Rita Carter

Mapping The Mind by Rita Carter is one of those serendipitous finds in books that make one forget all the overhyped titles to which we are exposed. This is more than a coffee table book for the layman but, thankfuly, less than a medical school text. It is by a British science writer with extensive sidebars by recognized experts in neuropsychology. This illustrations are top rate. One can actually learn from the illustrations so that one can relate the text to the concept. This is exactly the show more way it should be. If I were emperor of the world, my first decree would be that all text must be made understandable with extensive and top quality illustrations. That, neighbors, is how humans evolved - visual! visual! visual! Those pesky words, spoken and later written, came later.

As a premed student, I was apalled how much of what I had to study seemed designed to be obscure, even though the principle, if one could understand it from text alone, was simple. Rita Carter does us all, those of us who really want to learn about neuropsychology, a great service by her accurate yet easy to read text, an interesting but not condescending writing style, and choosing a publisher who knows how to publish a thoroughly usable book on neuropsychology for the lay person. In general, those who know can't write, and those who write, don't know.

I'm not going to rehash details from the book - I'm sure others have done that. I am, however, going to tell you that there is so much "Oh, my God, so that's why people (fill in the blank)!" that your view of yourself and others, if not your entire view of a philosophical or religious take on life may hang by a thread.

There are plenty of clinical examples - the woman whose right hand would pick out a sensible dress whilst her left hand would pick out a wildly colorful dress, comes to mind. She suffered the 'alien hand' syndrome due to separation of the two brain hemispheres at the corpus callosum through surgery to cure her of severe epilepsy. Afterward, she had no dominant side, thus each side did what it wanted.

This is not cocktail party talk. This hits at the essence of what it means to be human. We are still human even if parts of us doesn't work. I don't have my appendix anymore, yet no social stigma attaches to that. Unfortunately, neuro-psychiatric illnesses generate enormous misunderstanding and human tragedy. Yet the principle is the same. There's just a part of us that doesn't work right. Or is missing. Or damaged in an accident.

Reading this book may help people put that in perspective. I'd recommend it for anyone who needed to understand the situation of someone with an NP disorder. From erectile disorder to schizophrenia, there is a neurological explanation, thanks to the miracle of functional imaging techniques of the last fifteen years or so, for a wide range of conditions. Nothing is shameful. What is shameful is cutting someone who simply has something wrong with their body. Shifting someone to a lower status in the family or the neighborhood simply because they have Alzheimers or La Tourette syndrome.

We might hope that in this century neuropsychology may progress such that effective treatments may be devised for many of the disabling conditions mentioned in this excellent book. If you have a motive to read a book like this - then Mapping The Mind by Rita Carter is the one I recommend. show less

If there is a course out there entitled "Neuroscience for eight-year-olds," this is surely the text for it.

Let me be clear: This is an authoritative, beautifully illustrated, highly informative... comic book. No, not really, but it isn't a book. It's a bunch of illustrations with a little text scattered here and there. Everything consists of two-page spreads on one or another topic. All are illustrated in beautiful color, with both illustrations and photographs. It must have cost a mint to show more produce.

But it's like a deck of flashcards. There is no narrative. Want a two-page spread on the limbic system? Here it is. Want a detailed description of the limbic system? Sorry, we don't do text.

How you will feel about this depends on what you want. I bought this book because I wanted the very latest research. But I wanted something to read, to help get the big picture. Instead, what I got was a lot of, ahem, big pictures. It's not the same thing. show less

More years ago than I care to remember I undertook a Myers Briggs personality assessment. Whilst I’ve forgotten much else since then, I still recall the result and the warm feeling as the description of who I was matched who I felt I was. There’s something undeniably comforting about the feeling of being understood, even if only by a matrix of questions. However, even then I wondered which of me was being assessed. Was it the schoolboy, so quiet that my teacher on parents evening had to show more double check for my mother that I was actually in his class? Was it the software writer who played the part of the team clown? Was it the speaker with an audience of 5,000 in the heart of Tehran?

Who did the results describe, and what if anything did they say about the future?

This book explores the multiplicity of personalities that almost all of us have.

The first half of the book describes the theory, building a spectrum which at one end has people with a single personality responding in the same way to all situations. At the other extreme is Multiple Personality Disorder, a Jekyll and Hyde like state where completely separate personalities inhabit the same person. Between these extremes we find most of us with multiple personalities connected by shared memories.

Rita suggests these other me’s are for example tapped into by the stage hypnotist for comic effect, or felt more prosaically as we switch from our work to home persona on the drive home.

The book is profusely scattered with vivid examples used to illustrate the arguments.

To a large extent we are unaware of these alternate personalities, and have little conscious choice of who to be at any moment. The thrust of the book is that this community of people we are offers immense potential, a pool of people we can draw upon to meet challenges and create opportunities.

Part 2 of the book provides a set of tools which will help you become more aware of the range of personalities you have, how to access them, change and create them. The result is a suite of you’s better tailored for different situations.

In the hands of consultants these ideas would quickly be abused as answers to apply, but as questions with which to explore who you are and can become this is a very powerful and intriguing book. show less

Ego-states or personalities as Carter calls them neatly explain why we all have such contradictory traits, why we are sometimes at odds with ourselves, feelings come upon as "for no discernable reason" and we occasionally do things which are "completely unlike" us.

I am one of those who experience contradictory thoughts constantly battling it out in here, trying to beat each other into submission. That would be different ego-states not getting the team work vibe.

Multiplicity explains the show more concept of and guides you through becoming aware of/conscious of your ego-states so you can better get to know yourselves and get the teamwork going.

Ego-states have been known about for a long time but there seems to be a tendency to associate these personality clusters/fragments with trauma and mental illness. I can't wait to read more about ego-states as seen in the healthy brain.

An exciting, thought provoking but light read and fun with personality testing to boot :-) show less