Description

This book is written for the clinician, students, and practitioners of neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, and behavioral neurology. It has been my intent throughout to present a synthesis of ideas and research findings. I have reviewed thousands of articles and research reports and have drawn extensively from diverse sources in philosophy, psychol- ogy, neurology, neurosurgery, neuropsychiatry, physiology, and neuroanatomy in order to produce this text. Of course I have also drawn from my own experience as a clinician and research scientist in preparing this work and in this regard some of my own biases and interests are represented. I have long sought to understand the human mind and the phenomena we experience as conscious awareness. After many years of studying a variety of Western and Eastern psychologists and philosophers, including the Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophical systems, I began, while still an undergraduate student, to formulate my own theory of the mind. I felt, though, that what I had come upon were only pieces of half the puzzle. What I knew of the brain was minimal. Indeed, it came as quite a surprise when one day I came across the journal Brain as I was browsing through the periodicals section of the library. I was awed. An entire journal devoted to the brain was quite a revelation. Nevertheless, although intrigued by the possibilities, I resisted.