Norman Doidge quotes

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. (Norman Doidge)

Psychoanalysis is often about turning our ghosts into ancestors.

Norman Doidge

Analysis helps patients put their unconscious procedural memories and actions into words and into context, so they can better understand them.

Norman Doidge

The brain is a far more open system than we ever imagined, and nature has gone very far to help us perceive and take in the world around us. It has given us a brain that survives in a changing world by changing itself.

Norman Doidge

Thought changes structure... I saw people rewire their brains with their thoughts, to cure previously incurable obsessions and trauma.

Norman Doidge

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.

Norman Doidge

Everything having to do with human training and education has to be re-examined in light of neuroplasticity.

Norman Doidge

Ironically, some of our most stubborn habits and disorders are products of our plasticity.

Norman Doidge

...an effective psychotherapist or psychoanalyst is a "microsurgeon of the mind" who helps patients make needed alterations in neuronal networks.

Norman Doidge

All of us have worries. We worry because we are intelligent beings. Intelligence predicts, that is its essence; the same intelligence that allows us to plan, hope, imagine, and hypothesize also allows us to worry and anticipate negative outcomes.

Norman Doidge

Not all activities are equal in this regard. Those that involve genuine concentration-studying a musical instrument, playing board games, reading, and dancing-are associated with a lower risk for dementia. Dancing, which requires learning new moves, is both physically and mentally challenging and requires much concentration. Less intense activities, such as bowling, babysitting, and golfing, are not associated with a reduced incidence of Alzheimer's. (254) (Norman Doidge)

Neuroplasticity contributes to both the constrained and unconstrained aspects of our nature. It renders our brains not only more resourceful, but also more vulnerable to outside influences.

Norman Doidge

We all have what might be called a culturally modified brain, and as cultures evolve, they continually lead to new changes in the brain.

Norman Doidge

Language development, for instance, has a critical period that begins in infancy and ends between eight years and puberty. After this critical period closes, a person's ability to learn a second language without an accent is limited. In fact, second languages learned after the critical period are not processed in the same part of the brain as is the native tongue.

Norman Doidge

We often praise 'the ability to multi-task.' While you can learn when you divide your attention, divided attention doesn't lead to aiding change in your brain maps [lasting changes].

Norman Doidge