Product Description

In Altered Egos, Dr. Todd Feinberg presents a new theory of the self based on his first-hand experience as both a psychiatrist and neurologist. Feinberg introduces dozens of intriguing cases of patients whose disorders have resulted in what he calls "altered egos": a change in the brain that transforms the boundaries of the self. He describes patients who suffer from "alien hand syndrome" where one hand might attack the patient's own throat, patients with frontal lobe damage who invent fantastic stories about their lives, paralyzed patients who reject and disown one of their limbs. He then argues that the brain damage suffered by these people has done more than simply impair certain functions--it has fragmented their sense of self. From these fascinating cases, Feinberg proposes a new model of the self that links the workings of the brain with unique and personal features of the mind, such as meaning, purpose, and being. Drawing on his own and other evidence, he explains how the unified self, while not located in one or another brain region, arises out of the staggering complexity and number of the brain's component parts. Lucid, insightful, filled with fascinating case studies and provocative new ideas, Altered Egos promises to change the way we think about human consciousness and the creation and maintenance of human identity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #409194 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-15
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .70 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From Amazon.co.uk
Stroke victims who think their limbs belong to someone else. Alzheimer's sufferers who believe their wives have been swapped. Blood clot victims convinced all their possessions have been replaced with inferior products. These are the kind of frightening yet fascinating cases encountered by American neurologist Todd Feinberg in a lifetime's work in Manhattan's top hospitals: cases he has now used, like Oliver Sacks, to explore his concept of individual "selfness", how the brain perceives itself and the body as an organic whole.

The first few chapters are full of case histories like the above: bizarre, macabre, intriguing. With these building blocks Feinberg coolly and persuasively constructs his thesis: that our sense of ourselves is a fragile thing dependent on mental and physical health, and yet is flexible enough to absorb and adapt to catastrophic changes in circumstance. Along the way Feinberg cites Descartes alongside Doctor Strangelove, the Wizard of Oz next to Immanuel Kant, in a style that is personable, humane, concerned and very readable. In the end this is a kind of testament, by a man at the coal face of the human condition, to the strange and extraordinary uniqueness of homosapiens. --Sean Thomas

From Booklist
Feinberg is a neurologist whose treatment of patients with bizarre mental illnesses has led him to ponder that sense of mental unity we call experience. As brain research has progressed, that sense has remained stubbornly resistant to explication; indeed, it has grown more mysterious even as the anatomy of the living brain has become well understood. Feinberg frequently iterates this paradox before propounding his answer to it; before then, he recounts patients who exhibited, following an injury to their brains, a drastic degradation in self-awareness. Previously ordinary people can no longer recognize themselves in mirrors; believe that their limbs belong to somebody else; and, if blinded, insist their vision is 20/20. To Feinberg, these symptoms reinforce his impression of the self's malleability and initiate his argument, with references to Descartes, about how the brain shapes the self. He offers, after refuting notions that the organ has a locus for the self as it does for vision, a version of the self-as-emergent-phenomenon idea. Avoiding undue technical jargon, Feinberg's presentation ably elucidates for general readers the material/ethereal nexus of self-perception. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Altered Egos offers us a dazzling array of neurological syndromes to show how delicately constructed is our sense of self...The shock of such tales is to see how distorted your mental realm can become without you ever knowing the difference." --New Scientist

"Anyone perplexed by the riddle of consciousness--and who is not these days?--should read Todd Feinberg's bold, energetic account of how a brain makes a mind."--John Horgan, author of The Undiscovered Mind

"A fascinating book. I was astonished to find out that one of my favorite film characters, Dr. Strangelove, is actually displaying signs of 'alien hand,' a medical syndrome. There are many real-life case studies in this book used to explain the way the human mind invents and reinvents itself. A must read!"--Gus Van Sant, director of Good Will Hunting and Psycho

"This is an ambitious work, tackling no less than the mind-body problem. Amazingly, it is successful in that it offers a new way of thinking about problems of self, subjectivity and meaning.... I am extremely enthusiastic about this book."--Martha J. Farah, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania

"In the tradition of Jackson, Critchley, and Sacks, Todd Feinberg melds clinical wisdom, impressive scholarship, and profound philosophical insight to produce a lucid and enchanting account of what determines our daily actions and experiences. Far beyond the tired genre of "neurostories," Altered Egos examines the souls behind the symptoms to give the reader a stunning appreciation of how all the aspects of our lives that we take for grantedour perceptions, memories, feelings, and beliefsare actually sculpted and crafted from myriad experiential elements that can only be dissected and examined under the harsh lens of injury or disease. Above all, Altered Egos shows us how intentionalitythe purposeful seeking of meaningis what distinguishes us from both beast and computer, and this warm and thoughtful book provides a blueprint of what it truly means to be a human being."-- Laurence Miller, Ph.D., author of Inner Natures and Freud's Brain

"Altered Egos combines philosophy and psychology with case histories of neurological and psychiatric patients to paint a novel picture of how the brain makes the self. It's fascinating reading, start to finish." --Joseph E. LeDoux, Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, New York University, and author of The Emotional Brain