The Essential Difference or Coyote Medicine

The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth about Autism

Author: Simon Baron Cohen

We all know the opposite sex can be a baffling, even infuriating, species. Why do most men use the phone to exchange information rather than have a chat? Why do women love talking about relationships and feelings with their girlfriends while men seem drawn to computer games, new gadgets, or the latest sports scores? Does it really all just come down to our upbringing? In The Essential Difference, leading psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen confirms what most of us had suspected all along: that male and female brains are different. This groundbreaking and controversial study reveals the scientific evidence (present even in one-day-old babies) that proves that female-type brains are better at empathizing and communicating, while male brains are stronger at understanding and building systems-not just computers and machinery, but abstract systems such as politics and music. Most revolutionary of all, The Essential Difference also puts forward the compelling new theory that autism (and its close relative, Asperger's Syndrome) is actually an example of the extreme male brain. His theory can explain why those who live with this condition are brilliant at analyzing the most complex systems yet cannot relate to the emotional lives of those with whom they live. Understanding our essential difference, Baron-Cohen concludes, may help us not only make sense of our partners' foibles, but also solve one of the most mysterious scientific riddles of our time.

The Washington Post

He has come up with a fascinating crazy-quilt of studies to prove our sexual differences...I thank Simon Baron-Cohen more than I can say for having written this book. It has explained a good part of my own life to me; it's made men achingly human to me.—Carolyn See

Publishers Weekly

Should the title fail to express Baron-Cohen's certainty about gender differences, the Cambridge Univ. professor of psychology and psychiatry lays out his controversial thesis on page one: "The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems." Defending this bold view is a tough but engaging battle, one that's alleviated by Baron-Cohen's disclaimer that his conclusions refer to statistical majorities rather than "all men" and "all women," but exacerbated by his habit of simultaneously skirting and employing gender stereotypes. His copious evidence ranges from the anecdotal to the anthropological, and from the neurological to the case study (the author and his research team conducted many of these studies). Not all his support fully convinces: e.g., the music-classifying habits of novelist Nick Hornby's High Fidelity protagonist isn't confirmation of the male brain's predisposition to systems-building. After acknowledging cultural and social influences on gender differences, Baron-Cohen "surfs the brain" (and offers evidence from a number of studies, both human and animal) to establish a biological link. But if male rats navigate their way through mazes more easily than female rats, does that mean men are better at directions than women? His speculations on how binary brain types have evolved over the eons, which have the male brain co-opting traits like power and leadership, leaving the female brain with gossip and motherhood, may ruffle a few feathers. Perhaps the most refreshing section of this cerebral volume is devoted to what he calls "extreme" examples of the male brain-autism and its cousin, Asperger's syndrome. The author of previous autism books, including Mindblindness, Baron-Cohen offers curious lay readers a provocative discussion of male-female differences. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In this engaging collection of letters, Pipher (Reviving Ophelia; Another Country) writes about her 30 years as a psychotherapist and what she has learned about people. Far more than just career advice for young therapists, however, she offers insights that could be subtitled Life 101 for Laypeople. The correspondence, based on the seasons, reflects Pipher's outlook on life (it's hard), childhood (never idyllic), family relationships (vital), and healing (often best through play, music, and travel). As a therapist, she agonizes over clients she can't help and injects plain thinking into complex problems. Families are not dysfunctional, she insists; parents may be quirky or incompetent, but clients should hang on to family relationships. Pipher concludes that what is dysfunctional is our society, through the pressures of time, expectations, suburban lifestyles, and jobs. "We therapists are small potatoes," she writes, though readers will feel richer and more competent for having read the wisdom she shares. For all collections.-Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

	List of Figures
	Acknowledgments
1	The Male and Female Brain	1
2	Boy Meets Girl	13
3	What Is Empathizing?	21
4	The Female Brain as Empathizer: The Evidence	29
5	What Is Systemizing?	61
6	The Male Brain as Systemizer: The Evidence	69
7	Culture	85
8	Biology	95
9	Evolution of the Male and Female Brain	117
10	Autism: The Extreme Male Brain	133
11	A Professor of Mathematics	155
12	The Extreme Female Brain: Back to the Future	171
App. 1	The "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test	187
App. 2	The Empathy Quotient (EQ)	201
App. 3	The Systemizing Quotient (SQ)	209
App. 4	The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ)	217
	References	223
	Bibliography	235
	Index	265

Interesting book: Learning to Program with Alice or Photoshop

Coyote Medicine: Lessons From Native American Healing

Author: Lewis Mehl Madrona

Inspired by his Cherokee grandmother's healing ceremonies, Lewis Mehl-Madrona enlightens readers to "alternative" paths to recovery and health. Coyote Medicine isn't about eschewing Western medicine when it's effective, but about finding other answers when medicine fails: for chronic sufferers, patients not responding to medication, or "terminal" cases that doctors have given up on. In the story of one doctor's remarkable initiation into alternative ways to spiritual and physical health, Coyote Medicine provides the key to untapped healing methods available today.

Publishers Weekly

"My own twin journeys through the worlds of medicine and the spirit" is how Mehl-Madrona describes this well-written, if uneven, account of his odyssey from the orthodox halls of Stanford Medical School in the early 1970s to his Cherokee-Lakota Sioux roots and on to a career in holistic medicine in the 1980s. While still a medical student on rotation, horrifying examples of incompetence and the power of ego-driven doctors to silence protest, plus their refusal to listen to pleas for change, prompted Mehl-Madrona to delve into his memories of the different healing methods practiced by his grandmother, a Cherokee, and to investigate the methods of other Native American healers. Soon, he was learning about sweat lodges, medicine men, shamans, peyote and curanderas, in addition to Western medical techniques. Predictably, Mehl-Madrona quickly ran into trouble with the medical establishment. Mehl-Madrona breaks little new ground here in this memoir, and his chronology is sometimes confusing. His descriptions of Native healing procedures are vivid and illuminating, however, as are his details of life in the medical profession. A worthy complement to the work of Larry Dossey and other forward-thinking physicians, this should appeal to students of Native American culture as well as to those interested in alternative healing. (Feb.)

Library Journal

With all the recent books on Native American healing and numerous accounts of how physicians are combining both alternative and traditional medicine, librarians might think there is no room for another. But they would be wrong if they did not add this title to their collection. Mehl-Madonna, a "half-breed Cherokees Injun," was only 21 when he graduated from Stanford University's medical school in the mid 1970s. Originally planning to go into family practice and psychiatry, where he could use his knowledge of Native American healing gleaned from his grandparents, he was either thrown out of or resigned from three different residency programs because he could not hold his tongue about what he often thought of as modern medicine. He considered giving up orthodox medicine but finally completed his residency. All readers, from those with a casual interest in Native American healing to health providers who want to learn more about alternative medicine, will enjoy and learn from this book. Recommended for most collections.-Natalie Kupferberg, Ferris State Univ. Lib., Big Rapids, Mich.

Kirkus Reviews

A treatise on "half-breed" medicine that partakes of both Anglo and Native American traditions but is at home in neither.

Mehl-Madrona, who now teaches family-practice medicine at the University of Hawaii, offers two books in one. The first is an account of the education of a doctor, one that often veers into self-importance ("I have always believed I have a mission on earth") but that may prove instructive for anyone tempted to enter medical training. The second is a look at Native American healing practices, and it is even less satisfying. The literature of Native American medicine is already peppered with naive and uncritical texts that suggest that healing techniques can be divorced from their cultural contexts and readily adapted elsewhere. Mehl-Madrona contributes to this notion of mix-and-match doctoring: "The medicine passed in a dipper around the circle," he writes in a description of a healing ceremony. "Everyone took a sip. Then we passed the dipper again, pouring water on our heads to open the crown chakras." (Hanta yoga, anyone?) The author, who claims Cherokee ancestry, is clearly a longtime student of Native American traditions, and he discusses some of them with welcome clarity. He inclines, however, to a mysticism that will discomfort some readers, as in his description of an encounter with a curious rattlesnake during healing ceremonies in the Arizona desert ("its head rested on my shoulder, and its rattle massaged my foot"). Elsewhere Mehl-Madrona writes, "Native American spirituality is a gift to us from North America itself. . . . Native American people have been preservers of this spiritual path for centuries, but they do not own it."

This position is likely to appall cultural purists, but it will comfort browsers in the great department store of spiritual salves that is the New Age.