Volume 36 · Number 4
APRIL 2006
Foregrounding Language
On the relationship between therapeutic words and the brain
By
Then medicine too, it seems, is concerned with words. — Socrates, “Gorgias”
In this article, I reflect on the relationship between language, psychotherapy, and the brain. In writing this piece, I completed a systematic review of Medline, Biological Sciences, and seven other indexed databases from anthropology, human sciences, and literature. Research designed to explicate the effects of what we in mental health consider psychotherapeutic language on the brain has not been published. There is a body of work describing ways psychotherapy in general affects the brain, and there is an extensive body of work demonstrating the relationship between specific linguistic experiences and the brain. Some of the latter focuses on events that are therapeutic in nature or have clear implications for psychotherapy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Bradley is resident, Department of Psychiatry, University of Missouri Columbia, School of Medicine, Columbia, MO.
Address reprint requests to: Shane Bradley, MD, MA, Department of Psychiatry, University of Missouri Columbia, School of Medicine, One Hospital Drive, Columbia, MO 65212; or e-mail [email protected].
At Last! Evidence-based Conceptualization Integrating Mind and Brain
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The Neurobiology of Psychotherapy
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George I. Viamontes, MD, PhD
Neural Substrates of Psychotherapeutic Change Part I: The Default Brain
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Neural Substrates of Psychotherapeutic Change Part II: Beyond Default Mode
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An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Psychotherapy
Daniel J. Siegel, MD
Defining Neurocircuits in Depression
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Toward a Neural Circuitry of Engagement, Self-Awareness, and Pattern Search
Bernard D. Beitman, MD;
George I. Viamontes, MD, PhD;
Angela M. Soth, MA;
Jessica Nittler, MD
A Neuroscience Perspective on Transference
Glen O. Gabbard, MD
