Ways of Attending

How our Divided Brain Constructs the World

Nonfiction, Health & Well Being, Psychology, Psychoanalysis
Cover of the book Ways of Attending by Iain McGilchrist, Taylor and Francis
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Iain McGilchrist ISBN: 9780429788697
Publisher: Taylor and Francis Publication: July 11, 2018
Imprint: Routledge Language: English
Author: Iain McGilchrist
ISBN: 9780429788697
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Publication: July 11, 2018
Imprint: Routledge
Language: English

Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience. And nowadays in the West we generally attend in a rather unusual way: governed by the narrowly focussed, target-driven left hemisphere of the brain.

Forget everything you thought you knew about the difference between the hemispheres, because it will be largely wrong. It is not what each hemisphere does – they are both involved in everything – but how it does it, that matters. And the prime difference between the brain hemispheres is the manner in which they attend. For reasons of survival we need one hemisphere (in humans and many animals, the left) to pay narrow attention to detail, to grab hold of things we need, while the other, the right, keeps an eye out for everything else. The result is that one hemisphere is good at utilising the world, the other better at understanding it.

Absent, present, detached, engaged, alienated, empathic, broad or narrow, sustained or piecemeal, attention has the power to alter whatever it meets. The play of attention can both create and destroy, but it never leaves its object unchanged. How you attend to something – or don’t attend to it – matters a very great deal. This book helps you to see what it is you may have been trained by our very unusual culture not to see.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience. And nowadays in the West we generally attend in a rather unusual way: governed by the narrowly focussed, target-driven left hemisphere of the brain.

Forget everything you thought you knew about the difference between the hemispheres, because it will be largely wrong. It is not what each hemisphere does – they are both involved in everything – but how it does it, that matters. And the prime difference between the brain hemispheres is the manner in which they attend. For reasons of survival we need one hemisphere (in humans and many animals, the left) to pay narrow attention to detail, to grab hold of things we need, while the other, the right, keeps an eye out for everything else. The result is that one hemisphere is good at utilising the world, the other better at understanding it.

Absent, present, detached, engaged, alienated, empathic, broad or narrow, sustained or piecemeal, attention has the power to alter whatever it meets. The play of attention can both create and destroy, but it never leaves its object unchanged. How you attend to something – or don’t attend to it – matters a very great deal. This book helps you to see what it is you may have been trained by our very unusual culture not to see.

More books from Taylor and Francis

Cover of the book This England, That Shakespeare by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Where are Poor People to Live?: Transforming Public Housing Communities by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Japanese and Hong Kong Film Industries by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Extraordinary Politics by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Taxation in the New State (Routledge Revivals) by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Fictional Translators by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Fifty Key British Films by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Paradigm and Ideology in Educational Research (RLE Edu L) by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Internal Marketing by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book The US Economy and Neoliberalism by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Transactional Distance and Adaptive Learning by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Rush to Policy by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Twentieth Century Christian Responses to Religious Pluralism by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age by Iain McGilchrist
Cover of the book Women's Football in the UK by Iain McGilchrist
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy