The Emotional Brain

by JosephLeDoux (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $5.15

  The science behind David Goleman's Emotional Intelligence The Emotional Brain provides a cutting-edge scientific background to such books as Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, showing that while cognitive studies have tended to ignore the emotions, we are increasingly understanding how crucial they are to our evolutionary survival, as shortcuts to cut through conscious reasoning when speed and rules-of-thumb are more important and effective than logic. Much of our emotional life is lived unconsciously, and is far richer than simply our conscious feelings - for example, our conscious mind will already be reacting to situations of danger some time before we begin to be afraid. Not only does LeDoux present a fascinating insight into how our emotions function normally, but also provides a new understanding of emotional disorders.

• Used

  Paperback
  1998

  $7.02

  What happens in our brains to make us feel fear, love, hate, anger, joy? do we control our emotions, or do they control us? Do animals have emotions? How can traumatic experiences in early childhood influence adult behavior, even though we have no conscious memory of them? In The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux investigates the origins of human emotions and explains that many exist as part of complex neural systems that evolved to enable us to survive. Unlike conscious feelings, emotions originate in the brain at a much deeper level, says LeDoux, a leading authority in the field of neural science and one of the principal researchers profiled in Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence. In this provocative book, LeDoux explores the underlying brain mechanisms responsible for our emotions, mechanisms that are only now being revealed. The Emotional Brain presents some fascinating findings about our familiar yet little understood emotions. For example, our brains can detect danger before we even experience the feeling of being afraid. The brain also begins to initiate physical responses (heart palpitations, sweaty palms, muscle tension) before we become aware of an associated feeling of fear. Conscious feelings, says LeDoux, are somewhat irrelevant to the way the emotional brain works. He points out that emotional responses are hard-wired into the brain's circuitry, but the things that make us emotional are learned through experience. And this may be the key to understanding, even changing, our emotional makeup. Many common psychiatric problems - such as phobias or posttraumatic stress disorder - involve malfunctions in the way emotion systems learn and remember. Understanding how thesemechanisms normally work will have important consequences for how we view ourselves and how we treat emotional disorders.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1998

  $6.77

  LeDoux's book provides a cutting edge scientific background to such books as Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence , showing that while cognitive scientists have tended to ignore the emotions, we are increasingly understanding how crucial they are to our evolutionary survival, short cuts to cut through conscious reasoning when speed and rules of thumb are more important and effective than logic.

• New

  Paperback
  1999

  $14.99

  The science behind David Goleman's Emotional Intelligence The Emotional Brain provides a cutting-edge scientific background to such books as Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, showing that while cognitive studies have tended to ignore the emotions, we are increasingly understanding how crucial they are to our evolutionary survival, as shortcuts to cut through conscious reasoning when speed and rules-of-thumb are more important and effective than logic. Much of our emotional life is lived unconsciously, and is far richer than simply our conscious feelings - for example, our conscious mind will already be reacting to situations of danger some time before we begin to be afraid. Not only does LeDoux present a fascinating insight into how our emotions function normally, but also provides a new understanding of emotional disorders.