Aryana Libris

Author : Amen Daniel Gregory
Title : Change Your Brain, Change Your Life The Breakthrough Program for Conquering Anxiety, Depression, Obsessiveness, Anger, and Impulsiveness
Year : 1998

Link download : Amen_Daniel_Gregory_-_Change_Your_Brain_Change_Your_Life.zip

Introduction to the Paperback Edition. Since Change Your Brain, Change Your Life was first published in January 1999, my clinic, the Amen Clinic for Behavioral Medicine, has had an overwhelming response from people in the United States, Canada, and even Europe. We have seen adults, teenagers, and children as young as three years old who suffered with depression, anxiety problems, aggression, attention deficit disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Using the new imaging technology, these patients and their families were able to “see” the underlying brain problems that were driving their emotional and behavioral symptoms. Rather than blame themselves for having a weak character or a “mental illness,” they were able to more clearly understand the origins of their struggles and get the right help with more targeted, more effective treatment. All of us at the clinic have been so incredibly gratified to find that the book has had such a positive impact on people’s lives. Three experiences from our clinic highlight how helpful this book has already been to many, many people, and how it might help you as well. In early February 1999, I was sitting at my imaging computer screen reading brain scans when Dr. George Lewis, one of the psychiatrists in my clinic, brought in a patient who had flown in from the Midwest to meet me. The man, in his late fifties, introduced himself to me with tears in his eyes. On January 14, he’d decided to kill himself. He’d been feeling very depressed, unable to get along with anyone, and hobbled by a terrible temper. And he had no hope that things would change, despite seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication. He was lying in bed contemplating the best way to commit suicide when by coincidence his girlfriend turned on the Today show while I happened to be on, discussing my book. He watched me explain the brain scans of a person diagnosed with depression and anger. He heard me say that there was hope for people who suffered from these problems, that many “psychological problems” are in reality brain problems, and that through new imaging techniques we can see many of them and create more targeted and effective treatments. This patient went out and bought the book, did the checklists, and discovered that he probably had a left temporal lobe problem (which is where his anger came from), a deep limbic system problem (causing his depression), and a prefrontal cortex problem (which gave him attentional and impulse control problems). He decided to come to my clinic on his own. As part of our evaluation we ordered a brain SPECT study. He had predicted his own scan perfectly. He had very poor activity in his left temporal lobe, too much activity in his deep limbic system, and poor prefrontal cortex activity. We often see this scan in patients who have clinical symptoms of depression, anger, suicidal behavior, and attentional problems. Dr. Lewis put him on a combination of medications and followed him closely over the telephone. Within three weeks, this man had dramatically improved. He no longer had suicidal thoughts, his mood was more positive, and his mind felt sharper and more focused. He told Dr. Lewis that we had saved his life. In early March we heard from an Israeli woman who had bought the book in the United States while on holiday. She’d suffered her whole life from angry outbursts, cyclic depression, and attention problems. After reading the book and completing the checklists, she predicted she had a left temporal lobe problem, a limbic problem, and a prefrontal cortex problem. Doctors in Israel had told her to get counseling, and she’d already spent vast amounts of money with no benefit. She came to our clinic and saw Dr. Brian Goldman, who ordered a SPECT study to evaluate her brain function. Her scan was very close to what she predicted. Dr. Goldman started her on a medication regimen, along with other brain-based strategies described in this book. He then communicated with her regularly on the telephone and through e-mail. Within weeks, she reported feeling calmer, in better control of her temper, and more focused. All the counseling in the world would do her little good until her brain worked right. Several months later I was lecturing at a teachers conference in the Northwest. A woman came up to me after one of my sessions and told me how much she’d enjoyed my book. She said that before she’d read it, she hadn’t really believed in mental illness. She thought that people who suffered from depression, anxiety, or obsessions were just weak-willed. The book allowed her to see people who suffer from these problems in a different light. Shortly after she finished the book, her daughter called home from college. The daughter said that she was feeling depressed and had suicidal thoughts. Before she had read the book, the mother told me, she would have told her daughter to snap out of it, to go to church and pray harder. Having read the book, she suspected that her daughter had a cingulate problem and helped her find a physician to evaluate her. Her daughter was diagnosed with obsessivecompulsive disorder, placed on medication, and made “a 180 degree” improvement. The mother told me she was grateful for the new information that helped her daughter heal and kept her from being mistreated out of ignorance. When I first started talking about our brain imaging work in scientific circles, we were severely criticized by many people. “What do you mean, you can see mental illness? You must be crazy if you think that a functional brain imaging study has anything to say about family dynamics!” Yet, the critics are being quieted. What I talk about in this book works. In 1998 I published five peer-reviewed professional medical articles on brain SPECT imaging in psychiatry. I was honored by being asked to coauthor the chapter on functional brain imaging in the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, one of the most respected psychiatric texts in the world. In the spring of 1999, I was invited by the nuclear medicine community to give lectures at their meetings. I felt very honored when Dr. Dennis Patton, the historian for the Society of Nuclear Medicine, introduced me at one of these meetings by saying that I was a pioneer in the brain imaging field and people would read my work for years to come. There is no question in my mind that the most gratifying part of our research and clinical work is seeing people become more effective, more loving, and more capable by gaining more access to their own brain function. Many people have called our work cutting edge. We have affectionately said to ourselves that we were “bleeding on the cutting edge.” I’m deeply grateful for the increasing recognition of our work and I hope it continues to help others. ...