The Healing Brain: Breakthrough Discoveries About How the Brain Keeps Us Healthy - Softcover

Robert Ornstein; David Sobel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1883536170 ISBN 13: 9781883536176

Publisher: Malor Books, 1999

Synopsis

The Healing Brain presents an easy to read, amusing, entertaining – yet highly authoritative account of how our brain "minds" our body – actively guarding and defending our health and well-being. Robert Ornstein, a neurologist, and David Sobel, a physician, highlight the themes most important to understand this fascinating science. They explain that, contrary to many of our assumptions about the main purpose of our brain – that it evolved primarily for "higher-thinking" – in fact, the brain works tirelessly to adapt to the changing world around us. This essential reference book helps us understand our brain as the original "health maintenance organization"– giving us the understanding we need to help our brain do what it does best – guarding our health, and helping us to heal.

About this title

About the Author

Psychologist Robert Ornstein's wide-ranging and multidisciplinary work has won him awards from more than a dozen organizations, including the American Psychological Association and UNESCO. His pioneering research on the bilateral specialization of the brain has done much to advance our understanding of how we think. He received his bachelor's degree in psychology from City University of New York in 1964 and his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1968. His doctoral thesis won the American Institutes for Research Creative Talent Award and was published immediately as a book, On the Experience of Time. Since then he has written or co-written more than twenty other books on the nature of the human mind and brain and their relationship to thought, health and individual and social consciousness, which have sold over six million copies and been translated into a dozen other languages. His textbooks have been used in more than 20,000 university classes. Dr. Ornstein has taught at the University of California Medical Center and Stanford University, and he has lectured at more than 200 colleges and universities in the U.S. and overseas. He is the president and founder of the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge (ISHK), an educational nonprofit dedicated to bringing important discoveries concerning human nature to the general public. David S. Sobel, M.D., M.P.H., is director of Patient Education and Health Promotion for The Permanente Medical Group and Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Region. He practices adult primary care medicine at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Offices in San Jose. He also served as physician lead for Patient-Centered Care for the Care Management Institute of Kaiser Permanente. David’s research and teaching interests include medical self-care, patient education, preventive medicine, behavioral medicine, and psychosocial factors in health. He is coauthor of seven books including: Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions, The Healing Brain, Healthy Pleasures, and Mind & Body Health Handbook. David completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Michigan. He then received his medical training at the University of California San Francisco with a medical internship at Presbyterian Hospital-Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION. 1. The Brain as a Health Maintenance Organization, Ornstein & Sobel. 2. How the Brain Grows in Response to Experience, Diamond. PSYCHO-SOCIAL FACTORS IN HEALING: 3. The Contributions of the Social Environment to Host Resistance, Cassel. 4. Medical Pluralism, Good. 5. Mind-Made Health: The Placebo Effect and the Intrinsic Healing Systems of the Body, Sobel. 6. The Broken Heart: The Psychobiology of Human Contact, Lynch. 7. People Need People: Social Support and Health, Minkler. ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES: 8. Air Ions and Brain Chemistry, Diamond. 9. Ways that Foods can Affect the Brain, Wurtman. 10. Behavior and Nutrition: Strategies Used in Studies of Amino Acids, Protein, Carbohydrate and Caffeine, Lieberman & Spring. PSYCHONEUROIMMUNOLOGY: 11. Self-Healing: A Personal History, Dubos. 12. The Wisdom of the Receptors: Neuropeptides, the Emotions, and Bodymind, Pert. 13. Possible Mechanisms of Psychoneuroimmunological Interaction, Lloyd. 14. Emotions, Stress, and Immunity, Solomon. 15. The Emerging Field of Psycho-neuroimmunology, with a Special Note on AIDS, Solomon. THE BRAIN'S REGULATION OF THE BODY: 16. Desirable Weight and Longevity: Status of the Controversy, Andres. COPING WITH STRESS: 17. Stress Resistant Personality, Kobasa. 18. The Salutogenic Model of Health, Antonovsky. 19. Type A Behavior, Swencionis & Mosca. CONCLUSION: 20. Where Do We Go From Here?, Ornstein & Swencionis

About this edition

• Publisher: Malor Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1883536170
• ISBN 13: 9781883536176
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 302