Norman Doidge ‘The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity’

I previously read Doidge’s ‘The Brain that changes itself’ and was impressed. I suffered a minor Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI) in June 2019, and have a personal stake in understanding and using methods to treat mTBI. Understanding neuroplasticity and learning methods to relearn skills has been a primary goal over the last two years. So I came to this book with high hopes. I was disappointed.
I am writing a series of book reviews for writers, and my focus has been fiction and creative writing, but I see problems here that any writer should know.
The biggest fault with this second book is the length. It needs a good edit. Doidge gives long detailed descriptions of patients, their histories, their personal situations, personalities, lack of progress until they engage with him, and then a long narrative on their progress. The first one or two are informative, but there are too many of them. I skimmed these details, looking for the meat of the theory and treatment.
There are impressive gains happening in the fields of understanding the brain, injuries and illnesses, understanding neuroplasticity, and Doidge captures that well. It is a wonderful time to be a researcher or clinician in this field. And I am sure Dr. Doidge enjoys speaking about his work. But as in Hamlet, brevity is the soul of wit. The author needs to make his point and then move on. If he really thinks much of this narrative is needed, footnotes or an appendix would be a better approach. I ended up skimming the last third.
And my final knock on the book was related to a back cover comment, ‘Doidge uses stories to present innovative science with practical real-world applications, and principles that everyone can apply to improve their brain’s performance and health.’ But it wasn’t so. So much of the treatments involves lasers or a PoNS device that the patient puts on their tongue while doing exercises. I felt much of the book was an advertisement to enroll in paid clinical work, at tens of thousands of dollars. I had echoes of Tom Vu saying ‘Take My Seminar’.
Disappointing.

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June 22, 2021
ISBN 9780670025503