(24 reviews) Author: Jaak Panksepp ISBN : 9780393705317 New from $41.00 Format: PDFA look at the seven emotional systems of the brain by the researcher who discovered them.
What makes us happy? What makes us sad? How do we come to feel a sense of enthusiasm? What fills us with lust, anger, fear, or tenderness? Traditional behavioral and cognitive neuroscience have yet to provide satisfactory answers. The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach—which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share—to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals—for the first time—the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.
This book elaborates on the seven emotional systems that explain how we live and behave. These systems originate in deep areas of the brain that are remarkably similar across all mammalian species. When they are disrupted, we find the origins of emotional disorders:
- SEEKING: how the brain generates a euphoric and expectant response
- FEAR: how the brain responds to the threat of physical danger and death
- RAGE: sources of irritation and fury in the brain
- LUST: how sexual desire and attachments are elaborated in the brain
- CARE: sources of maternal nurturance
- GRIEF: sources of non-sexual attachments
- PLAY: how the brain generates joyous, rough-and-tumble interactions
- SELF: a hypothesis explaining how affects might be elaborated in the brain
The book offers an evidence-based evolutionary taxonomy of emotions and affects and, as such, a brand-new clinical paradigm for treating psychiatric disorders in clinical practice.
- Series: Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology
- Hardcover: 592 pages
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (September 17, 2012)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393705315
- ISBN-13: 978-0393705317
- Product Dimensions: 1.4 x 6.3 x 9.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions PDF
I would have to say that this is the most transformational book I've read in a decade. It consolidates Panksepp's 30 years of research on human and animal emotions, and supports similar studies as well. What you and I have been calling emotions would be better stated as feelings: conscious cognitive reflections of the emotional experiences that drive us to take action in the world.
The most important emotion is SEEKING, which I call the "desire/acquire" circuit in the brain. When we see, hear, taste, or experience something new, different, and interesting, lower brain functions wake us up and release dopamine, one of the main pleasure neurochemicals in the brain. This gives rise to consciousness (activity in specific parts of our frontal lobe) in all mammals, and perhaps even for birds and reptiles. Humans have larger frontal lobes, thus we have a wider range of conscious choices. This consciousness gives rise to secondary emotions that are more diverse than the primary emotions of SEEKING, CARING, FEAR, ANGER, LUST, PLAY/JOY and SADNESS, which Panksepp has meticulously mapped out in terms of brain structures, functions, and neurochemicals.
The most surprising emotion he documents is PLAY, without which animals and humans would not be able to develop cooperative social behavior and empathy. Fear, anger, and sadness have made it into popular literature with 50% accuracy, but SEEKING and PLAY have not been talked about much. SEEKING motivates us to take action, and PLAY gives us the skills to build thriving relationships with others. His summary of the nature of consciousness is brilliant, but be forewarned: there's a lot of scholarly material and academic research discussed here.
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