The Brain That Changes Itself
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"A number of these men also reported something else, often in passing, that caught my attention. They reported increasing difficulty in being turned on by their actual sexual partners, spouses or girlfriends, though they still considered them objectively attractive. When I asked if this phenomenon had any relationship to viewing pornography, they answered that it initially helped them get more excited during sex but over time had the opposite effect. Now, instead of using their senses to enjoy being in bed, in the present, with their partners, lovemaking increasingly required them to fantasize that they were part of a porn script. Some gently tried to persuade their lovers to act like porn stars, and they were increasingly interested in “fucking” as opposed to “making love.” Their sexual fantasy lives were increasingly dominated by the scenarios that they had, so to speak downloaded into their brains, and these new scripts were often more primitive and more violent than their previous sexual fantasies. I got the impression that any sexual creativity these men had was dying and that they were becoming addicted to Internet porn."[1] |
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The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the frontiers of brain science is a book on neuroplasticity by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D. It features studies of several patients suffering from neurological disorders and details how the brain adapts to compensate for their disabilities. Interviews with the patients and doctors make up a large portion of the contents. Doidge uses examples of previous work carried out by neuroscientists such as Paul Broca and Paul Bach-y-Rita to show that the brain is adaptive, and thus plastic. Through the case studies, Doidge demonstrates both the beneficial and detrimental effects that neuroplasticity can have on a patient, saying, "Neuroplasticity contributes to both the constrained and unconstrained aspects of our nature," and "it renders our brains not only more resourceful, but also more vulnerable to outside influences."
