The Archaeology of Mind

This book has the capacity to integrate affective neuroscience into the consciousness of not only therapists, but also those interested in understanding depth motivation that sustains or pathologizes our every action and thought. It is a truly pioneering effort. Its deep truths about the origins of mind and feeling, and the implications for altering how we see ourselves over evolutionary time, connected to our fellow social mammals and birds, also has implications for how we treat our fellow travelers on this planet. -- Stuart Brown, MD, Founder and President, The National Institute for Play Jaak Panksepp is the most important theorist of mental life that I have read since Freud. The impact of his scientific contributions will be felt for decades to come. His findings-so lucidly introduced in this accessible book with Lucy Biven-herald a new Golden Age. They are almost bound to place 21st-century psychiatry on a whole new foundation. In these pages, the supposed chasm between mind and brain disappears before your eyes, the veil is lifted, and new vistas appear before you. These vistas are the future of the science of the mind. -- Mark Solms, editor of Freud's Complete Works Immensely learned, consistently lucid, and truly groundbreaking. This book repeatedly elicited my 'ahhhh, yes.' For Panksepp and Biven, understanding the evolution of the brain holds the key to solving large-scale mysteries about how the brain works. Thus, they draw upon detailed comparisons of the behavior and functional anatomy in mammals, from rodents to humans. The upshot is a profoundly insightful theory, especially as it explains the complex relation between the subcortical platform of motivations, emotions, and automatic responses, and the evolutionary newcomer-the cortex- whose sophisticated contribution to control, evaluation and knowledge emerges as the brain learns and develops into maturity. -- Patricia Smith Churchland, Professor Emerita, University of California, San Diego Panksepp's perspective on the continuity of animal and human minds has not received the attention it deserves. Here are the collected facts and the reasoning behind that compelling view. An indispensable volume. -- Antonio Damasio, author, Self Comes to Mind; David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California This is a highly original and exciting book. The vital distinction between eager anticipation and straightforward pleasure is only one among many of its important findings. The implications for clinical assessment and treatment, especially with depressed and cut-off patients, are profound. -- Anne Alvarez, PhD MACP, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, Tavistock Clinic, London The book will be of special interest to psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, but it is also accessible to students, parents, educators, and animal behaviorists. -- Book News Inc. [A]n exhaustive work, covering a neglected and often misunderstood field . . . . Nowhere else will you really find due diligence done on the non-conscious biases of humans and animals . . . . [E]ssential reading, not only to us as mind professionals, but to teachers, parents, personal and physical trainers and coaches. Emotions are still everything, and vital to understanding why we are what we are, and why we do and have done, everything in the past and now. An amazing buy. -- Metapsychology Online Reviews Integrative, judicious, creative, welcoming of divergent perspectives, and very accessible, this is a grand synthesis and should be part of every library. . . . Essential. -- CHOICE [W]ill appeal to anyone who seeks to understand the origins of our emotions and the mechanisms that tie our affective experiences to our behaviors. Clinicians and psychotherapists are an obvious potential audience. Panksepp and Biven . . . contend that an affective neuroscience perspective has a lot to offer to psychiatric research and practice. . . . [T]his text is accessible to a host of researchers trained in that theoretical tradition, including, but not limited to, the rapidly growing community of evolutionary psychologists across diverse academic disciplines. . . . [W]ould be appropriate reading for an advanced undergraduate course or a graduate seminar across the many disciplines that are now adopting neuroscientific methods of inquiry to study human psychology and behavior. -- PsycCritiques [A] successful overview of the affective systems . . . . [O]f interest not only to basic scientists interested in preclinical modeling but also to clinicians and clinical researchers interested in the neurobiology of addiction, emotional disorders, and novel pharmacological and psychosocial interventions. -- Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease