"This is a beautifully written account of psychotherapy, light on its feet but with great depth and insight. It doesn't matter if you know nothing about psychotherapy or if you are a lifelong convert - there are pearls aplenty in these pages.
The author practices from a Buddhist perspective, and he manages to convey Buddhist principles economically and with a poet's touch. Again, the reader needn't be schooled in Eastern spirituality to appreciate these textures - what is conveyed is the mystery of the process at the heart of the therapeutic encounter.
I am a practicing psychotherapist and found much in this book I could relate to, and many unexplored avenues to explore. But you don't have to be a therapist to appreciate the insights and heart of this very alive piece of writing. Highly recommended."
Paul Christelis on Amazon
Articles and books that Bob has
The Wisdom of Not-Knowing, essays on psychotherapy, Buddhism and life experience
Co Editors - Bob Chisholm and Jeff Harrison
“We often find that the state of not-knowing can be a precursor to moments of rich discovery which possess a dynamic, transformative power that exceeds any prior expectation.” From the Introduction
In daily life, when we see, hear or touch something that we don’t recognise, we are instantly at our most alert. In that condition of ‘not-knowing’ we are in a state of alive, lithe awareness: asking questions, inviting input, open to learning, looking for significance and meaning…
These essays, most by practising psychotherapists, some of them Buddhists, take as their starting point the idea that not-knowing is fundamental to conscious reflection and the desire to know must always arise in the first instance from the self-awareness of not-knowing.The ESSAYSMost of the essays use case studies or draw on autobiographical experience to examine some aspect of not-knowing. These include:
- See more at: http://www.triarchypress.net/not-knowing.html#sthash.2mdPsGC6.dpuf
“We often find that the state of not-knowing can be a precursor to moments of rich discovery which possess a dynamic, transformative power that exceeds any prior expectation.” From the Introduction
In daily life, when we see, hear or touch something that we don’t recognise, we are instantly at our most alert. In that condition of ‘not-knowing’ we are in a state of alive, lithe awareness: asking questions, inviting input, open to learning, looking for significance and meaning…
These essays, most by practising psychotherapists, some of them Buddhists, take as their starting point the idea that not-knowing is fundamental to conscious reflection and the desire to know must always arise in the first instance from the self-awareness of not-knowing.The ESSAYSMost of the essays use case studies or draw on autobiographical experience to examine some aspect of not-knowing. These include:
- the example of a client whose experiences and behaviour on the threshold of the consulting room enable him to identify and change deeply established mindsets
- exploring, through a reading of Wuthering Heights, how 'knowing’ is a fetish - it gives us brief comfort against life’s inherent uncertainty
- not-knowing and a car accident in the Devon lanes
- Donald Rumsfeld's known knows, known unknowns and unknown unknowns applied to sexual identity
- exploring self and identity through the fear brought on by ghosts and the dark
- an archetypal encounter in Norway
- a comparison of 'emotional knowing' and 'cognitive knowing' explored through psychotherapeutic work
- how our ' issues' we believe, at some level, give us our identity; but not only that – they make us interesting and give us a certain mystique and allure
- collective 'not-knowing' and group process
- not-knowing and ayahuasca
- ignorance, not-knowing, beyond-knowing, curiosity: some aspects of the psycotherapist's trade
- how,from a Zen Buddhist point of view, the problem with the acquisition of knowledge is that we invariably identify with our knowledge, and this acts in very subtle ways to block us from experiencing things in an open, un-predetermined way.
- not-knowing - diagnosis and treatment for an uncertain health practitioner
- See more at: http://www.triarchypress.net/not-knowing.html#sthash.2mdPsGC6.dpuf
Review of After Mindfulness, Manu Bazzano ed. for Self & Society, Summer 2014
In 1979 Jon Kabat-ZInn, a clinical scientist and dedicated practitioner of Buddhist meditation, wanted to devise a programme of stress reduction that would rely heavily on the meditation technique of mindfulness to treat a wide variety of stress related ailments. Although he was certain that mindfulness would alleviate the suffering that was commonly experienced in both physical and psychological maladies, Kabat-Zinn realised that presenting any sort of religious practice in a secular setting would be almost impossible. Fortunately, he received some useful advice that all the religious trappings of mindfulness could safely be dropped to focus solely on the technique itself. Kabat-Zinn eagerly took up this suggestion and his secular mindfulness programme soon proved to be a remarkable success. Now, thirty-five years later, secular mindfulness appears to have taken the world by storm as it has been adapted for all sorts of worldly endeavours far removed from Buddhism’s expressed aim of escaping the round of rebirth. A friend of mine, for example , a former Buddhist monk, was recently contracted to present mindfulness workshops for a leading UK bank. Even the US Marine Corps has taken up mindfulness in order to train its troops to deal better with the stress of combat. But the spread of mindfulness, based on its proven ability to reduce stress while apparently dispensing with any ethical or sapiential considerations, raises a serious question. Isn’t there a danger of mindfulness being used mindlessly, without regard for the philosophical and ethical matters with which it had always been concerned? To address this question, one could do no better than to turn to this rich collection of thought provoking articles.
The editor, Manu Bazzanno, an ordained Zen monk as well as a psychotherapist, has drawn together an impressive group of therapists, mindfulness practitioners and Buddhist thinkers who each offers a unique perspective on what mindfulness is and how it should be practised. For someone unfamiliar with mindfulness, the collection should begin with the excellent lead essay by John Peacock, as it provides some useful historical and cultural background for the essays that follow. A Buddhist scholar and an Associate Director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, Peacock discusses how mindfulness [or sati in Pali, the language of the oldest Buddhist scriptural tradition] originated in the teachings of the Buddha and how it has now been adapted for therapeutic purposes in clinical settings. But the collection is not restricted to essays with a therapeutic interest. Stephen Batchelor, author of Buddhism Without Belief, argues that mindfulness can be separated from the superfluous dross of tradition to allow for a direct encounter with what he calls “the everyday sublime.” In a similar vein, in his essay Bazzano sees mindfulness as a form of deep awakening without any hope of metaphysical consolation or hint other-worldliness. Indeed, both writers make robust arguments for a new approach to Buddhism that may appear defiantly post-modern and unapologetically Western to more traditional Asian Buddhist sensibilities. Even so, both Batchelor and Bazzano acknowledge the debt that their practices of mindfulness owe to the Pali Canon and Zen and it may well be that their different approaches herald a fresh development in Buddhist thought. In a subtly argued essay, Jeff Harrison makes an insightful comparison between the phenomenology of perception of Merleau-Ponty and mindfulness, which suggests that the divide between Eastern and Western sensibilities may not be so unbridgeable, after all.
Many readers may prefer to approach mindfulness from a more therapeutic angle and there are several essays in this collection that should certainly satisfy that interest. Although it seems CBT most easily assimilates mindfulness into its therapeutic approach, other therapies have also found that mindfulness has something useful to offer. I was particularly intrigued by Monica Lanyado’s essay on her use of mindfulness as a psychoanalyst. Freud famously called for analysts to employ “evenly suspended attention”-- which arguably can be likened to mindfulness-- in the act of listening to patients. But Lanyado’s use of mindfulness far exceeds Freud’s prescription as a method of impartial listening and exercises a much deeper influence in her self understanding as a therapist. Indeed, I found myself wondering if her allegiance was more to Buddhism than to psychoanalysis. However, self identifying Buddhist therapists such as Caroline Brazier and David Brazier worry in separate articles about losing important features of Buddhist teaching in the interest of therapeutic utility. Meg Barker’s essay on mindfulness for sex and relationship therapy certainly departs from traditional Buddhist teachings in its unabashed advocacy of sexual pleasure. But the fact that mindfulness can be used in treating such complaints as sexual dysfunction shows the extent to which it can be taken from its original context to find an altogether different purpose than as an approach to meditation for an essentially monastic practice.
If there is one omission in a collection that brings together such a wide diversity of views, it might be the absence of a staunch traditionalist interpretation such as a Theravada or a Tibetan monk would have provided. But talking about a Buddhist tradition as if it were monolithic is obviously a nonsense, for there are a number of different Buddhist traditions which can be markedly different, especially in matters of practice. Moreover, much as I would have welcomed the opinions of such learned Buddhist monks as Thanissaro Bhikku and Matthieu Ricard, the high quality of its arguments assures that this volume will make an important contribution to the debate about mindfulness in the contemporary world. That mindfulness is certain to influence therapy is undoubtedly central to the place it will find for itself and Bazzano has done much to further a deeper understanding of mindfulness for therapy, in part by refusing to allow it to languish in a psychotherapeutic ghetto or rest complacently in a cloister. But as an overview of these essays would suggest, mindfulness is likely to appear in a number of different guises to serve a variety of different purposes, not all of which will sit comfortably with any established Buddhist tradition. Though it remains unclear what mindfulness will become, some intriguing indications of its future can be found in this necessary and timely book.
Buddhadharma as Psychotherapy
Abstract:
According to a UN report on human happiness issued in 2013 : “About 10% of the world’s population suffers from clinical depression or crippling anxiety disorders. They are the biggest single cause of disability and absenteeism, with huge costs in terms of misery and economic waste.” Once seen as afflictions that occurred mainly in prosperous Western societies, a wide variety of mental illnesses now seem to be on the rise everywhere on the globe. The irony is that the rise in mental illness appears to be linked to increased material prosperity throughout the world. A Buddhist analysis, however, would not find anything surprising in the close relationship between rampant materialism and mental illness. Buddhism has always recognised that the principle cause of affliction [dukkha] is craving [trishna] and modern consumerism relies on the stimulation of craving as a means of creating consumer demand. Buddhism also demonstrates its practical relevance in addressing this problem by such ancient techniques as mindfulness [sati] which many Western psychotherapists have made effective use of in treating mental illness. While the introduction of Buddhist practices into psychotherapy is a welcome development, tearing spiritual techniques away from their original religious context entails a certain loss and in the end may also prove counterproductive as an approach to treating mental illness. In this paper I shall address Buddhist views of mental health and mental illness as they apply to contemporary psychotherapy. I shall argue that adapting Buddhism for psychotherapy does call for skilful means [upaya], but bringing the Buddhadharma into the consulting room should not entail a rejection of its core insights into the cause of suffering.
To read more download the entire article which was published in the collection of the papers delivered at the 2014 UN WESAK Conference in Vietnam.
Review of The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World Iain McGilchrist; Yale University Press; 2009, Self and Society Autumn 2013
One of the most astonishing developments in our era of scientific discovery is the increased understanding of consciousness through the investigation of its principal organ, the brain. From seeing how the brain works and how it has evolved to perform the various and highly complex tasks that allow consciousness to occur has led many philosophers and other thinkers, and not just neuroscientists, to conclude that consciousness is largely a matter of brain function alone. By likening the brain to a computer and seeing consciousness as a fundamentally computational operation that is supported by the organic hardware that the brain provides, a radically different view of human consciousness than that which has prevailed throughout most of Western history has begun to emerge. In this determinedly materialistic view there is no spirit or divine spark that lights the consciousness of humankind, nor does consciousness ever rise above its evolutionary origins. Consciousness is only a highly evolved organic function driven by a blind Darwinian urge to produce offspring. Even the exalted achievements of civilisation such as art, literature and music are merely the by products of the human mating game and provide no argument for a transcendent human spirit. And as for religion-- “that vast, moth-eaten musical brocade”, as Philip Larkin described it--it has long ago outlived its evolutionary purpose. While this may seem a bleak and reductive way to regard human nature, the scientific evidence which is widely believed to validate it appears to negate any opposing views. We are simply the cleverest monkeys on the evolutionary scale and we are deluded if we believe we are anything more than that. But in this remarkably learned and highly readable book, Iain McGilchrist argues that the scientific evidence does not support such a flatly reductive view at all. Indeed, consciousness only appears this way because of the reductive habits of mind which have come to predominate in science and incline most scientists to view the brain as a machine. Even worse, those very habits which skew the scientific understanding of consciousness now appear to affect the brain itself and are causing deleterious effects on the world we construct and inhabit.
The title of the book comes from a parable by Nietzsche in which a wise, spiritual Master appoints a talented, but short-sighted emissary to oversee his affairs only to have his vizier seize control of his properties and then run them to ruin. According to McGilchrist, the right hemisphere of the brain whose powers are intuitive, holistic and open to new information, is like the Master and the left hemisphere which is logical, reductive and closed in its operations, is like his emissary. Ideally, both hemispheres would work together harmoniously, as the right hemisphere would intuit meaning and values out of its capacity for gathering and appreciating new experiences, while the left hemisphere would perform the cognitive work which would give the right hemisphere’s directives their functional expression. But ever since the Enlightenment and the Cartesian world view which took ascendancy during it, Western culture has increasingly ceded power from the right to the left hemisphere. Now in the present era of post-modernism, the triumph of the left hemisphere is all but complete as we live in a hyper-rational age almost entirely bereft of transcendental meaning and spiritual values. Given the vast scope of its thesis it might seem that even such a prodigiously well informed book as this has attempted to present Western cultural history in too narrow a frame. Indeed, one wonders if these learned reflections on the influence of the hemispheric divide on culture offer much insight into the split nature of the brain, or try to use the divided brain itself as an authority for making some highly contentious philosophical and aesthetic judgements. But in its great, sweeping vision the book seems less concerned with constructing a flawless argument than with urging a change of perspective. The brain should not be seen so much as a fixed site of consciousness, but should instead be regarded as the pre-eminent organ of experience which both affects and is affected by the world it encounters. In this respect the book succeeds magnificently for it is hard to imagine how any book could convey so beautifully not only what is it is to feel consciously, but also how it feels to be conscious. Even so, one may still wonder if the central argument is correct.
Unfortunately, one would have to be a well informed neuroscientist to assess the factual basis upon which the book makes its case. A neuroscientist himself, McGilchrist admits that there is still much more that is unknown than is known about the brain. Even in a widely accepted phenomenon such as the hemispheric divide, for example, there is no certainty about why the brain is structured that way. And even though the brain is divided both hemispheres play a role in virtually every act and condition of consciousness. Although puzzles such as these are ones that only neuroscientists can explore and debate, there are many other questions raised by the book for the non-expert to ponder. Perhaps the foremost would be whether it is correct to regard one hemisphere or the other as responsible for particular types of engagement in the world. It may be legitimate to say that activities which mainly draw on the capacity of one hemisphere or the other dispose us to act in particular ways. But in which side of the brain do the volitions that activate the capacities of each hemisphere reside? McGilchrist is certainly opposed to the idea that consciousness can be reduced to brain activity alone. Yet by appearing to attribute agency rather than propensity to each hemisphere, it might seem that he is in league with those brain reductionists that Raymond Tallis calls neuro-maniacs.
Far from limiting himself to his medical speciality of neuroscience, McGilchrist demonstrates his great erudition in a number of other disciplines, including philosophy, literature, art and religion. All of these subjects are brought together in a survey of Western cultural history that presents a vast array of ideas which cannot be summarised here. But two things deserve mention. First is his discussion of imitation, which not only demolishes the concept of replication that is so central to meme theory, but also presents a wonderful explanation of how imitation can be an act of creation, as well as a way of understanding. Second is his discussion of metaphor in which metaphor is seen as the bodying forth of language into the felt sense of experience. Quite simply, these are brilliant ideas that are beautifully expressed and the book would be worth reading for them alone. But McGilchrist offers far more than a parade of fascinating ideas affixed to a controversial thesis about the brain. His book presents a profound ontological meditation on the reduced possibilities of experience in our spiritually desperate times. It deserves the most serious attention.
In 1979 Jon Kabat-ZInn, a clinical scientist and dedicated practitioner of Buddhist meditation, wanted to devise a programme of stress reduction that would rely heavily on the meditation technique of mindfulness to treat a wide variety of stress related ailments. Although he was certain that mindfulness would alleviate the suffering that was commonly experienced in both physical and psychological maladies, Kabat-Zinn realised that presenting any sort of religious practice in a secular setting would be almost impossible. Fortunately, he received some useful advice that all the religious trappings of mindfulness could safely be dropped to focus solely on the technique itself. Kabat-Zinn eagerly took up this suggestion and his secular mindfulness programme soon proved to be a remarkable success. Now, thirty-five years later, secular mindfulness appears to have taken the world by storm as it has been adapted for all sorts of worldly endeavours far removed from Buddhism’s expressed aim of escaping the round of rebirth. A friend of mine, for example , a former Buddhist monk, was recently contracted to present mindfulness workshops for a leading UK bank. Even the US Marine Corps has taken up mindfulness in order to train its troops to deal better with the stress of combat. But the spread of mindfulness, based on its proven ability to reduce stress while apparently dispensing with any ethical or sapiential considerations, raises a serious question. Isn’t there a danger of mindfulness being used mindlessly, without regard for the philosophical and ethical matters with which it had always been concerned? To address this question, one could do no better than to turn to this rich collection of thought provoking articles.
The editor, Manu Bazzanno, an ordained Zen monk as well as a psychotherapist, has drawn together an impressive group of therapists, mindfulness practitioners and Buddhist thinkers who each offers a unique perspective on what mindfulness is and how it should be practised. For someone unfamiliar with mindfulness, the collection should begin with the excellent lead essay by John Peacock, as it provides some useful historical and cultural background for the essays that follow. A Buddhist scholar and an Associate Director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, Peacock discusses how mindfulness [or sati in Pali, the language of the oldest Buddhist scriptural tradition] originated in the teachings of the Buddha and how it has now been adapted for therapeutic purposes in clinical settings. But the collection is not restricted to essays with a therapeutic interest. Stephen Batchelor, author of Buddhism Without Belief, argues that mindfulness can be separated from the superfluous dross of tradition to allow for a direct encounter with what he calls “the everyday sublime.” In a similar vein, in his essay Bazzano sees mindfulness as a form of deep awakening without any hope of metaphysical consolation or hint other-worldliness. Indeed, both writers make robust arguments for a new approach to Buddhism that may appear defiantly post-modern and unapologetically Western to more traditional Asian Buddhist sensibilities. Even so, both Batchelor and Bazzano acknowledge the debt that their practices of mindfulness owe to the Pali Canon and Zen and it may well be that their different approaches herald a fresh development in Buddhist thought. In a subtly argued essay, Jeff Harrison makes an insightful comparison between the phenomenology of perception of Merleau-Ponty and mindfulness, which suggests that the divide between Eastern and Western sensibilities may not be so unbridgeable, after all.
Many readers may prefer to approach mindfulness from a more therapeutic angle and there are several essays in this collection that should certainly satisfy that interest. Although it seems CBT most easily assimilates mindfulness into its therapeutic approach, other therapies have also found that mindfulness has something useful to offer. I was particularly intrigued by Monica Lanyado’s essay on her use of mindfulness as a psychoanalyst. Freud famously called for analysts to employ “evenly suspended attention”-- which arguably can be likened to mindfulness-- in the act of listening to patients. But Lanyado’s use of mindfulness far exceeds Freud’s prescription as a method of impartial listening and exercises a much deeper influence in her self understanding as a therapist. Indeed, I found myself wondering if her allegiance was more to Buddhism than to psychoanalysis. However, self identifying Buddhist therapists such as Caroline Brazier and David Brazier worry in separate articles about losing important features of Buddhist teaching in the interest of therapeutic utility. Meg Barker’s essay on mindfulness for sex and relationship therapy certainly departs from traditional Buddhist teachings in its unabashed advocacy of sexual pleasure. But the fact that mindfulness can be used in treating such complaints as sexual dysfunction shows the extent to which it can be taken from its original context to find an altogether different purpose than as an approach to meditation for an essentially monastic practice.
If there is one omission in a collection that brings together such a wide diversity of views, it might be the absence of a staunch traditionalist interpretation such as a Theravada or a Tibetan monk would have provided. But talking about a Buddhist tradition as if it were monolithic is obviously a nonsense, for there are a number of different Buddhist traditions which can be markedly different, especially in matters of practice. Moreover, much as I would have welcomed the opinions of such learned Buddhist monks as Thanissaro Bhikku and Matthieu Ricard, the high quality of its arguments assures that this volume will make an important contribution to the debate about mindfulness in the contemporary world. That mindfulness is certain to influence therapy is undoubtedly central to the place it will find for itself and Bazzano has done much to further a deeper understanding of mindfulness for therapy, in part by refusing to allow it to languish in a psychotherapeutic ghetto or rest complacently in a cloister. But as an overview of these essays would suggest, mindfulness is likely to appear in a number of different guises to serve a variety of different purposes, not all of which will sit comfortably with any established Buddhist tradition. Though it remains unclear what mindfulness will become, some intriguing indications of its future can be found in this necessary and timely book.
Buddhadharma as Psychotherapy
Abstract:
According to a UN report on human happiness issued in 2013 : “About 10% of the world’s population suffers from clinical depression or crippling anxiety disorders. They are the biggest single cause of disability and absenteeism, with huge costs in terms of misery and economic waste.” Once seen as afflictions that occurred mainly in prosperous Western societies, a wide variety of mental illnesses now seem to be on the rise everywhere on the globe. The irony is that the rise in mental illness appears to be linked to increased material prosperity throughout the world. A Buddhist analysis, however, would not find anything surprising in the close relationship between rampant materialism and mental illness. Buddhism has always recognised that the principle cause of affliction [dukkha] is craving [trishna] and modern consumerism relies on the stimulation of craving as a means of creating consumer demand. Buddhism also demonstrates its practical relevance in addressing this problem by such ancient techniques as mindfulness [sati] which many Western psychotherapists have made effective use of in treating mental illness. While the introduction of Buddhist practices into psychotherapy is a welcome development, tearing spiritual techniques away from their original religious context entails a certain loss and in the end may also prove counterproductive as an approach to treating mental illness. In this paper I shall address Buddhist views of mental health and mental illness as they apply to contemporary psychotherapy. I shall argue that adapting Buddhism for psychotherapy does call for skilful means [upaya], but bringing the Buddhadharma into the consulting room should not entail a rejection of its core insights into the cause of suffering.
To read more download the entire article which was published in the collection of the papers delivered at the 2014 UN WESAK Conference in Vietnam.
Review of The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World Iain McGilchrist; Yale University Press; 2009, Self and Society Autumn 2013
One of the most astonishing developments in our era of scientific discovery is the increased understanding of consciousness through the investigation of its principal organ, the brain. From seeing how the brain works and how it has evolved to perform the various and highly complex tasks that allow consciousness to occur has led many philosophers and other thinkers, and not just neuroscientists, to conclude that consciousness is largely a matter of brain function alone. By likening the brain to a computer and seeing consciousness as a fundamentally computational operation that is supported by the organic hardware that the brain provides, a radically different view of human consciousness than that which has prevailed throughout most of Western history has begun to emerge. In this determinedly materialistic view there is no spirit or divine spark that lights the consciousness of humankind, nor does consciousness ever rise above its evolutionary origins. Consciousness is only a highly evolved organic function driven by a blind Darwinian urge to produce offspring. Even the exalted achievements of civilisation such as art, literature and music are merely the by products of the human mating game and provide no argument for a transcendent human spirit. And as for religion-- “that vast, moth-eaten musical brocade”, as Philip Larkin described it--it has long ago outlived its evolutionary purpose. While this may seem a bleak and reductive way to regard human nature, the scientific evidence which is widely believed to validate it appears to negate any opposing views. We are simply the cleverest monkeys on the evolutionary scale and we are deluded if we believe we are anything more than that. But in this remarkably learned and highly readable book, Iain McGilchrist argues that the scientific evidence does not support such a flatly reductive view at all. Indeed, consciousness only appears this way because of the reductive habits of mind which have come to predominate in science and incline most scientists to view the brain as a machine. Even worse, those very habits which skew the scientific understanding of consciousness now appear to affect the brain itself and are causing deleterious effects on the world we construct and inhabit.
The title of the book comes from a parable by Nietzsche in which a wise, spiritual Master appoints a talented, but short-sighted emissary to oversee his affairs only to have his vizier seize control of his properties and then run them to ruin. According to McGilchrist, the right hemisphere of the brain whose powers are intuitive, holistic and open to new information, is like the Master and the left hemisphere which is logical, reductive and closed in its operations, is like his emissary. Ideally, both hemispheres would work together harmoniously, as the right hemisphere would intuit meaning and values out of its capacity for gathering and appreciating new experiences, while the left hemisphere would perform the cognitive work which would give the right hemisphere’s directives their functional expression. But ever since the Enlightenment and the Cartesian world view which took ascendancy during it, Western culture has increasingly ceded power from the right to the left hemisphere. Now in the present era of post-modernism, the triumph of the left hemisphere is all but complete as we live in a hyper-rational age almost entirely bereft of transcendental meaning and spiritual values. Given the vast scope of its thesis it might seem that even such a prodigiously well informed book as this has attempted to present Western cultural history in too narrow a frame. Indeed, one wonders if these learned reflections on the influence of the hemispheric divide on culture offer much insight into the split nature of the brain, or try to use the divided brain itself as an authority for making some highly contentious philosophical and aesthetic judgements. But in its great, sweeping vision the book seems less concerned with constructing a flawless argument than with urging a change of perspective. The brain should not be seen so much as a fixed site of consciousness, but should instead be regarded as the pre-eminent organ of experience which both affects and is affected by the world it encounters. In this respect the book succeeds magnificently for it is hard to imagine how any book could convey so beautifully not only what is it is to feel consciously, but also how it feels to be conscious. Even so, one may still wonder if the central argument is correct.
Unfortunately, one would have to be a well informed neuroscientist to assess the factual basis upon which the book makes its case. A neuroscientist himself, McGilchrist admits that there is still much more that is unknown than is known about the brain. Even in a widely accepted phenomenon such as the hemispheric divide, for example, there is no certainty about why the brain is structured that way. And even though the brain is divided both hemispheres play a role in virtually every act and condition of consciousness. Although puzzles such as these are ones that only neuroscientists can explore and debate, there are many other questions raised by the book for the non-expert to ponder. Perhaps the foremost would be whether it is correct to regard one hemisphere or the other as responsible for particular types of engagement in the world. It may be legitimate to say that activities which mainly draw on the capacity of one hemisphere or the other dispose us to act in particular ways. But in which side of the brain do the volitions that activate the capacities of each hemisphere reside? McGilchrist is certainly opposed to the idea that consciousness can be reduced to brain activity alone. Yet by appearing to attribute agency rather than propensity to each hemisphere, it might seem that he is in league with those brain reductionists that Raymond Tallis calls neuro-maniacs.
Far from limiting himself to his medical speciality of neuroscience, McGilchrist demonstrates his great erudition in a number of other disciplines, including philosophy, literature, art and religion. All of these subjects are brought together in a survey of Western cultural history that presents a vast array of ideas which cannot be summarised here. But two things deserve mention. First is his discussion of imitation, which not only demolishes the concept of replication that is so central to meme theory, but also presents a wonderful explanation of how imitation can be an act of creation, as well as a way of understanding. Second is his discussion of metaphor in which metaphor is seen as the bodying forth of language into the felt sense of experience. Quite simply, these are brilliant ideas that are beautifully expressed and the book would be worth reading for them alone. But McGilchrist offers far more than a parade of fascinating ideas affixed to a controversial thesis about the brain. His book presents a profound ontological meditation on the reduced possibilities of experience in our spiritually desperate times. It deserves the most serious attention.
