The Brain That Changes Itself

The new book by Dr. Norman Doidge, a doctor of medicine, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, is a continuation of his bestseller “The Brain’s Plasticity.” It is devoted to one important discovery: the human brain has a unique ability to heal itself. The book includes many real stories and analysis, reflections, and paradoxical conclusions. For most of the patients discussed in the book, doctors had given hopeless diagnoses. But Doidge tells of cases of recovery after stroke and Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and autism, attention deficit syndrome and dyslexia. He describes natural ways to stimulate the brain using movement, light, sound, and vibrations—methods that awaken the brain’s own healing abilities, restoring coordination, speech, vision, and other vital functions of a person.