My Stroke of Insight (Jill Bolte Taylor)

Though the story of Dr. Taylor, neuroanatomist, experiencing a stroke is fascinating, and the story of her recovery moving and inspiring, I was ultimately disappointed in this book. The beginning held all the fascination, but the second half, where she shared the deeper, more meaningful lessons from her experience, left me cold, and I wound up skimming through, in a hurry to be done. She would say that this is a sign that I am too dominated by my linear, logical left hemisphere, and I would roll my eyes. Though a neuroanatomist and scientist, she seems to have completely bought the new-age mysticism about the brain at a level I would not accept from one of my Intro Psych students. She attributes part of her recovery to constantly thanking her body's cells for all their hard work, and believes that "this induces some sort of vibration within my body that promotes a healing environment." She attributes all manner of positive energy and feeling to the right hemisphere, saying that when others offer anger she chooses whether to "reflect your anger and engage in argument (left brain) or be empathetic and approach you with a compassionate heart (right brain)." This ignores research showing that the right hemisphere handles more negative emotions and the left handles the positive ones! Even the compelling, moment-by-moment description of the morning of the stroke is suspect; they were reconstructed a year after the event with the help of a therapist, and she doesn't doubt them at all because "Thanks to the skills of our right mind, we are capable of remembering isolated moments with uncanny clarity and accuracy." She knows nothing about the fallibility of flashbulb memories. Quite a let-down.