Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience: A Guide for Counsellors and Therapists is an essential guide to key areas of neuroscience that inform the theory underlying psychotherapy, and how they can be applied to practice. Laying out the science clearly and accessibly, it outlines what therapists need to know about the human nervous system in order to be able to engage with the subject.
Chapters cover the neuroscience underlying key aspects of therapy such as relationships, emotion, anxiety, trauma and dissociation, the mind-body connection, and the processes which enable therapists to engage deeper aspects of mind and psyche. This book responds to the need for counsellors and therapists to have an accessible and comprehensive guide to how contemporary neuroscience views mind and body.
Therapy in the Age of Neuroscience will appeal to psychotherapists, counsellors and other mental health professionals who wish to learn more about how to integrate neuroscience into their work.
Author(s): Peter Afford
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 284
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Therapy meets neuroscience
Introduction
Objections to neuroscience
Good reasons for embracing neuroscience
The nature of the beast
Neuroscience enters therapy
Conclusion
2. The brain is a nervous system
Introduction
Nervous systems: the overall framework
Neurons and synapses: the building blocks
Neural pathways: networking locally and afar
Neurochemistry: making nervous systems work in diverse ways
Neuroplasticity: brains keep changing until they die
Neural architecture: evolution across three axes
How brains work: not like computers
What brains do: the need for a nervous system
Nervous systems in the therapy room
Conclusion
Notes
3. One brain, two minds
Introduction
The strange business of the hemispheres
The differences between the hemispheres
How the hemispheres work separately and together
The hemispheres’ complementary contributions
Two minds in the therapy room (times two)
Conclusion
Notes
4. Relationships and social engagement
Introduction
The ‘social brain’
Social engagement
Social reward
Implicit social memory
Nonverbal communication
Attachment
What social brains do
Self and other
The therapeutic relationship
Conclusion
Notes
5. Emotions, feelings and the felt sense
Introduction
The emotional brain and body
Emotional systems
Arousal
Affect regulation
Feelings in the therapy room
Conclusion
Notes
6. Stress, anxiety and depression
Introduction
Stress
Stress in the body
Stress in the brain
Stress in childhood
Stress in therapy
Anxiety
Anxiety in the brain
Anxiety in the body
Anxiety in childhood
Anxiety disorders
Anxiety in therapy
Depression
Depression in the brain
Depression in the body
Depression in childhood
Theories about depression
Antidepressants and other treatments
Depression in therapy
Conclusion
Notes
7. Trauma and dissociation
Introduction
What is trauma?
Survival reactions
Trauma in the brain
Trauma in the body
Unresolved trauma
Trauma in childhood
Traumatic memory
Enactments
Dissociation
Dissociation in the brain
Dissociation in the body
Dissociation in childhood
Dissociative phenomena
Trauma and dissociation in the therapy room
Conclusion
Notes
8. Mental health matters
Introduction
Schizophrenia
Bipolar disorder
Borderline
Narcissism
Obsessive compulsive disorder
Addictions
Eating disorders
Attention deficit disorders
Sleep and insomnia
Mental health
Healing in therapy
Conclusion
Notes
9. The mind-body connection
Introduction
Mind-body questions
Body-oriented neuroanatomy
Body-brain dialogue
Somatic regulation
Emotional issues in the body
Psychosomatic issues
Pain
Touch
The body in therapy
Conclusion
Notes
10. Engaging the mind
Introduction
What is the mind?
Attention
Consciousness
Cognition
Thinking
Language
Intuition
Insight
Imagination
Creativity
Decision making
Will and agency
Humour
Reflection
Narratives
Conclusion
Notes
11. Meaningful experiences
Introduction
Making meaning
Imagery
Dreams
Transpersonal experience
Transforming the self
Conclusion
Notes
Epilogue
Ways ahead
Glossary
References
Index
