Changing Habits of Mind: A Brain-Based Theory of Psychotherapy

Changing Habits of Mind presents a theory of personality that integrates homeostatic dynamics of the brain with self-processes, emotionality, cultural adaptation, and personal reality. Informed by the author’s brain-based, relational psychotherapeutic practice, the book discusses the brain’s evolutionary growth, the four information-processing areas of the brain, and the cortex in relationship to the limbic system. Integrating the different experiences of sensory and non-sensory processes in the brain, the text introduces a theory of personality currently lacking in psychotherapy research that integrates neurobiology and psychology for the first time. Readers will learn how to integrate psychodynamic processes with cognitive behavioral techniques, while clinical vignettes exemplify the interaction of neurophysiological process with a range of psychological variables including homeostasis, developmental family dynamics, and culture. Changing Habits of Mind expands the psychotherapist’s perspective, exploring the important links between an integrated theory of personality and effective clinical practice.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgments 1. The Dyad: Adventures in Psychotherapy's Wonderland 2. The Paradigmatic Shift: The Tyranny of Habits of Mind 3. A Theory of the Mind 4. The Ghost in the Machine 5. The "I" and its Psychological Selves: Without Our Navigator We Can't Be Sure of Where We Are Going 6. What Feelings and Emotions Really Are! 7. Emotions and Feeling 8. A Portrait of the Person 9. The Art of Psychotherapy Appendix Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Zoltan Gross has been practicing long-term intensive psychotherapy with adults since 1954. He has consulted and taught as an assistant clinical professor at UCLA Medical School and served as director of research for two hospitals and clinical director at a mental health center. At age 100, he continues to train psychotherapists in his innovative brain-based theory of personality.

Review :
"A marvelous book, filled with clinical wisdom accumulated over almost a century of life. Zoltan Gross brings the difference between content and process to a whole new level, bridging emotion process and personality process, integrating state with trait work beautifully and elegantly. He picks a sufficient amount of brain-related evidence and offers a (missing) theory of emotionality, complex at first, then dazzlingly illuminating. The work of this psychology genius still at work is finally here to stay." — Nuno Conceição, PhD, Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon, Portugal; past president of Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration "This is indispensable reading not only in psychology but also in all of the human and behavioral sciences in which mind, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviors are the subject of study. The book is a fascinating account of how a professional of human behavior came to the realization that popular conceptions of the mind are incorrect and how he arrived at a clearer understanding of the problem." — Jeffrey Bortz, PhD, professor of history, Appalachian State University "I am a clinical neurologist specializing in pain/headache. While many patients experience symptoms as manifestations of structural/functional disorders, many others have no identifiable pathology. The author’s neurophysiological-based theory of personality helps me understand how better to approach my patients’ suffering. Allowing me to consider a patient’s behavior in a language I understand improves my ability to understand their suffering. So, from the perspective of a non-therapist (who inadvertently engages in a therapeutic relationship during the practice of neurology) the theories outlined in this book are of great relevance and importance to me." — Dr. David Kudrow, Santa Monica, California "A marvelous book, filled with clinical wisdom accumulated over almost a century of life. Zoltan Gross brings the difference between content and process to a whole new level, bridging emotion process and personality process, integrating state with trait work beautifully and elegantly. He picks a sufficient amount of brain-related evidence and offers a (missing) theory of emotionality, complex at first, then dazzlingly illuminating. The work of this psychology genius still at work is finally here to stay." — Nuno Conceição, PhD, Faculty of Psychology, University of Lisbon, Portugal; past president of Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration "This is indispensable reading not only in psychology but also in all of the human and behavioral sciences in which mind, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviors are the subject of study. The book is a fascinating account of how a professional of human behavior came to the realization that popular conceptions of the mind are incorrect and how he arrived at a clearer understanding of the problem." — Jeffrey Bortz, PhD, professor of history, Appalachian State University "I am a clinical neurologist specializing in pain/headache. While many patients experience symptoms as manifestations of structural/functional disorders, many others have no identifiable pathology. The author’s neurophysiological-based theory of personality helps me understand how better to approach my patients’ suffering. Allowing me to consider a patient’s behavior in a language I understand improves my ability to understand their suffering. So, from the perspective of a non-therapist (who inadvertently engages in a therapeutic relationship during the practice of neurology) the theories outlined in this book are of great relevance and importance to me." — Dr. David Kudrow, Santa Monica, California