Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #126565 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Amazon.com
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.

Review
Barry Sears, M.D.author of The ZoneAmen continues to be one of the most innovative researchers of the mind. He is one of the few scientists willing to cross the frontier between neurology and religion to describe the soul in terms of cutting-edge science. I strongly recommend this book to anyone searching to build a better life.

Thomas M. Brod, M.D.Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology; Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, UCLADr. Amen links his new observations of brain effects to real problems many people suffer, and then offers solid practical advice about what to do about them. Applying his discoveries, many of my patients have experienced "miracles" of sustained relief from misery they thought would be theirs for life.

Emmett Miller, M.D.author of Deep Healing and the web site www.DrMiller.comHealing the Hardware of the Soul takes science a brave and much-needed step forward, bringing mind, body, and soul together in a most fascinating way. It will prove as enlightening for health professionals and religious/spiritual teachers as for anyone who desires deep self-knowledge.

Timmen Cermak, M.D.author of A Time to Heal: The Road to Recovery for Adult Children of AlcoholicsDr. Amen takes another bold step toward a unified understanding of the human brain and all of our human experience. Since all consciousness funnels through the brain, we must accept that the health of our personality can never outstrip the health of our brain. Consequently, our spiritual maturity also rests upon optimal functioning of the brain.

Diane E. Hough, M.S.Counseling Professionals Northwest, Mercer Island, WashingtonDr. Amen's work brings science to character traits once considered to be moral or psychological flaws and opens up a door of opportunity to optimize the strength of the human spirit. His book allows people to create behavior changes worthy of trust, leading to healthier relationships by integrating physiology, psychology, and spirituality.

Customer Reviews

Healing The Hardware of the Soul
Very interesting and helpful. Just getting time to use it and am so happy I bought it. Should be encourageing to make some needed changes in my life.

Another great Amen book!
I am a fan of Dr. Amen's work for many reasons. He has really opened up the science of the mind in profound ways. He is a brain researcher who attended a Christian University. His findings about the human brain will change the way we look at things like mental health, behavioral problems and as this book illustrates, even the nature of the soul/brain relationship. I don't agree with Dr. Amen on all of his conclusions (like doing brain scans on our elected officials so we can see what sort of brain problems they might have), but I have learned quite a bit from his books about the nature of how our brain health affects every part of our lives. Highly Recommended!

The Inspiration for my New-Found Compassion
For the first time in my life, BECAUSE of Dr. Amen's book, my outlook on sick & suffering people, is FOREVER altered. I am deeply grateful for this book, for Dr. Amen's work, his compassion, and his graciousness in sharing it with the world. I, like most people, have expended energy on judging certain people, and groups of people. After a huge spiritual & emotional break-through while reading this book, this has changed. I have true compassion and lack of judgement for sick people, because I now understand the cause and effect: healthy brain - healthy person - healthy life. As Dr. Amen says; these people need understanding - not moral judgement. Thank you Dr. Amen, for your work that has drawn me so much closer to God and my true desire in life: compassion, love, and understanding -for all.