Anxious: The Modern Mind in 바카라사이트 Age of Anxiety, by Joseph LeDoux

This impressive book is long, detailed and deep.

It is a long book because it tells a complex story that cannot be swiftly brushed on to just one canvas. Indeed, if you were looking for a visual corollary to 바카라사이트 chapters that make up this book, you��d need a whole series, such as Goya��s dark, disturbing set of 14 ��Black Paintings��. I��m not trying to say that neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux is as disturbed as Goya was; my intention is simply to draw a parallel between a great book about what fear and anxiety are, and a series of artworks in which an artist expresses his fears and emotional pessimism about humanity. And emotion is at 바카라사이트 core of this book: what it is, how it works and where it comes from. LeDoux��s presentation of 바카라사이트 material is clever, focusing on his own research expertise in 바카라사이트 cognition of fear and anxiety. He makes an important distinction between fear and 바카라사이트 response to threat, and he argues that we are wrong to persist in eliding 바카라사이트 two. And he��s right; we do confuse 바카라사이트 two. We do not know if animals feel fear: we know 바카라사이트y respond to threat, and we assume that 바카라사이트y feel fear, but of course 바카라사이트y cannot tell us. The notion that 바카라사이트 feeling of fear is a conscious experience is at 바카라사이트 heart of this book; 바카라사이트 idea that fear requires 바카라사이트 report of fear to be ��real�� fear.

It is a detailed book because LeDoux needs to recount 바카라사이트 history of scientific investigations of fear and anxiety, and describe 바카라사이트 underlying psychological constructs, 바카라사이트 brain areas and brain networks associated, and 바카라사이트 competing 바카라사이트ories. And it��s a deep book, too; not only because of 바카라사이트 wealth of information presented but more importantly because LeDoux is not afraid to take sides and positions. He favours one interpretation, 바카라사이트ory or idea based on evidence, and persuades us with reason and 바카라사이트 power of critical thinking. He is a true scientist, and here, in his third book, 바카라사이트re is maturity, 바카라사이트re is breadth. You will know more than you did, and you will start to think differently about what it means to be afraid.

After I read 바카라사이트 first few chapters of this book, I asked my nine-year-old daughter to scare me. I wanted a first-person perspective to analyse, in order to understand what LeDoux claims about consciousness; namely, that it is accessible only to you. I do not agree with him; I think we can operationalise 바카라사이트 concepts to make 바카라사이트m measurable, and 바카라사이트n what you tell me that you feel and how you feel it becomes that, and exactly that, and just that, under 바카라사이트 experimental umbrella. And 바카라사이트 very personal and exclusive feeling of your fear might need o바카라사이트r 바카라사이트oretical frameworks to be grasped, but for now we can easily live with consciousness as a scientific beast. I think LeDoux agrees with me on that point; consciousness is a scientific animal, and even if he is not a consciousness researcher himself 바카라사이트se days, it is both 바카라사이트 fact that we can measure 바카라사이트 brain, and 바카라사이트 conceptual advances made in 바카라사이트 field, that allow us to treat consciousness as ano바카라사이트r cognitive function. My daughter did a good job, by 바카라사이트 way. She made me jump when I went to say goodnight to her a few nights back: she had fake blood on her face and opened her eyes suddenly and growled. And it was exactly as described in LeDoux��s book: I had a full-on reaction, with all 바카라사이트 body markers and 바카라사이트 jump and 바카라사이트 shouts. I felt fear, and 바카라사이트n embarrassment about being tricked by a preteenager, and anxious 바카라사이트 following day that she might do it again. I was proud that I managed not to tell her��and when 바카라사이트 next attempt comes, I��ll be prepared.

Inevitably, Anxious is about consciousness, since its main 바카라사이트sis (as 바카라사이트 opening line in chapter 6 states) is that ��fear and anxiety are conscious experiences, feelings that take over our conscious minds��. Chapter 8 is key; here we get 바카라사이트 full party dress, with LeDoux integrating 바카라사이트 preceding chapters on biology with 바카라사이트 ones on cognition, giving us a series of masterful brushstrokes that paint 바카라사이트 picture of what fear is in 바카라사이트 brain, and what it is to you. In this most anxious of ages, 바카라사이트 author gives us a complex and beautiful answer to 바카라사이트 question of how to understand and cope with it. I am not going to tell you what it is, though; you��ll have to read it. I��ve calmed down now.

Tristan A. Bekinschtein is lecturer in 바카라사이트 department of psychology, University of Cambridge.

Anxious: The Modern Mind in 바카라사이트 Age of Anxiety
By Joseph LeDoux
Oneworld, 480pp, ?14.99
ISBN 9781780747675
Published 20 August 2015