Book Review: Pictures of the Mind

Pictures of the Mind: What the New Neuroscience Tells Us About Who We Are
Miriam Boleyn-Fitzgerald
FT Press, 2010

Here's a book on brain imaging, and it turns out to have everything to do with communication. After all, communication of any sort originates in a brain (mind) and is directed to other brains (minds). Beyond that, people find it easy to believe they understand their own actions, moral values, and identity. Many people even believe that their memories given a clear and complete picture of their lives. This book addresses all of those questions, and the answers will enlighten readers.

Pictures of the Mind opens with a discussion of the differences among people in different non-responsive states; some are essentially dead, some not. Work on those distinctions should matter a grat deal to anyone whose loved one(s) cannot respond to stimuli. In fact, because accidents or illnesses can put anyone in such a state, this matters for all of us.


Having made a strong beginning with that important topic, Pictures of the Mind goes on to examine a new understanding of how people can change their personalities (emotional responses to life) by effort and why that matters so much, which includes a discussion of something I have learned from experience, that meditation is a more effective treatment than medication for some illnesses.

The chapter on happiness should help cheer readers after the serious topics, and happiness turns out to have a serious side itself because happiness and health go together. This also marks Pictures of the Mind as more than a discussion of illness; health, mental as well as physical, needs study. Then comes  unhappiness; the next fascinating finding is that addicts have important brain responses in common with people who suffer chronic pain; progress in studying one might lead to progress with the other. This chapter adds a great deal more to that finding.

The most interesting part of the entire book for many readers will be the chapter on morality. This addresses whether the "brain" is exactly the same as the "mind" as well as the fact that the brain handles different moral decisions in measurably different ways, with contradictory results. Equally interesting, young brains do not have the same capacities or the same responses as grown-up brains. A fascinating discussion of legal and moral responsibility ensues, considering both people with impairments and "normal" (no measurable defects) citizens. Of course, spirituality, religion, and whether they are separate from the mind become a running thread in this section.

The chapter on memory (including releasing the power of or even removing traumatic experiences) and the concluding chapter on the "self" continue the fascinating quest to understand what it means to be human. The author is considerate enough to include a list of resources at the end of her book, so readers can continue learning about this fascinating subject.