Both chemical changes and structural changes can take place in the brain from psychological trauma so the idea of a measurable issue indicating some sort of innate abnormality is the "hardware" is, IMO, not as helpful as the behaviourist mindset would like to assert. I don't think the disease model is as helpful in the soul/brain understanding, John W., as it is in other areas of human health like rabies or tetnus. I think the word normal is especially misleading. In areas of mental health that are more impacted by "hardware" or genetic set-up humanity is a spectrum from typical to less so.
Neither of these reservations questions the experience of a loss of volition. I have seen the true self so totally submerged under a wounded part that it would be ridiculous to assert responsibilty of the kind I think you are getting at.
Not yet Sam. I am on it. I am immersed in the subject and have read other stuff by her. Would you ask that of readers of the review who also hadn't read the book but were instantly happy to exchange the review's (in my opinion clearly flawed) criteria for their own? The review's axe shavings are so poorly swept up that it became a piece of work in its own right. Just the unpacked snipe about parenting contra to the feelings of Harriet herself was enough to question the whole for me. But thanks for wondering.
|