You Are Not Your Brain: The 4-Step Solution for Changing Bad Habits, Ending Unhealthy Thinking, and Taking Control of Your Life%E2%80%A8

Using research based on patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, U.C.L.A. psychiatrists Schwartz (The Mind and the Brain) and Gladding have developed a program that helps patients literally change the brain pathways that lead to unhealthy behavior%E2%80%94from obsessively checking e-mail to self-hatred to drug addiction. Aspects of their common-sense scientific approach include: understanding how the brain works; understanding what constitutes a "deceptive brain message;" acting as one's own Wise Advocate by analyzing the effects of any choice and picking the one likely to lead to a positive result; setting and prioritizing goals, and more.%C2%A0Success depends on the patient's innate ability to reason and focus on healthy alternatives to the preferred or automatic behavior.%C2%A0Changing one's will can essentially change the brain, the authors argue, and the methods will work as long as the desire to change is there. Though Schwartz and Gladding add a fascinating self-actualizing component of choice and control, readers may have trouble grasping the more science-heavy passages, such as why addiction happens at the cellular level or neuroscience theory. (June)%E2%80%A8