On
the morning of the 10th December 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a
thirty-seven-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive
stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain.
A
neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate
to the point that she lost the ability to walk, talk, read, write, or recall any
of her life, all within the space of four hours. As the damaged left side of her
brain - the rational, logical, detail and time-oriented side - swung in an out
of function, Taylor alternated between two distinct and opposite realities: the
euphoric Nirvana of the intuitive and emotional right brain, in which she felt a
sense of complete well-being and peace; and the logical left brain, that
realized Jill was having a stroke and enabled her to seek help before she was
lost completely.
In
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, Taylor brings
to light a new perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery that she
gained through the intimate experience of awakening her own injured mind. The
journey to recovery took eight years for Jill to feel completely healed. Using
her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her
human form, and an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and
recalibrated her understanding of the world according to the insight gained from
her right brain that December morning.
About the Author
Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. is a neuroanatomist
affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. She
is the national spokesperson for the mentally ill at the Harvard Brain Tissue
Resource Center (Brain Bank) and the consulting neuroanatomist for the Midwest
Proton Radiotherapy Institute.
Jill’s older brother was schizophrenic and she had
often wondered what made his reality so very different from hers, so this led
her into becoming a neuro-anatomist in order to explore what goes wrong in the
brains of those with Schizophrenia.
I found this an inspirational and informative book.
I wish I had read it before my brother had the stroke from which he subsequently
died. I would have been more aware of how to help him and how to communicate
with him. One section deals with what Jill needed to recover which is very
helpful, but it would be useful to have even more information on the nature of
the care and therapy (speech, cognitive and physical) which enabled her to
recover.
The book is easy to read, and although the couple of
technical scientific chapters are more challenging, they are very useful and not
too complicated. It starts with a short section on the brain and Jill’s early
pre-stroke career. The middle section describes the actual stroke and how it
affected her on all levels, followed by her subsequent recovery and
re-engagement with normal life. The final part of the book is a mixture of
advice for others, her personal take on life and further information on how she
used and uses certain techniques to rewire her brain and to control her state of
mind.
The author has been on Oprah and I watched the
interview on You Tube and found it very interesting if very American in its
presentation. Nevertheless it is well worth watching and the book is well worth
reading.
Ro
Bennett
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