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

Daniel Amen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2, 2002

Dr. Daniel Amen's breakthrough brain-healing program has helped hundreds of thousands to overcome depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and attention deficit disorder. The maverick author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life and Healing ADD now presents his proven program for repairing and strengthening our relationships, child-rearing practices, work and study routines, and, ultimately, our soulful connections, in the deepest ways possible. Guided by this book, each of us can learn to balance and optimize the parts of the brain responsible for inner growth, intimacy, and spiritual health.

Drawing upon his experience with over fourteen thousand brain-imaging studies of patients from all walks of life, Dr. Amen has developed an essential tool called the Amen Brain System Checklist, a 101-question self-test used to evaluate the five brain systems that are key to achieving and maintaining a healthy brain-soul connection. The questionnaire identifies the problem brain areas readers may need to work on, offers insight into the degree to which these imbalances affect their lives, and provides targeted strategies for each area of the brain involved with spiritual issues.

These are just a few of the many "brain prescriptions" to be found in Healing the Hardware of the Soul:

Develop focus and improve decision-making with the One-Page Miracle for the Soul

Use prayer, meditation, and diaphragmatic breathing exercises for superior emotional and spiritual flexibility

Heal painful deep soul memories through thought and behavior exercises

Learn how forming strong, positive new bonds actually controls impulsive behavior and stabilizes mood swings

Dr. Amen's recommendations include cutting-edge advice on diet, nutritional supplements, and the judicious use of medication when needed. He also explains which medications can unbalance the brain when used improperly. Dramatic before-and-after pictures of the brain demonstrate the medical effectiveness of these clinically based healing techniques.

Whether we learn the self-help strategies of cognitive reprogramming, self-hypnosis, or nutraceutical therapy, seek out psychotherapy, or rely on prescription antidepressants and antianxiety medications, Dr. Amen's sage advice and comprehensive treatment programs give us all the tools we need to optimize our work, relationships, and spiritual connections to become the people we want to be.

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: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #671,876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #73 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Personal Health > Stress > Mind-Body Connection

More About the Author

Dr. Amen is widely regarded as one of the world's foremost experts on applying brain imaging science to clinical psychiatric practice. He is a board certified child and adult psychiatrist and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is the medical director of Amen Clinics, Inc. in Newport Beach and Fairfield, California, Bellevue, Washington, and Reston, Virginia. Amen Clinics have the world's largest database of functional brain scans relating, totaling more than 60,000 scans. The clinics have seen patients from 90 countries.

Dr. Amen is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. He has presented his work around the world. He is widely regarded as a gifted teacher, taking complex concepts in neuropsychiatry and imaging and making them easily accessible to other professionals.

Dr. Amen is the lead researcher on the world's largest brain imaging/brain rehabilitation study on professional football players, which not only demonstrated significant brain damage in a high percentage of retired players, but also the possibility for rehabilitation in many with the principles that underlie his work.

Dr. Amen is the author of 40 professional articles, the co-author of the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry's chapter on Functional Imaging in Clinical Practice, 28 books, including three New York Times bestsellers: Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, Magnificent Mind At Any Age, and Change Your Brain, Change Your Body. He is also the author of Healing ADD, Making A Good Brain Great, Healing the Hardware of the Soul, and co-author of Unchain Your Brain, Healing Anxiety and Depression and Preventing Alzheimer's.

In 2011, Random House will release his latest book, The Amen Solution: Brain Healthy Ways to Lose Weight and Keep It Off. In late 2011, Random House will also release Dr. Amen's Upcoming book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Age (tentative title).

Dr. Amen is the producer and star of 5 highly popular shows about the brain, which have raised more than 32 million dollars for public television.

A small sample of the organizations Dr. Amen has spoken for include: the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), Harvard's Learning and the Brain Conference, The Million Dollar Roundtable, Retired NFL Players Summit, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the Supreme Courts of Delaware, Ohio and Wyoming. Dr. Amen's work has been featured in Newsweek, Parade Magazine, New York Times Magazine, Men's Health, and Cosmopolitan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 109 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 review is from: Healing the Hardware of the Soul: How Making the Brain-Soul Connection Can Optimize Your Life, Love, and Spiritual Growth (Hardcover)

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.

29 of 31 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 review is from: Healing the Hardware of the Soul: How Making the Brain-Soul Connection Can Optimize Your Life, Love, and Spiritual Growth (Hardcover)

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!

64 of 79 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

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

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.