How the Divided Brain Enables the Human Condition: A Study Day With Dr Iain McGilchrist

The Centre for Emotional Development are very privileged to welcome the internationally regarded and highly acclaimed psychiatrist and researcher, Dr McGilchrist to Brighton. As Professor WF Bynum, Professor Emeritus of the History of Medicine at University College, London writes ‘McGilchrist’s careful analysis of how brains work is a veritable tour de force, gradually and skilfully revealed. I know of no better exposition of the current state of functional brain neuroscience …’

Dr McGilchrist is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise, the culture which helps to mold, and in turn is molded by, our minds and brains. Dr McGilchrist provides the most comprehensive, and lucid, understanding to date of findings from research on differences in consciousness, motives and emotions in the two cerebral hemispheres.
Who should attend?
This important study day is open to all mental health practitioners who want to increase their understanding of the human condition and how this links to current research in brain science.
For a fuller synopsis of the day and biographical details see below.
Book on line

Conference Fees (to include refreshments and lunch):
Organisation Funded (£120 +VAT) £144.00 
Individually Funded (£90.00 +VAT) £108.00 
Concession Rate (£60 +VAT) £72.00 

GROUP RATES FOR ORGANISATIONS- if you purchase three or more tickets there will be a £20 reduction on each tickets and on each additional ticket.

Synopsis

We now know that each hemisphere plays a role in everything the brain does: the old dichotomies do not hold. Most neuroscientists have therefore abandoned the attempt to understand why nature has so carefully segregated the hemispheres despite a large, and expanding, body of evidence about their differences at every level. On the basis of research in birds, animals and humans, Dr McGilchrist suggests that there is a Darwinian advantage to the division, originating in the need to pay two quite different types of attention to the world simultaneously: one enabling effective manipulation of the environment, the other enabling us to be aware of the whole. In human consciousness, these two modes of attention give rise to two different versions of the world, with different qualities, as well as different sets of preoccupations and values. It is suggested that an understanding of the implications of this attentional divide may cast light on some important questions, such as the nature of ourselves, our minds and bodies, and of the world that we are in danger of destroying.
An understanding of hemisphere differences also casts light on the nature of language and our relationships. Dr McGilchrist suggests that the purpose of language is far from straightforward and that each hemisphere has a different way of engaging with language, to different ends. It also helps to cast light on what empathy is and is not, the importance of boundaries, and the nature of our relationships with one another and the world. This is likely to prove of wide significance to all those working in the field of human understanding and development.

Biographical Details

Dr McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of Against Criticism (Faber 1982), The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009), The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning; Why Are We So Unhappy? (e-book short) and is currently working on a new book, When The Porcupine is a Monkey, to be published by Penguin Press.