This is an excellent book, on several levels. Firstly the book begins by describing the two different thinking systems used by our brain, which Gardner calls ‘Head’ and ‘Gut’. He does so in a beautifully lucid and interesting way, linking it clearly to our evolution. His description is next-to-identical with the model we use in Cognitive Hypnotherapy – no wonder I liked it.

The second level is where he goes on, in fascinating detail, how the media, the pharmaceutical industry, the government and others, are all contributing to a global increase in our anxiety levels.

I used to think it was a deliberate ploy on their parts to maintain their grip on the populace – and to a degree I still think it is, but when I realised that the individuals involved are doing so as a result of the same mental processes they’re invoking in us, I started shouting at the book. Read it.

I think Mirror Neurons are one of the most exciting and important discoveries in neuroscience, and I have a feeling they could turn out to be the fundamental building blocks of consciousness itself.

Marco Iacaboni has been involved in this area of research since they were first discovered and fascinatingly details the discoveries since and their implications. Simply one of the most exciting books I’ve read in a long time.

This book’s subtitle is ‘The haphazard construction of the human mind’, and the author builds his case brilliantly well. In the first few pages he demolishes the idea of Intelligent Design by his simple demonstration that our brain is anything but designed intelligently.

The word Kluge is an engineering term for a makeshift solution – what we in england might call a ‘bodge’. Gary Marcus takes you on a journey through the brain demonstrating how imperfect and ill-adapted our brains are, and how the compromises cobbled together by evolutionary pressures contribute to the difficulties we face in life.

An absorbing read, engagingly deeply interesting.

Paul Ekman is probably the world’s leading researcher into emotions and their relationship to expression. It was he who discovered that all humans non-verbally express seven basic emotions using the same facial muscles; they’re hard-wired in our brain, not taught culturally.

What he has to say in this area is interesting enough, but his findings about the relationship between the physical signaling of emotion (particularly) in our faces, and the intensity of that emotion, opens up a wealth of possible uses in the realms of therapy and personal development. It emphasises the importance of the role of the body in the mind/body connection.

Read Montague explores the new field of Computational Neuroscience. Does that sound like it’s going to be easy? You’re right, it’s not, but Read Montague writes well, and with a light touch. There are definitely useful things to come out of this book for us therapists, and my small brain needs to read it again (and probably again) to figure out exactly what. Clients come to us to help them change their minds, and within this book are some of the rules that will achieve this.

As an addendum, I’ve just re-read this book and it is definitely worth taking the time to absorb its message. It’s definitely helped to shape my thinking about why we do the things we do.