Norman Doidge, a Canadian psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and author, has been instrumental in bringing the concept of neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to change its own structure and function—to a mainstream audience. Through his bestselling books, "The Brain That Changes Itself" and "The Brain's Way of Healing," he has offered hope and new understanding by showcasing remarkable stories of recovery and transformation. His work emphasizes that the brain is not a static, hardwired machine, but a dynamic, living organ capable of profound change throughout life.

From "The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science"

This book laid the groundwork for a popular understanding of neuroplasticity, presenting case studies of individuals who overcame neurological challenges through the brain's innate capacity for change.

Core Concepts of Neuroplasticity

  1. The Brain is a Dynamic System: "The brain is a far more open system than we ever imagined, and nature has... given us a brain that survives in a changing world by changing itself." [1][2] This foundational idea overthrows the centuries-old belief in a fixed, unchanging brain. [3]
  2. Use It or Lose It: "If we stop exercising our mental skills, we do not just forget them: the brain map space for those skills is turned over to the skills we practice instead." [4][5] This principle of "competitive plasticity" highlights that brain resources are constantly being reallocated. [6]
  3. Neurons That Fire Together, Wire Together: This famous saying by psychologist Donald Hebb is a cornerstone of Doidge's explanation of how repeated experiences and thoughts strengthen specific neural pathways. [5][7]
  4. The Plastic Paradox: "Ironically, some of our most stubborn habits and disorders are products of our plasticity." [2][6] The same mechanism that allows for positive change can also create rigid, negative patterns of thought and behavior, such as in addiction or OCD. [4][8]
  5. Unmasking Neural Pathways: The brain can reorganize itself by activating dormant or secondary neural pathways when primary ones are damaged. [9] This is one of the key ways the brain adapts to injury.
  6. Imagination as Action: "One reason we can change our brains simply by imagining is that, from a neuroscientific point of view, imagining an act and doing it are not as different as they sound." [2][4] Brain scans reveal that visualizing an action activates many of the same brain areas as performing it. [2]
  7. The Importance of Critical Periods: "Language development, for instance, has a critical period that begins in infancy and ends between eight years and puberty." [6][10] While plasticity exists throughout life, there are specific windows during development when the brain is exceptionally receptive to certain types of learning. [10][11]
  8. The Mind Shapes the Brain: Our thoughts have the power to turn genes on or off, which in turn alters the brain's physical structure and anatomy. [3] This demonstrates a profound connection between our mental and physical selves.
  9. Localizationism vs. Plasticity: For centuries, the "localizationist" view held that the brain was like a machine with fixed parts for specific functions. [1][10] Doidge shows how the discovery of neuroplasticity has proven this model to be incomplete. [10]
  10. Learning How to Learn: The brain doesn't just learn; it is constantly "learning how to learn" by refining its own processes for greater efficiency. [4]

Applications and Human Stories

  1. Overcoming Learning Disabilities: Doidge profiles Barbara Arrowsmith-Young, a woman born with severe learning disabilities who developed cognitive exercises to "fix" her own brain and now helps others do the same. [3] This story is a testament to self-directed neuroplastic change.
  2. Rewiring Senses: We see with our brains, not with our eyes. [5][10] Doidge highlights the work of Paul Bach-y-Rita, who created sensory substitution devices that allowed blind individuals to "see" by translating visual information into sensations on their skin. [10]
  3. Recovering from Stroke: The work of Edward Taub demonstrated that stroke patients could regain movement in paralyzed limbs through "Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy," which forces the brain to rewire itself around the damaged area. [8]
  4. The Dark Side of Plasticity - Phantom Pain: The brain's map of the body can create vivid and painful sensations in a limb that has been amputated. This demonstrates how plasticity can sometimes work against us. [8]
  5. Treating Obsessions: Brain lock, as seen in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), can be unlocked through therapies that involve consciously shifting attention and rewiring the brain's circuitry away from compulsive behaviors. [8][9]
  6. Psychoanalysis as a Neuroplastic Therapy: "Psychoanalysis is often about turning our ghosts into ancestors." [2] Doidge argues that talk therapy can be a powerful tool for neuroplastic change, helping patients re-contextualize traumatic memories and alter ingrained emotional responses. [2][9]
  7. Plasticity and Love: Falling in love and forming deep attachments triggers massive neuroplastic changes in the brain, reshaping our neural landscape. [1]
  8. The Downside of Cultural Rigidity: "Totalitarian regimes seem to have an intuitive awareness that it becomes hard for people to change after a certain age, which is why so much effort is made to indoctrinate the young from an early age." [2] This highlights the societal implications of declining plasticity with age.
  9. The Need for Novelty: "We must be learning if we are to feel fully alive, and when life, or love, becomes too predictable and it seems like there is little left to learn, we become restless - a protest, perhaps, of the plastic brain when it can no longer perform its essential task." [2]
  10. Effortful Change: "If you want to lift a hundred pounds, you don’t expect to succeed the first time... it is in the days when you are exerting yourself that the growth is occurring." [2] Neuroplastic change requires consistent effort and practice.

From "The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity"

Doidge's second book explores how the principles of neuroplasticity can be actively applied for healing, focusing on non-invasive, energy-based methods like light, sound, and movement.

Core Concepts of Healing

  1. Healing is a Process, Not an Event: Neuroplastic healing often occurs in stages, beginning with cellular repair and moving through neurostimulation, neuromodulation, and new learning. [12]
  2. Energy as Medicine: "Natural, noninvasive avenues into the brain provided by the forms of energy around us—light, sound, vibration, movement—that can pass through our senses and our bodies to awaken the plastic brain’s own transformative capacities." [13]
  3. The Body as a Gateway to the Brain: Because our senses are the primary way we interact with the world, they are the most natural and least invasive pathways to stimulate brain healing. [7]
  4. Chronic Pain as Learned Pain: "Chronic pain is learned pain." [14] When pain signals persist after an injury has healed, the brain's circuits can become sensitized, creating a "false alarm" system that needs to be rewired. [14][15]
  5. The Mind Programs the Brain: The mind can direct the brain's functions and rewire its connections. [14] This principle is central to many of the healing modalities Doidge explores.
  6. Awareness is Key: "Slowness of movement is the key to awareness, and awareness is the key to learning." This is a central tenet of the Feldenkrais Method, which uses gentle movements to increase bodily awareness and promote neural change.
  7. Errors are Essential for Learning: In healing and learning new movements, "Errors are essential, and there is no right way to move, only better ways." [16] The brain learns by making fine distinctions and adjustments.
  8. The Importance of Rest (Neurorelaxation): The healing brain needs periods of rest to consolidate changes and accumulate energy for recovery. [12]
  9. The Brain Can Turn Pain Off: "The brain can shut pain off because the actual function of acute pain is not to torment us but to alert us to danger." [16][17] Understanding this allows for new approaches to managing chronic pain.
  10. Holistic Healing: Healing requires an integrated approach that considers the mind, brain, body, and the energies in our environment as essential, interconnected elements. [13]

Applications and Human Stories

  1. Visualizing Pain Away: Dr. Michael Moskowitz, a physician who suffered from debilitating chronic pain, learned to reverse it by visualizing the pain maps in his brain shrinking. [15][17] This demonstrated that focused thought could directly alter the brain's processing of pain.
  2. Walking Off Parkinson's Symptoms: Doidge tells the story of John Pepper, who managed to significantly reduce his Parkinson's symptoms through a program of conscious, fast-paced walking, demonstrating that focused movement can help the brain compensate for neurological damage. [15][18]
  3. The Feldenkrais Method for Stroke and Cerebral Palsy: This method uses gentle, mindful movements to help individuals with motor impairments develop new neural pathways for movement, improving coordination and reducing spasticity. [14]
  4. Healing the Brain with Light: Low-level laser therapy can be used to stimulate cellular repair and reduce inflammation in the brain, offering a non-invasive treatment for traumatic brain injury and other conditions. [7][15]
  5. Rewiring the Brain with Sound: Auditory therapies, like the Tomatis Method, use filtered music to stimulate the auditory and vestibular systems, which can help treat conditions like dyslexia, autism, and sensory processing disorders by improving the brain's ability to process information. [19]
  6. A Device That Resets the Brain: The Portable Neuromodulation Stimulator (PoNS) is a device that stimulates the tongue, sending signals to the brainstem and promoting neuroplasticity to help patients with balance and gait problems resulting from brain injury or multiple sclerosis. [15]
  7. A Blind Man Learns to See: Doidge recounts stories of individuals who, through specific eye exercises and mental relaxation techniques, were able to recover a significant degree of vision, challenging the idea that eyesight is purely a function of the eyes. [15]
  8. The Unity of Mind and Body: "I believe that the unity of mind and body is an objective reality. They are not just parts somehow related to each other, but an indispensable whole while functioning." [20] This quote from Moshé Feldenkrais underscores the philosophy behind many of the book's healing stories.
  9. The Power of Novelty in Healing: Random, exploratory movements can lead to developmental breakthroughs by providing the brain with new information and variation. [7]
  10. Active Patient Participation: A common thread in all the healing stories is the active, dedicated, and persistent engagement of the patient in their own recovery process. Healing is not a passive experience. [12]

Overarching Learnings and Philosophy

  1. Hope is Grounded in Science: Doidge's work provides a scientific basis for hope for those with neurological conditions long considered incurable. [3][13]
  2. Human Nature is Not Fixed: The discovery of neuroplasticity fundamentally alters our understanding of human nature, suggesting we are more malleable and resilient than previously thought. [3]
  3. Education Must Be Re-examined: "Everything having to do with human training and education has to be re-examined in light of neuroplasticity." This insight suggests new approaches to teaching and learning at all stages of life.
  4. The Brain is Built for Change: The brain's default state is not to be static, but to be in a constant state of adaptation and change in response to experience. [1]
  5. Mental Training is Not a Luxury: "Mind training matters. It is not just a luxury, or a supplementary vitamin for the soul. It determines the quality of every instant of our lives."
  6. Environment Matters: "Nothing speeds brain atrophy more than being immobilized in the same environment." A stimulating and varied environment is crucial for maintaining brain health and plasticity.
  7. We Are Responsible for Our Brains: While we don't choose our genes, our choices, thoughts, and actions continuously shape our brain's structure and function.
  8. The Double-Edged Sword: While offering immense hope, the concept of neuroplasticity can also lead to self-blame if a patient doesn't recover, underscoring the need for a balanced perspective. [18]
  9. The Importance of Attention: "After the initial critical learning period of youth is over, the areas of the brain that need to be 'turned on' to allow enhanced, long lasting learning can only be activated when something important, surprising, or novel occurs, or if we make the effort to pay close attention."
  10. The Ongoing Revolution: The exploration of neuroplasticity is still in its early stages, and Doidge's work is a dispatch from the frontiers of a science that continues to evolve, offering ever-new possibilities for healing and human potential. [13][17]

For further reading and exploration, please visit Norman Doidge's official website: https://www.normandoidge.com/

Learn more:

  1. Book Summary - The Brain that Changes Itself (Norman Doidge) - Readingraphics
  2. The Brain that Changes Itself Quotes by Norman Doidge - Goodreads
  3. The Brain That Changes Itself - Book PDF Download
  4. The Brain That Changes Itself Important Quotes with Page Numbers - SuperSummary
  5. Best Quotes Of The Brain That Changes Itself With Page Numbers By Norman Doidge
  6. Norman Doidge on Brain Plasticity | To The Best Of Our Knowledge
  7. The Brain's Way of Healing - Linda Graham, MFT
  8. The Brain That Changes Itself Summary and Study Guide - SuperSummary
  9. The Brain that Changes Itself Summary of Key Ideas and Review | Norman Doidge - Blinkist
  10. The Brain That Changes Itself: Summary & Review | The Power Moves
  11. Norman Doidge: The Brain That Changes Itself (Book Overview) - Shortform
  12. The Brain's Way of Healing | Summary, Quotes, FAQ, Audio - SoBrief
  13. The Brain's Way of Healing | Norman Doidge, MD
  14. The Brain's Way of Healing PDF - Bookey
  15. The Brain's Way of Healing Summary of Key Ideas and Review | Norman Doidge - Blinkist
  16. 116-Transcript PDF - Brain Science Podcast
  17. Transcript: Norman Doidge: Brain's Healing Energies | Apr 07, 2015 - TVO Today
  18. The Brain's Way of Healing - April Walking Book Club - Dr Sarah McKay
  19. [Interview] Dr. Norman Doidge on Neuroplasticity and the Tomatis® Method
  20. Best Quotes from The Brain's Way of Healing By Norman Doidge with Page Numbers