Neurodynamics of Personality [Hardcover]

Jim Grigsby (Author), David Stevens (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2000

How is each individual's unique personality formed? What is it about personality that can change, and why is change often so slow? Promising approaches to these perennial questions are suggested by the explosion of recent research in neuroscience and brain functioning. This timely volume presents a coherent, empirically based, and clinically useful framework for understanding personality. Jim Grigsby and David Stevens illuminate links between the organization of the brain and the unfolding of personality, and show how different aspects of personality are mediated by the brain's nonconscious learning and memory systems. Providing new insights for clinicians, students, and researchers, this book builds a critical bridge between existing psychological theories of personality and emerging knowledge in clinical neuroscience.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An engaging, highly readable introduction to some of the fundamental issues involved in applying research and thinking in the cognitive neurosciences to the clinical understanding of personality." --Drew Westen, PhD, Research Associate Professor and Director, Adolescent and Adult Personality Programs, Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, Department of Psychology, Boston University

"This book portrays a coherent view of personality that makes impressive use of contemporary knowledge from the cognitive neurosciences as well as the authors' clinical experiences in psychodynamic psychotherapy. Clinicians will have an adventurous read and are likely to find useful connections with their work." --Robert N. Emde, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO

"In this book, Grigsby and Stevens build a coherent, meaningful, scientifically based formulation of the relationship between brain function and psychological function. They integrate findings in neuroscience and experimental psychology with chaos theory and psychoanalysis in an insightful volume that can be understood by newcomers to these fields, yet will fascinate experienced investigators as well. Sketching an unusually cogent formulation of the correspondence between mentally and physically described processes, the book opens new doors for us into the nature of mind. It also challenges us to explore new modes of thinking about familiar subjects. While this is a scholarly book, its clear writing style and sprinkles of humor also make it a delight to read." --Aviel Goodman, MD, Director, Minnesota Institute of Psychiatry

From the Back Cover

"An engaging, highly readable introduction to some of the fundamental issues involved in applying research and thinking in the cognitive neurosciences to the clinical understanding of personality." Drew Westen, Ph.D., Research Associate Professor and Director, Adolescent and Adult Personality Programs, Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, Department of Psychology, Boston University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 436 pages
• Publisher: Guilford Press; 1 edition (April 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572305479
• ISBN-13: 978-1572305472
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,333,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You're a fancy robot., February 2, 2004

By 

Joseph Bergevin (Tallahassee, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Neurodynamics of Personality (Paperback)

That's the disheartening take away message from this text. As organisms, we don't tend to think much about the mechanisms behind our thoughts, motivations, and actions. We implicitly assume that they all derive from "us." We feel as though we are rational entities with free will, who evaluate our environments and choose actions that will make us happy. It's a fluid and convincing process that supports itself, hence the unquestioning belief we have in our autonomy.
But what makes us tick? All those wet parts in our head obviously have something to with it. We've all seen people whose mechanics have failed them, victims of Alzheimer's or stroke or schizophrenia. They're not so volitional or rational. Or what about animals? It's easier to believe that mice or ants are creatues of instinct, that they follow simple rules and don't reflect on themselves. Well, this book is one of many to illustrate that we too are mindless creatures of instinct. This makes sense if you think about it from an engineering standpoint. How could you ever devise a system that had free will? The very idea is at odds with the laws of physics, as it implies some level of operation above nature (i.e. supernatural, nondeterministic). Centuries ago, this was considered proof of the soul, and existance on a deeper plane ("I think, therefore I am."). Our behavior looks too complex to us to be the result of algorithms operating on cumulative experience, but that's exactly what it is. WE are essentially the result of unconscious processes that evaluate our environment and determine the best actions, based on the results of prior associations, to achieve evolutionary ends (procreation, ultimately, and survival, immediately). What we experience as our mind is the result of a part of the brain that claims authorship of actions already initiated at a subconscious level. It's a confabulation engine that makes coherent stories about why we chose to do things, what we intended to do, and what we're planning to do. It's a process that works seemingly backward. In this regard, we come to know ourselves much as others do, by observing ourselves. Given our more intimate relationship with our own brains, however, we have a priveleged perspective (though not in all areas, as the market for psychoanalysts can attest)).
This, to me, was the most fascinating angle of the book. The "dynamics" aspect of the book is an attempt to explain the way the brain creates dynamic behavior by utilizing a collection of attractors, or default states, which interact with each other to determine an ultimate single state. Because the attractors are operating on the edge of stability, mild perterbations in the environment can produce dramatic shifts in the strengths of the various attractors, and affect the eventual output of the system. Much like a weather pattern, this results in broadly predictable trends, but transiently unpredictable behavior. I have a feeling this theoretical framework is based mostly on conjecture, but it seems a productive line of thought.
Overall, a very interesting read which will forever prejudice your understading of yourself, and with many social and legal ramifications that await future argument (people will still argue in favor of free will, I imagine, despite all evidence to the contrary).

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From Biochemistery to Therapeutic Intervention, July 6, 2006

By 

Shanephutton - See all my reviews

This review is from: Neurodynamics of Personality (Paperback)

This book is a gem, designed to offer a neuroscientific perspective on the dynamics of personality. It is both informative, and clinically relevant. Slowley, and quite methodically the authors build an understanding of personality in a bottom up manner, starting with modern evolutionary theory, and the principles of neuroscience and neuropsychology. What emerges is a fascinating, and ecologically valid, perspective on how various memory systems function, and contribute to the emergence of personality. The clinical implications are astounding, and certainly worthy of serious consideration.