13 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Decision-Making
In his new book Professor Gary Marcus of New York University likens the mind to a 'kluge' - an engineering term meaning a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem.
To combat the 'klugey' nature of our minds, Professor Marcus provides 13 quick techniques based on psychological research to help us combat its inherent flaws in decision-making.
1. Whenever possible, consider alternatives
Our brains are not good at evaluating evidence dispassionately. Force yourself to generate alternatives. Research has demonstrated the value of counter-factual thinking: thinking about the opposite helps us make better decisions.
2. Reframe the question
Our memories are highly contextual so the background to any issue we consider has a huge impact on how we view it. Politicians, advertisers and other influencers use framing extensively to persuade us of their point of view. You can fight back by reframing their propositions.
3. Correlation doesn't equal causation
An oldie but a goldie. There's a clear correlation between foot size and being richer, owning your own house and having a better education. On the other hand people with smaller feet are often still struggling with potty training. Guessed it yet? People with small feet are usually children, so of course they have less money, don't own their own houses and, haven't been to school yet. Correlation doesn't equal causation.
4. Never forget the sample size
When we think about someone and a few seconds later they call us, is that evidence of ESP? Consider the sample size. How many times have you thought about that person in the past year? How many times have they called you in the last year? What first seems like a freak occurrence soon starts to look inevitable. Sample sizes are easy to forget.
5. Anticipate your impulsivity
The best of intentions often break down in the face of vicious temptation. People find it difficult to predict just how far off course their emotions can pull them (e.g. the projection bias). Use any method you can to counter your impulsivity: cancel the credit card, join a Christmas Club, avoid the confectionary store. It's all about planning ahead.
6. Make contingency plans
Humans are better at concrete goals; abstract goals like 'read more' or 'lose weight' get lost in the mix. Substitute these with: 'read this book by next Tuesday' and 'don't buy any junk food on the weekly shop'.
7. Make important decisions when relaxed and rested
What, I need to explain this?
8. Weigh costs against benefits
Common advice but actually quite tricky to do. Research shows that our minds prefer to consider either costs or benefits; taking both into account takes considerable effort. Professor Marcus points out that one factor we often forget is the 'opportunity cost': when we do one thing, we can't be doing something else. When I watch TV the benefit might be relaxation and enjoyment but the cost is that I can't be reading that mind-improving book that's being lying around for weeks.
9. Imagine your decision will be spot-checked
When we think someone will check up on us we make more cognitive effort, leading to better decision-making. Even if no-one is checking up on you, imagine their reaction if they did: would you be proud of your decision?
10. Distance yourself
When making decisions we are influenced by whatever thoughts and emotions are swirling around in our heads at that moment. Help distance yourself by thinking about how this decision will affect you in the future. Big decisions are always better made after a night's sleep. Again, it's common advice but it can be surprisingly difficult to distance yourself.
11. Beware the vivid, personal and anecdotal
It's so easy for us to be swayed by vivid or personal stories that we may ignore more considered, scientific evidence. Remember that our minds are naturally fascinated and influenced by the sensational at the cost of quotidian. Look carefully at the information source - are you being manipulated?
12. All decisions are not equal
Some decisions are more important than others. Not all decisions warrant effortful deliberation: sometimes it's better just to choose and be done with it. The trick is knowing which is which - experience should provide strong clues.
13. Be rational!
Sounds vacuous, right? But Professor Marcus argues that research suggests just reminding ourselves to think rationally could help us make better decisions. Consciously trying to think rationally will also help activate all the other techniques described here. Our memories being what they are, this is no bad thing.
» Buy it now from Amazon.com.
» Kluge is released in the UK on the 5 June, you can pre-order from Amazon.co.uk.
Labels: Book Reviews, Decision-making
The Head Trip: Adventures on the Wheel of Consciousness by Jeff Warren (Book Review)
Sleep is one of the most fascinating altered states of consciousness in which we spend a third of our lives. It's also the area that has the most research findings and it's where Jeff Warren starts his fascinating journey around what he calls the 'wheel of consciousness'.
This book is not just an exploration of the science though, it is also a personal journey.This book is not just an exploration of the science though, it is also a personal journey as Warren falls asleep in the sleep lab, practices lucid dreaming at a retreat in Hawaii and tries to learn meditation in Scotland (unsuccessfully!). His personal experience is interwoven with insights from both the psychological literature and interviews with big names in the science of altered states.
Unfortunately nowadays there's a pervasive feeling amongst scientists that it's a bit wacky to be studying or writing about altered states of consciousness like lucid dreaming, out of body experiences, hypnosis and even sleep. It's too subjective, too personal for science to really have any role to play. That's a pity because respected researchers have been working in some of these fields for decades and there are some very interesting findings.
To give you a flavour here are some of the altered states that Warren investigates on his journey:
- Hypnagogic: a transitionary state before we go to sleep when we often experience mild hallucinations.
- Slow wave sleep: deep sleep when our body grows and repairs itself. We do seem to dream a little in this state, but the dreams themselves are usually unspectacular. People woken for this phase report dreaming about getting ready for exams and other mundane activities.
- The 'watch': a period of ultra-relaxed wakefulness occurring in the middle of the night that is mainly experienced by cultures whose rest and activity patterns follow the sun.
- REM dreams: A lighter type of sleep where we do our most creative dreaming. This is where all the bizarre stuff happens.
- Lucid dreaming: this state is difficult to enter, but magic if you can do it. Suddenly you control everything: you can do what you want and it all seems absolutely real, not like a normal dream at all.
- Hypnopompic: the mirror image of the hypnagogic - a transitionary stage after we wake up when, again, we can experience mild hallucinations.
- Trance: well-known to anyone who's seen a hypnotist in action.
- Sensorimotor rhythm: a goal of neurofeedback 'brain training' that is thought to help people such as those with attention disorders to concentrate. Creates a clear, calm and focussed state of consciousness.
- The Zone: also called 'flow' by psychologists. A high arousal, high concentration state when everything clicks. The Holy Grail for people playing sports.
- Pure conscious event: very hard to articulate. This is a highly focussed state usually achieved through meditation where the brain's continuous chatter is dialled right down to nothing and we can just be.
Sounds fascinating, right? A couple of words of warning though. As Warren himself admits, he is preoccupied with what he calls the 'special effects' of consciousness - the amazing and unusual things the brain can do that we don't normally experience. He's also - as he's the first to admit - somewhat impatient. These traits aren't necessarily short-comings though, perhaps they're even necessary for helping to cut through the mysticism that sometimes surrounds altered states of consciousness.
The Head Trip is an easy read, manages to slip you some science and also keeps the energy up as it travels through these weird and wonderful states of consciousness. Recommended. And not just for bed-time.
» Buy The Head Trip by Jeff Warren from Amazon.com.
Labels: Book Reviews
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely (Book review)
Classical economics is the story of how humans are rational beings who calmly weigh up the pros and cons of each economic situation before making a logical decision. Many aspects of the way our society works are built on this story of how humans think and behave. Unfortunately classical economics, although interesting, turns out to have some serious problems.
A new generation of social scientists - behavioural economists - are examining the actual ways in which people behave when making economic decisions and it turns out that the truth would have Adam Smith turning in his grave.
One of those leading the charge to educate us about the findings of behavioural economics is Professor Dan Ariely. And crucially he's able to do so without sending us off to sleep.
What emerges is a picture of humanity that is sometimes irrational, but often predictable.In his new book, Predictably Irrational, he uses his light and breezy style to describe studies demonstrating the situations in which we display irrational economic behaviour. What emerges is a picture of humanity that is sometimes irrational, but often predictable. In many ways we are actually distressingly predictable, such as our blind worship of all things 'free' or how we try to avoid difficult comparisons.
Ariely addresses these complicated problems with admirable clarity, which you can sample at his blog. The experiments he describes are all easy to understand and he points to their implications for society and its policy-makers. Sometimes it's tempting to think he's glossing over the hard stuff, but actually he's just succeeding where many academics fail: by speaking plainly.
An optimistic book about how we can escape some of the tricks our mind plays on us.Ariely's mission is to help us understand how our decisions are affected by society, by our emotions and by relativity. And hopefully through this understanding, allow us to escape the habits of economic behaviour we didn't even know we possessed. So what might seem like a pessimistic book about human irrationality, turns out to be an optimistic book about how we can escape some of the tricks our mind plays on us.
If you've been enjoying the articles here on the psychology of money, then you'll enjoy this book - and see where I got the ideas for some of the posts! Highly recommended.
» Buy Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely from Amazon.com.
» You can hear Ariely talk about his research in this London School of Economics podcast.
» Read more on the psychology of money.
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Labels: Book Reviews, Money
Why War? The Most Dangerous Animal by David Livingstone Smith
'The Most Dangerous Animal' of David Livingstone Smith's title is, of course, man. It is man's continued determination to band together in order to slay members of its own species that qualifies us for this most dubious of superlatives. The question this book tackles is simply: why? Smith employs a variety of academic disciplines to answer this question. It crosses territory from psychoanalysis to prehistoric archaeology and even microbiology, but the heart of his argument lies in evolutionary psychology.In the first place Smith is keen to point out that when we talk of war, we are not talking of the sanitised version seen on our TV screens or at the cinema. He means the real thing - where it's the lucky ones that die quickly. Consequently the book is scattered with descriptions that are not for the weak-stomached. The point is well made though, that if war is so...well...obscene, then why do we do it?
Smith explains. As social primates we share the violent and xenophobic tendencies of our chimpanzee cousins. Like the chimpanzees and the rest of life on Earth, our brains are the result of evolution. Our brains give us the power to imagine great things. But most of our mental modules process information outside of our conscious awareness. We are, therefore, at once both supremely imaginative and yet cut off from our most basic cognitive processes.
Central to our war-like behaviour and built on the inaccessibility of our internal processes, is our ability to lie to ourselves. Self-deception is also vital to our ability to deceive others. If we can trick ourselves then we can do the same to others.
What do we do with this amazing capacity for imagination and self-deception built on a bedrock of inaccessible processes? Well, one thing we do is create morals. Put simply, morals are our ideas about the difference between right and wrong. Although some will (incorrectly) tell you otherwise, our morals are not constructed in a neutral fashion and are not of an absolute nature. Instead we demonstrate a number of important biases.
First we have a moral bias towards those who are similar to us. Most importantly we value the lives of those who are more like us to a greater extent than those who are less like us. That's why if a plane crash happens in a far away country, your local news tends to focus on, or at least mention, the people from your country, even if they only form a tiny minority of the victims.
The second moral bias is that we care less about people we don't directly come into contact with. Third is our bias towards those we are related to - if you have to choose between rescuing your two children or two strangers from a burning building, you'll leave the strangers to burn. Any other choice makes you deranged.
These three biases (actually from philosopher David Hume) dovetail beautifully with sociobiological theories. Effectively these find that ingratiating ourselves with others through apparently altruistic acts is vital to our own survival. As a result of these biases, morals are inevitably culture-specific and will inevitably favour the group of which we are a member.
What we might have so far is a reason to go to war, but it doesn't yet explain how humans actually go through with the bloody act itself. After all, could you actually kill another person?
For this Smith again calls on our powers of self-deception. Soldiers in battle have to rely on creating both psychological and physical distance from the enemy. In the age of modern technological warfare, physical distance is now much easier to accomplish. Bombers can loose their deadly loads without directly confronting the results of their actions.
Psychological distance is achieved by not looking too closely at the 'target'. The old adage of not opening fire until you can see the whites of their eyes is precisely the opposite of what war requires. Politicians and generals must dehumanise the enemy to make them easier to kill. The last thing the majority of soldiers want is to look into the eyes of those they are killing.
The strength of Smith's work is that the outlines of war do genuinely emerge by drawing on disparate academic disciplines. In particular his use of evolutionary psychology makes this book attractive to those interested in psychology.
Right from the start Smith is determined to make this an accessible book, which he does. No prior knowledge is required to follow his arguments, for example even the basic processes of evolution are outlined. The prose is also clear and straightforward. This is a fascinating response to a question we ignore at our peril: why war?
» Buy The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War
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Labels: Book Reviews, Evolution
Explaining Bipolar Disorder: An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison (Book Review)
Kay Redfield Jamison, now a professor of psychiatry, tells the story of her battle with bipolar disorder. It is a moving account of the extraordinary highs and numbing lows inflicted by manic depression."Although I had been building up to it for weeks, and certainly knew something was seriously wrong, there was a definite point when I knew I was insane. My thoughts were so fast that I couldn't remember the beginning of a sentence halfway through. Fragments of ideas, images, sentences, raced around and around in my mind like the tigers in a children's story. Finally, like those tigers, they became meaningless melted pools. Nothing once familiar to me was familiar. I wanted desperately to slow down but could not."
Kay Redfield Jamison
. She goes on to describe her battle with bipolar disorder, including the dizzying highs and sickening, black lows, her suicide attempt and, through it all, her successful career in clinical psychology. Despite her harrowing journey she is now Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins medical school.In spirit this book is a companion piece to Elyn R Saks' 'The Centre Cannot Hold', which I reviewed recently in the article, schizophrenia explained. While Saks suffers from schizophrenia, primarily a thought disorder, Jamison suffers from bipolar disorder which is primarily an emotional disorder - although these rough psychiatric classifications do little for the understanding of their experience.
The lived experience of mental illness is precisely what Jamison wants to communicate, which she does with admirable clarity. The zip of Jamison's manic states: her mind whirling from one thought to the next, making connections, spinning new stories, driving her forwards, often through the night. Then the sudden thundering weight of deep depression as she is dragged down by thoughts of hopelessness and suicide.
It is a story informed by experience from both sides of the tracks. Jamison has been a patient in a psychiatric institution and a professor of psychiatry at a highly respected US medical school. She writes with both academic knowledge as well as the personal experience of the symptoms she understands intellectually.
Jamison does not stint on the sometimes shocking details of her illness but, like Saks' memoire, this is a profoundly hopeful book. Unlike Saks, though, Jamison states if she could press a magic button to remove the manic depression from her life, she wouldn't do it:
"Depressed, I have crawled on my hands and knees in order to get across a room and have done it for month after month. But, normal or manic, I have run faster, thought faster and loved faster than most I know. And I think much of this is related to my illness -- the intensity it gives to things and the perspective it forces on me."
Highly recommended.
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Labels: Book Reviews
Schizophrenia Explained: The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Saks (Book Review)
In her new book, Elyn, R. Saks describes the monumental challenges she faced in her journey through madness, but this autobiography is profoundly hopeful. Highly recommended.Do you know what it's like to be crazy - not just angry, I mean psychotic? Do you know what it feels like to believe your very thoughts can kill, that your loved ones are imposters conspiring against you? Do you know what it feels like to be restrained with such force you can barely breath, to be pumped full of powerful, toxic drugs, to feel your own self splinter, recede, then disappear? In short, do you know what madness is?
Elyn R. Saks does, and she is determined her diagnosis will not be a death sentence. In her new book 'The Center Cannot Hold
', the Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry at the University of Southern California tells the story of her ongoing battle with schizophrenia. Considering the psychotic breaks she endures, it is incredible she's managed to build a successful academic career. And yet she has, and this book is the story of her battle through madness, searching for some understanding of the illness she is both fighting and trying to accept as part of herself."Elyn Elyn, watermelon"
Elyn R. Saks
The descriptions of madness produce some otherworldly writing. Saks recreates the so-called 'word salad' (schizophasia) that is often characteristic of those having psychotic breaks. At their first meeting one psychiatrist asks her name:
"My name is Elyn. They used to call me 'Elyn, Elyn, watermelon.' At school. Where I used to go. When I am now and having trouble.'
"What kind of trouble?" she asked.
"There's trouble. Right here in River City. Home of the New Haveners. Where there is no heaven, new or old. I'm just looking for a haven. Can you give me a haven? Aren't you too young? Why are you crying? I cry because the voices are at the end of time. Time is too old. I've killed lots of people."
And later:
"There's the killing fields," I said. "Heads exploding. I didn't do anything wrong. They just said 'quake, fake, lake.' I used to ski. Are you trying to kill me?"
Battle with medication
Like many suffering from serious mental illness, Saks has a love-hate relationship with medication, which is both sworn enemy and occasional saviour. Anti-psychotics in hefty doses can work wonders for some people, clearing the fog of psychosis. But they also exact a price. Side-effects include rapid involuntary movements like lip smacking and rapid blinking, behaviours that can be permanent. The drugs can also cause impotence, lethargy, weight gain and...the list goes on.
Saks' doctors tell her to keep taking the drugs, but she is scared the side-effects will become permanent. For Saks, the very fact that drugs are required is a sign of weakness; she is continually trying to wean herself off medication, but normally with disastrous consequences.
Fighting stigma and injustice
Saks is well aware of the stigma attached to schizophrenia, learning her lesson early that job offers do not come unless she is economical with the truth. She explains that people with schizophrenia are not psychotic all the time, they have 'psychotic breaks' which vary in frequency from one person to another. They are not dangerous to others - their behaviour and language might appear frightening but they pose the greatest threat to themselves.
Through her life she shows it is possible for people with schizophrenia to have a life, to work, to find love, although sadly Saks may be an exception to the general rule.
It is clear that her illness influenced Saks in her choice of academic discipline. Early in her career she worked for a charity championing the rights of those with psychiatric diagnoses. Later she explored the legal ramifications of multiple personality disorders. Now, as a professor at USC she is a leading expert in mental health law.
Hope
Although Saks describes many depressing things, ultimately this is not a depressing book. Yes, it is an honest portrayal of inner torture, but the book is also filled to the brim with determination. Here is a woman who will not give in to the vagaries of her body, who finds a way around, through or under the obstacles life throws at her. From this determination emerges hope. Hope for the future. For Saks, like all of us, nothing is more important than hope.
» Buy 'The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness
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Labels: Book Reviews
'thanks!' by Robert A. Emmons (Book Review)
Dr. Robert A. Emmons' new positive psychology book, 'thanks!
', argues that practising gratitude benefits our happiness, satisfaction with life and physical health."Gratitude is the secret to life" - Albert Schweitzer
"Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing." - Bart Simpson
Invoking the words of the great philosopher Bart Simpson, along with other mere mortals, Dr Robert Emmons makes a great case for the importance of gratitude in life. Thankfully it's not just the words of Bart Simpson and a few nicely chosen anecdotes on which Emmons is relying, he has scientific evidence. Emmons opens the book with experimental evidence showing how gratefulness can increase happiness by 25%.
Practising gratitude may also have a number of knock-on benefits. It is inversely related to depression, may increase social ties and there's evidence gains in happiness are maintained for six months after people begin practising gratitude.
Emmons travels further than describing his own research, fascinating though it is. He moves on to look at ways in which gratitude is physically represented, how gratitude intersects with religion and how gratitude can be practised.
This is an easily accessible book. The experiments are described with admirable clarity, there is no psychological gobbledegook and the vignettes of people's experience are easily digested.
As a relentlessly positive book, though, it may well set some people's teeth on edge. The book is scattered with examples of the super-humanly grateful: an Alzheimer's carer being grateful her husband can remember the season and thankful nuns out-living just about everyone. The chapter on obstacles to gratitude comes as relief, reminding us of the difficulties of maintaining a grateful disposition.
For the psychologist in me there was too much anecdote and not enough experiment. But for the casual reader in me looking for inspiration there was much to ponder. In the end I was happy I read this book - it is a much-needed reminder to all of us there is always something to be grateful for.
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Labels: Book Reviews, Grattitude, Happiness
How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker (Book Review)
Right from the outset Steven Pinker, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, is apologising for the title of his book: 'How the Mind Works'. We do not yet know how the mind works, he explains. The ideas contained in his book are not, he admits, his own but culled from various other fields. But this is rather false modesty as reading on it soon becomes clear Pinker does indeed intend to tell us how the mind works, albeit one particular version.His story starts with the computational model of the mind: the idea common in cognitive science that the mind can be likened to an information processing device. Pinker considers some of the criticisms of this approach but ultimately provides a robust argument for its utility.
Pinker's story then turns to evolution. How is it, he asks, that we have developed such huge brains in the first place? He explains that during our long evolution into homo sapiens sapiens, we have come to inhabit the 'cognitive niche' - survival through the use of our brains to make tools and plans to achieve particular goals.
This brings us up to date and Pinker now turns to vision, the evolution of the eye and the functioning of cognitive systems, the power of imagery in our reality. Then on to thinking and reasoning, the way we calculate probabilities, what we know about other people's minds. Then the emotions, then our families and personalities and finally to 'the meaning of life'.
Birds-eye view of the mind
You sense Pinker could easily have written a book 10 times the size of this 600-odd page work. This race to include so many aspects of psychology is, inevitably, both the book's strength and its weakness. For those who prefer more in-depth discussion it may prove an irritant. But for those, like me, who enjoy the birds-eye view and rush of ideas, it will prove a joy.
Overall, it's hard to avoid being enthralled by both Pinker's writing and his imagination. This book might be more accurately titled 'How Steven Pinker's Mind Works', but it still acquits itself well. Skipping from one analogy to another, surfing ideas, threading together intellectual insights; Pinker's style is direct, straightforward and accessible and yet there is always one more corner to turn, one more leap of the imagination that keeps him just out of reach. A good trick if you can do it.
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Labels: Book Reviews
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks (Review)
This review is the first in a new series on my favourite psychological books.
One book almost everyone interested in psychology will enjoy is Oliver Sack's 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat'. Sacks, a neurologist by training, describes some of the fascinating patients he has treated over the years. From the eponymous Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, through The Man Who Fell out of Bed, The Lost Mariner and The Dog Beneath the Skin, each chapter tells the story of ordinary human experience touched by unusual brain diseases.
Mercifully the narrative is devoid of medical terminology as what Sacks is most interested in is the patient's perspective on the world. As a result the reader gains personal, subjective insight into the inability to recognise objects (visual agnosia), the experience of a dense amnesia stretching back decades (Korsakov's), what it feels like to be completely disembodied and many other conditions.
Sacks captures the effects of damage to the brain not by reducing it to diagnoses and categories, but by expanding it to include all the vagaries of the individual. This book is not so much a series of case notes as a collection of parables about the brain.
Each one shows us what certain deficits or excesses can do to our experience - how it can be reduced in one dimension and rapidly expanded in another. Each, ever so gently suggesting that what we take for granted as reality is really just one more dream our brains have manufactured.
Above all, people's stories - for they are stories about real people - are all told with warmth; a kind, philosophical eye, searching not for what has been lost, but for what has been added. A scientist's attention to detail without the stereotypical austerity.
Sacks is most concerned with finding out what his patients can do, what they enjoy, what it is possible for them to get out of life. He realises their personhood is vital to understanding their condition. Sacks is engaged in what he refers to as the 'neurology of identity'.
It's this centrality of human experience and identity that makes this book such a rewarding and frequently touching read.
» Buy The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat from Amazon.com or at Amazon.co.uk
.
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One book almost everyone interested in psychology will enjoy is Oliver Sack's 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat'. Sacks, a neurologist by training, describes some of the fascinating patients he has treated over the years. From the eponymous Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, through The Man Who Fell out of Bed, The Lost Mariner and The Dog Beneath the Skin, each chapter tells the story of ordinary human experience touched by unusual brain diseases.Mercifully the narrative is devoid of medical terminology as what Sacks is most interested in is the patient's perspective on the world. As a result the reader gains personal, subjective insight into the inability to recognise objects (visual agnosia), the experience of a dense amnesia stretching back decades (Korsakov's), what it feels like to be completely disembodied and many other conditions.
Sacks captures the effects of damage to the brain not by reducing it to diagnoses and categories, but by expanding it to include all the vagaries of the individual. This book is not so much a series of case notes as a collection of parables about the brain.
Each one shows us what certain deficits or excesses can do to our experience - how it can be reduced in one dimension and rapidly expanded in another. Each, ever so gently suggesting that what we take for granted as reality is really just one more dream our brains have manufactured.
Real stories, real people
Above all, people's stories - for they are stories about real people - are all told with warmth; a kind, philosophical eye, searching not for what has been lost, but for what has been added. A scientist's attention to detail without the stereotypical austerity.
Sacks is most concerned with finding out what his patients can do, what they enjoy, what it is possible for them to get out of life. He realises their personhood is vital to understanding their condition. Sacks is engaged in what he refers to as the 'neurology of identity'.
It's this centrality of human experience and identity that makes this book such a rewarding and frequently touching read.
» Buy The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat from Amazon.com
or at Amazon.co.uk.Subscribe to PsyBlog (RSS)
Labels: Book Reviews