helped us understand why he behaved as he did, and the new medications stopped the violent rages, which he could not otherwise control. Dr. Amen's intervention, along with a year of attachment therapy and hard work at home, have literally saved this child from life in an institution.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book could change your life., August 22, 2005

By	Teresa Overby (Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book changes the way you see depression, ADD, and relationship-destroying behaviors. What a relief for those who struggle with these areas to know they are not "crazy" or unable to change, and that there is help available. This book empowers the families of those who face these challenges to have patience, and hope that things can get better. A must read for anyone who has depression especially!

59 of 74 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Motivational Book for People!, April 5, 2002

By	Derek Smith (Lamoni, IA) - See all my reviews

Hello, my name is Derek Smith and I have been doing research on Dr. Daniel G. Amen for the past seven years or so. I felt this book was a very touchign book in which it goes hand in hand with Chenge Your Brain Change Your Life and also Healing ADD. I have been doign the treatment process using Dr. Amen's book and I am know in college in which nobody ever thought was possible for me. After reading this book it made me reflect on myself and what i have done and helped me relize that the sucess I have had can also help other people. This book made me relize that I should go and give back all the knowlege I have gained over the years from sucess and struggles of overcomming my oen problems and to head towards helping other people with the same problems.