Heal Your Brain: How the New Neuropsychiatry Can Help You Go from Better to Well

by David J. Hellerstein MD

Overview

Maybe you are one of the more than 45 million people in the United States who is currently struggling with depression. Maybe anxiety keeps you from truly enjoying your job, your relationships, your life. Maybe every change you have tried to make seems to have failed and you are beginning to feel as if change is simply not possible.

Author David J. Hellerstein uses the term New Neuropsychiatry to refer to a dramatically different approach to help people who have depression and anxiety disorders. Unlike Old Psychiatry, which often focused on early life issues, the New Neuropsychiatry focuses on improving present-day life and on achieving long-term remission of symptoms. Heal Your Brain combines the advances of neuroscience and medicine with the art of the storyteller to show how the New Neuropsychiatry can alter the course of your life.

Dr. Hellerstein, a psychiatrist at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, puts this new form of psychiatry to the test. Depression and anxiety disorders damage the brain, but as Dr. Hellerstein explains, the right treatment can change the patterns of brain activity, brain cell connections, and even the brain’s anatomy. To illustrate, he relates the stories of people as they travel through various phases of New Neuropsychiatry treatment, from evaluation to therapy to remission, and illustrates how this approach can help you progress through each phase as well.

The book’s compelling narrative demonstrates that, in many cases, it is possible to achieve a stable recovery and return to—or even experience for the first time—a life free of crippling anxiety and depression.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801898839
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	03/15/2011
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David J. Hellerstein, M.D., is an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Table of Contents

Introduction
I. Getting Better
1. Disorder: "Is There Any Hope for Me?"
2. The Evaluation: You Are Not Your Diadnosis
3. The Treatments: Charting a Course for Recovery
4. On the Road: The Dramatic Beginning of Treatment
II. Getting (and Staying) Well
5. A New Vista: Daring to Dream Again
6. Moving Forward: Love, Sex, Relationships, Kids
7. Mapping the Route: From the Low Road to the High Road
8. Returning Home: Staying Well
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Kay Redfield Jamison

Heal Your Brain is a lucid and practical guide to the brain and how it can go awry. The different but complementary perspectives of psychiatrist and researcher are presented in an engaging way by Dr. Hellerstein, who is both; this breadth of understanding serves the reader well.

— Kay Redfield Jamison, Professor of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and author of An Unquiet Mind

Andrew Solomon

By translating complex science, Dr. Hellerstein bridges the perilous gap between research and clinical treatment. He has written an informative and compassionate book.

— Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Richard A. Friedman

"Dr. Hellerstein's achievement is remarkable: he gives patients and their loved ones a clear and concise road map of the best that modern psychiatry has to offer, weaving the latest brain science with clinical wisdom. Not everyone will be lucky enough to have Dr. Hellerstein as their psychiatrist. The good news is that they can buy his book."

From the Publisher

Dr. Hellerstein's achievement is remarkable: he gives patients and their loved ones a clear and concise road map of the best that modern psychiatry has to offer, weaving the latest brain science with clinical wisdom. Not everyone will be lucky enough to have Dr. Hellerstein as their psychiatrist. The good news is that they can buy his book.
—Richard A. Friedman, M.D., Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Director, Psychopharmacology Clinic, Weill Cornell Medical College

By translating complex science, Dr. Hellerstein bridges the perilous gap between research and clinical treatment. He has written an informative and compassionate book.
—Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Heal Your Brain is a lucid and practical guide to the brain and how it can go awry. The different but complementary perspectives of psychiatrist and researcher are presented in an engaging way by Dr. Hellerstein, who is both; this breadth of understanding serves the reader well.
—Kay Redfield Jamison, Professor of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and author of An Unquiet Mind

Editorial Reviews

Engaging and understandable.
—The Mood Disorders Support Group

Columbia University Psychiatrict David J. Hellerstein's fascinating book, Heal Your Brain: How the New Neuropsychiatry Can Help You Go from Better to Well, articulates and helps create a new watershed moment in psychiatric worldview.
—Bradley Lewis, Psychotherapy Newsletter

From the Publisher

Columbia University Psychiatrict David J. Hellerstein's fascinating book, Heal Your Brain: How the New Neuropsychiatry Can Help You Go from Better to Well, articulates and helps create a new watershed moment in psychiatric worldview.

Psychotherapy Newsletter - Bradley Lewis

Engaging and understandable.

The Mood Disorders Support Group

Columbia University Psychiatrict David J. Hellerstein's fascinating book, Heal Your Brain: How the New Neuropsychiatry Can Help You Go from Better to Well, articulates and helps create a new watershed moment in psychiatric worldview.

— Bradley Lewis

Psychotherapy Newsletter