Remapping Your Mind: The Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story

by Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Barbara Mainguy M.A. (Primary Contributor)

A guide to retelling your personal, family, and cultural stories to transform your life, your relationships, and the world

• Applies the latest neuroscience research on memory, brain mapping, and brain plasticity to the field of narrative therapy

• Details mind-mapping and narrative therapy techniques that use story to change behavior patterns in ourselves, our relationships, and our communities

• Explores how narrative therapy can help replace dysfunctional cultural stories with ones that build healthier relationships with each other and the planet

We are born into a world of stories that quickly shapes our behavior and development without our conscious awareness. By retelling our personal, family, and cultural narratives we can transform the patterns of our own lives as well as the patterns that shape our communities and the larger social worlds in which we interact.

Applying the latest neuroscience research on memory, brain mapping, and brain plasticity to the field of narrative therapy, Lewis Mehl-Madrona and Barbara Mainguy explain how the brain is specialized in the art of story-making and story-telling. They detail mind-mapping and narrative therapy techniques that use story to change behavior patterns in ourselves, our relationships, and our communities. They explore studies that reveal how memory works through story, how the brain recalls things in narrative rather than lists, and how our stories modify our physiology and facilitate health or disease. Drawing on their decades of experience in narrative therapy, the authors examine the art of helping people to change their story, providing brain-mapping practices to discover your inner storyteller and test if the stories you are living are functional or dysfunctional, healing or destructive. They explain how to create new characters and new stories, ones that excite you, help you connect with yourself, and deepen your intimate connections with others.

Detailing how shared stories and language form culture, the authors also explore how narrative therapy can help replace dysfunctional cultural stories with those that offer templates for healthier relationships with each other and the planet.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology

320 pages, Paperback

First published July 17, 2015

About the author

Lewis graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine and trained in family medicine, psychiatry, and clinical psychology. He completed his residencies in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has been on the faculties of several medical schools, most recently as associate professor of family medicine at the University of New England. He continues to work with aboriginal communities to develop uniquely aboriginal styles of healing and health care for use in those communities. He is interested in the relation of healing through dialogue in community and psychosis. He is the author of Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, and Coyote Wisdom, a trilogy of books on what Native culture has to offer the modern world. He has also written Narrative Medicine, Healing the Mind through the Power of Story: the Promise of Narrative Psychiatry, and, his most recent book with Barbara Mainguy, Remapping Your Mind: the Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story.

Reviews

[Janel Atlas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a PhD student who is interested in the role that writing and personal narratives play in healing and wellness. I read this book as one of the popular culture texts pertaining to these topics, and I really liked it.

Strengths of the book:
-give real life stories of patients with whom the authors have worked, describing particular ailments and struggles and interpretations of how story relates
-made a compelling case for the power that stories play in our health and ways of being in the world
-illustrated embodied and creative ways of working through trauma and repressed feelings/memories to complement (not replace) medical and more traditional psychological care

Weaknesses of the book:
-while the authors do refer to neuroscientific knowledge, it often seemed like a bit of an afterthought or a tag-on, as opposed to being a central element of the book's argument. I found this to be a bit disappointing because of the book's title.
-the authors included box activities that readers could do themselves, but the text read more like an overview/introduction to these types of narrative work approaches than it did like something that an individual could easily apply by themselves.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A "must read" book. Well written and inspiring. It focuses on matters people are actualy able to control and states the reality of one's true potential. Definitely recommend it!

[Justyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been interested in learning more about Narrative Therapy and was glad to find a book about the approach weaving in both neuroscience with creative modalities. Written by a psychiatrist and creative arts therapist, the book takes a holistic approach to complement traditional medical and psychological treatments. Healing isn't a patient coming to be healed by an expert, rather a clinician holding a space to heal and for someone to tell their story and be heard. From there, we explore where these stories originated and co-create new stories that will lead to better outcomes. The book is filled with techniques for practitioners to use. In particular, I liked how one can identify specific characters in various narratives, help someone talk to those characters, or consider what those characters might do to change. Many stories which harm us are ones we've learned from childhood or ongoing ones reinforced by dominant cultural values of society (e.g. illness rendering one a passive victim). It makes Narrative Therapy a valuable tool in deconstructing those ideas and giving people more agency in their lives. The authors also include an appendix with all the brain areas involved in narrative processing for those curious about more in-depth neuroscience. Overall, Remapping Your Mind is a pretty informative read on Narrative Therapy with a neuroscience/creative arts lens.

[Andrea Stoeckel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad overview of the idea of narrative therapy from two of the pioneers. Using many bibliographic citations, they lay the foundation of the idea that the body tells the story, and how good or bad the programs related are.

Good overview with no easy answers presented in narrative/story format

[Lucas Robak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written for professional psychologists, it still has great insights into the mind and actionable steps anyone can take.