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A review by maddslib
The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge
hopeful
informative
inspiring
fast-paced
2.75
I was assigned this book for a neuroscience course and found myself oscillating between fascination and frustration as I read. Doidge has a habit of leaning more towards offering human-interest stories brimming with optimism and triumph over the Institution of Localizationism (as opposed to giving some actual scientific analysis of case studies). This probably would be a positive for general audiences, but my personal interests and preferences in scientific nonfiction skew more towards the scientific side of things. It is very clear as you read that Doidge is a psychologist rather than an actual neuroscientist -- and when he starts desperately trying to justify Freudian psychoanalysis as legitimate and unfairly maligned just like neuroplasticity, it is particularly egregious.
That being said, I enjoyed probably a solid 7 out of the total 11 chapters. For all it's rough areas, when The Brain That Changes Itself is good, it's pretty damn good. Doidge is able to distill some pretty heavy science into very accessible terms, and spin an interesting feel-good narrative. It reads a lot like a novel-length TedTalk, honestly. I would recommend it if that's what you're into, but with a significant caveat that it's pretty science-lite and also that I skipped the chapter on sexual dysfunction completely (I refuse to waste my time reading something a proponent of Freud believes about sexuality, I'm sorry).
That being said, I enjoyed probably a solid 7 out of the total 11 chapters. For all it's rough areas, when The Brain That Changes Itself is good, it's pretty damn good. Doidge is able to distill some pretty heavy science into very accessible terms, and spin an interesting feel-good narrative. It reads a lot like a novel-length TedTalk, honestly. I would recommend it if that's what you're into, but with a significant caveat that it's pretty science-lite and also that I skipped the chapter on sexual dysfunction completely (I refuse to waste my time reading something a proponent of Freud believes about sexuality, I'm sorry).