Review of Dr. Daniel Amen's "The End of Mental Illness" 6 Steps for Improved Brain Function and Mental Health
Welcome back to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, for episode #128 with a review of Dr. Daniel Amen’s book, The End of Mental Illness: How Neuroscience is Transforming Psychiatry and Helping Prevent or Reverse Mood and Anxiety Disorders, ADHD, Addictions, PTSD, Psychosis, Personality Disorders and More.[i] If you are listening on iTunes, click here to see the images. Welcome back, I'm Andrea Samadi, a former educator who has been fascinated with understanding the science behind high performance strategies in schools, sports, and the workplace for the past 20 years. If you have been listening to our podcast, you will know that we’ve uncovered that if we want to improve our social and emotional skills, and experience success in our work and personal lives, it all begins with an understanding of our brain. Since May is Mental Health Awareness month, and every 14 minutes, someone in the country commits suicide, and it’s the 2nd leading cause of death for young people, I thought it was important to cover the one person, the leading expert on this topic, who has a goal to eliminate the stigma around mental illness with the understanding of brain health, and that’s with the world-renowned psychiatrist, brain disorder specialist, New York Times best-selling author and director of Amen Clinics, Dr. Daniel Amen. We’ve had his daughter on the podcast, Chloe Amen, for episode #11[ii] with the book that she helped Dr. Amen to write, Change your Brain, Change Your Grades and we have definitely asked Dr. Amen and his wife Tana to join us on the podcast. We understand that his schedule is tight between running Amen Clinics[iii], The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast[iv], and making television appearances, like his recent episode with Dr. Oz[v], but we are still working with this with his staff and his schedule with the hope that we can get him on, to give my husband and I a quick overview of our brain scans, and hopefully shed some light on why a brain scan can change your life for those listening. Visiting Dr. Amen’s Costa Mesa clinic was eye-opening, especially from the point of view of two people who didn’t have any obvious symptoms, just to gain more awareness into our health and well-being. It was a process that I think everyone could gain awareness from, whether you are having symptoms that you would like to dive deeper into, or not. If you haven’t yet seen the 3-part series on where I outline what exactly a spect image brain scans, and how it can change your life, you can listen to it here.[vi] For those who are listening that might be interested like we were in visiting his offices, it’s a simple process. Just go to www.AmenClinics.com and schedule a call with their offices to help you to find the best location to visit (in the US) and the best solution for you. There’s no doubt that Dr. Amen is disrupting psychiatry with his brain scans, and the evidence is there on the wall at his clinics. You will see in plain view as you walk to his office, the famous studies he’s conducted. Dr. Amen has published “more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific articles, including some of the largest brain imaging studies ever done…if you type in ‘brain spect’ in the National Library of Medicine’s website www.pubmed.gov it will return more than 14,000 scientific abstracts.”[vii] Dr. Amen was the “principal investigator on the first and largest brain imaging and rehabilitation study on active and retired NFL players, showing high levels of damage, but also the possibility of recovery for many, using the principles in his book…Dr. Amen was also a consultant on the 2015 movie Concussion starring Will Smith”[viii] Since this information is so valuable, I wanted to cover the highlights of his book, The End of Mental Illness that I know we could all benefit from reading. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t know someone who is impacted in some way with their mental health, and Dr. Amen says it pretty clearly that “most of us