A book every human should read.

This book was very insightful on many neuroplasticity cases. However, the theory at hand was too philosophical and extremely theoretical. I am personally an advocate for different theories of the mind, but to me dualism(especially in this case) for me is a bit fantasized by some. I find dualism interesting and somewhat possible, but not in the way Schwartz theorized. However, I do like how Schwartz highlighted neuroplasticity and it excites me that many have taken a keen interest into neuroplasticity and how it can help us understand the true nature of consciousness. In this book I would have very much liked to read more about neuroscience and physiology as I feel these provide more answers to the nature of consciousness than merely just observations of neuroplasticity and "mental force" (as Schwartz put it) phenomenon.

This book is extremely informative in many aspects of the physical and mental processes of the brain and mind. Although Dr. Schwartz emphasized that the intent of his experiments, understandings and knowledge was to understand obsessive-compulsive disorder in the brain, he includes examples of experiments and findings that reach other scopes of psychology and neurology.

Dr. Schwartz devotes a chapter to the basic explanation of the literal topography of the brain itself, touching on different processes of various areas. This was helpful to understand what,
exactly, can be changed and how it is changed through neuroplasticity. And through neuroplasticity and the power of mental force, the mind, or attention, or awareness can literally CHANGE the physiology of the brain structure itself. In his words, mental force is "directed, willed mental activity can clearly and systematically alter brain function; that the exertion of willful effort generates a physical force that has the power to change how the brain works and even its physical structure."

Meditation is quickly becoming more popular in today's society. In my own life, I have been encouraged to learn 'mindful meditation' to guide me through the stress of life. When Dr. Schwartz touches on the Buddhist 'bare awareness' concept of meditation, I found an increased understanding to how I may learn to acknowledge feelings, sensations, sounds, perceptions, etc without letting them affect me. I observe them as an outsider, one standing on the sidelines looking upon my own thoughts and feelings without engaging in them.

In the chapter Network Remodeling, Dr. Schwartz asks a question that particularly piqued my interest. "How, then, to apply mindfulness to depression?". This is one state to which I fall victim too easily--depression. He explains three ways to address this, but the third option impressed me the most. Speaking of 'mindful experience/being "in this way of thinking about your emotions, you sense feelings, sensations, and thoughts from the perspective of the Impartial Spectator. You regard your thoughts and feelings as passing, ephemeral "mental events" rather than as accurate reflections of reality. Instead of reacting to negative thoughts and feelings as "these are me," you come to regard them as "events in the mind that can be considered and examined". You recognize that thoughts are not facts...but are instead "events that come and go through the mind" pg 248

The chapter on The Quantum Brain was difficult for me to grasp in that it was almost completely quantum physics. I was not particularly proficient at classic physics to say the least. Briefly, he explains that if we utilize only classic physics, or materialism, to define the brain/mind, it comes up short. It basically negates the existence of mind or will altogether. One problem with this, is if we don't actually have a will, then we can't take responsibility for our actions because they are only resulting from the neurological processes of the brain. We can see that this would have grave judicial implications. There is no right and wrong. i.e. I can steal my neighbor's car because my brain made me do it. Again, in the words of Dr. Schwartz "I began lamenting the terrible social consequences of materialism...the moral condition of America...could be laid at the feet of nearly three centuries of materialist ascendance. The reigning belief that the thoughts we think and the choices we make reflect the deterministic workings of neurons and, ultimately subatomic particles seemed to me to have subverted mankind's sense of morality. The view that people are mere machines and that the mind is just another (not particularly special) manifestation of a clockwork physical universe had infiltrated all our thinking whether or not someone knew a synapse from an axon."pg 257-258

Quantum mechanics is based on observation. "Integral to quantum physics is the fundamental role played by the observer in choosing which of the plenitude of possible realities will leave the realm of the possible and become actual"..."there is no 'is' until an observer makes an observation" pg 263

He describes the double-slit experiment and the collapse of the wave function in observation: "Before the observation, the system had a range of possibilities, afterward, it has a single actuality. This is the infamous collapse of the wave function" pg 269

I won't dwell much more on the actual physics explained in this chapter, though Dr. Schwartz does a fabulous job of helping a lay person like me attempt and partially succeed in understanding. My main interest was how all of this physics relates to the mind and brain. His last two chapters are dedicated to free will and to attention. We actually have the will, and ability to experience our own thoughts. These thoughts can be turned into actions, whether it be sensations, reactions to an event, etc. This is completely up to our choices. Before we act, there is a wave of possibilities...we can be angry, we can be hurt, we may cry...if we choose to. We can focus our attention on what we choose to experience. Once we continually choose to think a certain way, it becomes easier and with continual willful attention paid to the chosen thought or experience, the actual physiology of our brain will change.

I have heard people say that I can choose to be happy. Well, this is actually true! Although in isolated instances it can be extremely difficult, overall with practice in choosing happiness it will become almost second-nature.

After reading this book and learning so much more about how the brain and the mind works for me, I will choose to practice mindfulness, I will choose to acknowledge then release the negative thoughts that result in depression, I will choose to be happier. I feel more in control of my life, in myself.

Note: Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz will be visiting my city as a guest speaker at the Surgical-Medical Society Conference in May 2014 and I have been honored with this opportunity to hear his wisdom once again.

While interesting and fascinating, "The Mind and the Brain" was just hard to digest because it was written in a way to be very technical and you need the necessary vocabulary to understand the authors. It's almost too technical for someone to pickup from the coffee table and read.

You might take a glance and put it down because it might not interest you unless you are a brain surgeon or want to know more about OCD and how it affects the brain.

I just wished that the authors would had gone more in depth and studied more on physical disabilities, such as Cerebral Palsy and the brain. Cerebral Palsy happens when there is a lack of oxygen to the brain and damaged that portion.

I have CP and my brain allows me to type with my feet, as I write this review, but other people with the same disability doesn't have the same abilities like myself. I hope that some day, these authors will do a study on disabilities and the brain and publish their findings.

The authors covered almost everything that is possible on this human organ that is so hard to understand, but they left out involuntary motor skills that is caused by trauma to the brain.

This one gets a solid meh.
The descriptions of psychology are interesting and the narrative he creates out of our intellectual movement from a kind of behavioralist rigid idea of the brain to our contemporary understanding both of neuroplasticity and the mind are compelling.
At the same time, I found the idea of using quantum physics to be productive, though not in the way Schwartz intended. He makes a good argument for a non-deterministic view of the brain (contrary to, say, Daniel Dennett) based on the simple nondeterministic view of the universe. But then he shifts into a kind of "dualism post the discovery of Buddhism in the West" that never properly explains, for example, WHY the idea of the mind as emergent is impossible. His insistence on the mind as such and on keeping the Cartesian boundaries he claims to knock down was just unsatisfying, more so because the idea of quantum indeterminacy as the answer to free Will was actually really cool.
Long story short, he mistakes the ideology with which he makes sense of the phenomenological world as an accurate explanation for those experiences, but fails to provide enough evidence for this reader, at least, to believe that said ideology is a response to the data rather than to the author's own theology. The individual claims are fascinating right up to the end, but the overall thesis needs work.

This was a great book. I don't think Schwartz has proved the existence of a new force, put any nails in the coffin of materialism, or demonstrated the existence of free will, but to be fair to Schwartz I don't think that's possible.

All mental acts have physical correlates (as his own evidence demonstrates) so it's always going to be logically tenable to be a determinist and a materialist. What makes the book great is the depth to which he pushes the argument, the evidence he assembles to support it, and the clarity with which it's expressed.

Also valuable is the discussion of neuroplasticity. Even if you believe that your decision to reprogram yourself is itself determined, the fact remains that the brain can act on itself to create meaningful change. You're not stuck with the neural circuits you currently have.

“It is the brain’s astonishing power to learn and unlearn, to adapt and change, to carry with it the inscriptions of our experiences, that allows us to throw off the shackles of biological materialism, for it is the life we lead that creates the brain we have.[…] Radical attempts to view the world as a merely material domain, devoid of minds as an active force, neglect the very powers that define humankind.”

“The brain’s gonna do what the brain’s gonna do…but you don’t have to let it push you around.”

Neuroplasticity will always be a reminder of hope to me. <3

Wonderfully written by a highly experienced researcher. Revolutionary thoughts on neuroplasticity that are yet to be fully accepted by the scientific community. The wonderful blend of buddhist philosophy with deep knowledge of neuroscience is what has been established here. The pragmatic four step concept with the critical idea of mental force is highly applicable and strongly scientific to overcome habits that one is willing to change.
A beautiful chapter on Free Will and Free Won't that presents wonderful ideas that were highly convincing.
His great collaboration with Henry Stapp, the quantum physicist, and their reflections on the ideas of William James is spectacular.
A book I highly recommend.

I was right, couldn't quite finish this. The basics about brain plasticity and the changes in the author's OCD patients were ok. The fundamental failure and desperate grasping to equate biological brain functions to quantum mechanics was pitiful. I feel like I barely understand quantum mechanics but apparently, better than this author. Schwartz seemed too desperate to disprove a completely deterministic brain because if that were the case, we would be without morality and shouldn't suffer consequences for anything we did, because we have no free will and therefore no choice. Or something along those lines.

I'm not a fan of the writing style; the author could have said the same thing in half the space. It is congested with round about details, and unnecessary words, that make it all very long-winded, and very INDIRECT! It's like reading run-on poetry about neuroscience (you must overlook the whole sentence in favor of the feeling), which takes more energy (and patience). It helps if you already have an understanding of neurobiology. That said, this book is interesting, it first explores OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), and the transition in psychiatric treatment from one based in psychology to one based in neuroscience: changing neuronal pathways through the practice of conscious thought. Then it explores the history of animal experiments that research neuronal regeneration after brain injury (I had to speed read/bypass the details of the intentional injury done to the animals). A better read on similar research is the book, "The Brain that Changed Itself," By Norman Doidge.

Take one good, or even very good book. Stick it in a blender with an awful one and set to puree.

Well, okay, I'm speaking metaphorically here, so don't do that. But that at least gives an idea of what I thought of this one. The sections of the book related to the author's work with OCD sufferers, his descriptions of similar work on those with Tourette's Syndrome and major depression and his basic narrative of discoveries related to the brain and what has come to be believed related to its flexibility were all superb. The man knows his stuff, knows lots of people who know their stuff and knows how to communicate it all to a general audience, though I must admit I he did lose me for a time in his section on Quantum Mechanics.

Unfortunately, that ain't all there is here. And that other stuff is a train wreck, mostl flowing from what I can only call a mission of some sort to disprove Materialism, both scientific and philosophical. First, makes no bones about the fact that what he has learned from Swami Dorito Guacamolejam (or whoever) is at least part of the reason behind this, revealing a rather unfortunate bias. Second, there's even a villain of the piece: Behaviorism. Not that I'm any fan of it, but, eh, he ain't Galileo and they ain't the Inquisition, so his over the top stuff here is just silly. And as best I can tell, his conclusions don't follow from his facts: in other words, Materialism is not disproven. Perhaps in need of modification, but not disproven.

I was also more than a tad irritated at his unwillingness to give a straightforward definition of the term "Mind." It is in the title, after all. But while there are lengthy discussions of brain physiology and function, the Mind seems to pop in and out of the book, usually only after some experiment or other is described that appears to debunk the commonly held materialist theory of XYZ. He also switches to the term "Will" for a while, which is either the same as the mind, a part of the mind or something else that falls outside materialist theory and has little or nothing to do with the mind (or brain), it really isn't clear.

The author develops a 4 part mental therapy to help individuals with Obsessive Compulsive disorder resist their obsessive and compulsive behaviors. His therapy involves being attentive to what you are feeling and then refocusing your behavior on a productive tasks. He believes that one can change the pathways in the brain that facilitate this behavior.

He describes different studies where human and animals have changed behaviors thus demonstrating the neuroplasticity of the brain. This book offers very interesting reading to those who want to learn about the mind brain connection.