Recommended Books

I love Stephen Johnson as a writer, I'd read his shopping list. He presents ideas in a beautifully coherent way, in this case by cleverly using an examination of his own brain as a structure for exploring the latest theories from neuroscience. Stunningly relevant on many levels, and a lovely read.

When I first read this book the first 100 pages or so were such a trial I could hardly bear to continue. Something made me persevere, and I'm glad I did. The book opens up into a wonderful exploration of information theory applied to consciousness. Probably ahead of its time, it really makes you think about the strong possibility that our 'self' is an illusion created by the brain.

Martin Seligman is the guy who began the Positive Psychology movement, which has provided some of the most useful insights into how to improve our mental wellbeing. Authentic Happiness is packed with the results of studying how happy people create their happiness - and how unhappy people can change. Optimism is a state of mind that can be created. As therapists it's really worthwhile knowing how.

Malcolm Gladwell is one of my favourite writers. He has that rare ability to find stories that link together to both inform and entertain. The subject of Blink is what Galdwell calls 'thin slicing'; the ability of our intuition to make a decision based on a momentary exposure to information. As a therapist and trainer it's useful on several levels: Gladwell shows how intuition that's untrained by effort and experience is capable of glaring errors, and also he has interesting things to say about the nature of how we acquire our ability to 'know' something without knowing how we know. A great book to take on holiday.