Anxious

Zusatztext 90858822 Informationen zum Autor Joseph LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at New York University, where he is a member of the Center for Neural Science and the Department of Psychology. He directs the Emotional Brain Institute at New York University and at the Nathan Kline Institute, and is the author of Synaptic Self and The Emotional Brain . A member of the National Academy of Sciences, LeDoux lives in Brooklyn, New York. Klappentext "A rigorous, in-depth guide to the history, philosophy, and scientific exploration of this widespread emotional state . . . [LeDoux] offers a magisterial review of the role of mind and brain in the generation of unconscious defense responses and consciously expressed anxiety. . . . [His] charming personal asides give an impression of having a conversation with a world expert." -Nature A comprehensive and accessible exploration of anxiety, from a leading neuroscientist and the author of Synaptic Self Collectively, anxiety disorders are our most prevalent psychiatric problem, affecting about forty million adults in the United States. In Anxious, Joseph LeDoux, whose NYU lab has been at the forefront of research efforts to understand and treat fear and anxiety, explains the range of these disorders, their origins, and discoveries that can restore sufferers to normalcy. LeDoux's groundbreaking premise is that we've been thinking about fear and anxiety in the wrong way. These are not innate states waiting to be unleashed from the brain, but experiences that we assemble cognitively. Treatment of these problems must address both their conscious manifestations and underlying non-conscious processes. While knowledge about how the brain works will help us discover new drugs, LeDoux argues that the greatest breakthroughs may come from using brain research to help reshape psychotherapy. A major work on one of our most pressing mental health issues, Anxious explains the science behind fear and anxiety disorders. Praise for Anxious: "[Anxious] helps to explain and prevent the kinds of debilitating anxieties all of us face in this increasingly stressful world." -Daniel J. Levitin, author of The Organized Mind and This Is Your Brain on Music "A careful tour through the current neuroscience of fear and anxiety . . . [Anxious] will reward the informed reader." -The Wall Street Journal "An extraordinarily ambitious, provocative, challenging, and important book. Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience (including work in his own laboratory), LeDoux provides explanations of the origins, nature, and impact of fear and anxiety disorders." -Psychology Today PREFACE When I completed my previous book, Synaptic Self, which was published in 2002, I wasn't certain I wanted to write another book for a general audience. I had gotten the idea that the way to really have an impact on the field was to write a textbook in my particular area, behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. My agents, John Brockman and Katinka Matson, urged me not to, as did my editor at Viking, Rick Kot, each of them warning me that I would regret it as a publishing experience. After struggling with the project for almost a decade, I had to admit that they were correct. I discovered that the textbook format was far too restrictiveit had to be fresh and innovative . . . so long as it was just like every other competing book. After each chapter was reviewed by a number of teachers from a mix of universities, colleges, and junior colleges around the country, I began to feel little connection to the edited text that was resulting and concluded that my role was more to be a name on the cover than to actually drive the content. A few years ago I ran into Rick at a reading by our friend Rosanne Cash, who wrote Composed under his editorship, and he asked with...

“Every age believes itself to be the age of anxiety, as Auden’s famous poem first put it. But in his new book, Anxious, the neuroscientist and writer Joseph LeDoux suggests that that has never been a stronger claim to make than it is now . . . . If this is the age of anxiety, LeDoux is our Lewis and our Clark: It was LeDoux who laid down the first map of what is called the brain’s ‘fear circuit,’ the regions—centered on the amygdala and its adjacent structures—that together give rise to our ability to respond to threats and danger. But with his new book, he wants to redraw that map.”
—Casey Schwartz*, New York Magazine

“Mr. LeDoux offers a careful tour through the current neuroscience of fear and anxiety. . . . [*Anxious] will reward the informed reader.”
—Leonore Tiefer, The Wall Street Journal

“LeDoux presents a rigorous, in-depth guide to the history, philosophy and scientific exploration of this widespread emotional state. . . . Neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers and psychiatrists will find this exquisitely referenced book particularly useful. It is also a must-read for young investigators, and anyone perusing the footnotes will be rewarded with an insider’s view of the state and evolution of anxiety research. LeDoux’s charming personal asides give an impression of having a conversation with a world expert. LeDoux ends on a high note, describing how cutting-edge research on the neural substrates of anxiety is being translated into new approaches for psychiatric treatment.”
—Susanne Ahmari, Nature

“LeDoux is not only a pioneer in the neurobiological analysis of fear in animals but also a scholarly and accessible writer. In Anxious, he systematically builds on his earlier works, covering with aplomb a vast literature on emotion, memory, attention, and consciousness. With that said, Anxious is a significant and important departure from the author’s earlier views on the neural underpinnings of fear. . . . In Anxious, LeDoux challenges the reader to think differently about the neural origins of fear and its disorders. In doing so, he offers a masterful synthesis of animal and human work and a novel roadmap for future work in both the laboratory and the clinic.”
—Stephen Maren, Science

“Anxious is an extraordinarily ambitious, provocative, challenging, and important book. Drawing on the latest research in neuro-science (including work in his own laboratory), LeDoux provides explanations of the origins, nature, and impact of fear and anxiety disorders.”
—Glenn Altschuler, Psychology Today

“Drawing on years of research, neuroscientist LeDoux delves into the subject of anxiety and fear, depicting both emotions as cognitive constructs. . . . [Anxious] will open up new worlds of thinking and feeling”
—Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully erudite, informative, and splendidly well written. Helps to explain and prevent the kinds of debilitating anxieties all of us face in this increasingly stressful world. Any author who can weave Leonard Bernstein, W. H. Auden, The Rolling Stones, and Alfred E. Neuman into a single illustrative example is on my short list for favorite writers ever.”
—Daniel J. Levitin, author of The Organized Mind *and *This Is Your Brain On Music
 
“Joseph LeDoux [is] the William James of our era. . . . This marvelous book is science at its best. It traces the evolution of a key set of scientific insights based on progressively better empirical data, most of these derived from LeDoux’s brilliant studies, and applies these new insights to a family of clinically important phenomenon. Anxious is an absolute must read for clinicians and basic scientists as well as for anyone else interested in anxiety and its disorders.”
—Eric R. Kandel, Kavli Professor and University Profes…