This Is Your Brain in Love: New Breakthroughs for a More Passionate and Emotionally Healthy Marriage
4.3
5
7
7
Some great advice, but take caution...
Dr. Earl Henslin's This Is Your Brain in Love is billed to improve a troubled marriage, fuel the fires of passion, and keep a life-long love alive by teaching readers how to bring their best, most balanced and happy brain to their marriages. Based on the latest brain-imagine research and backed up by decades of experience as a therapist, Dr. Henslin shares solutions to the most common brain imbalances. (Apparently we all have at least one to some degree.)
Having a science background myself (working in a research lab in grad school), the premise of this book fascinated me; I couldn't wait to read it! Although I was anxious to dive right into the scientific realm, I was surprised to find Dr. Henslin's opening anecdotes on client experiences equally intriguing,and his style of writing very engaging.
Between my interest in science and Dr. Henslin's ability to draw readers into his personal stories, this book was poised to move to the top of my "favorites" list... Sadly, it won't.
Yes, I got picked up by the engaging opening stories, and swept along by some fascinating quizzes, but then I got dropped into a disappointing and bizarre mix of dietary tips, recommendations for mineral and herbal supplements, and somewhat uninspiring marriage advice.
I must admit, I did appreciate the dietary advice; I learned how to tweak my protein-carb ratio at different times of the day based on my brain-functioning (sluggish in the late morning, over-stimulated in the evening). I also really appreciated the Christian undertone of Dr. Henslin's writing.
It was the recommendations for supplements that were the major drawback to this book. Seemed more appropriate for a New Age-y pamphlet you might find in your neighborhood natural food store... you know, the kind where you wouldn't expect the author to understand all the varied health issues a given person might have, not to mention the interactions between supplements and medications. Yikes! In some instances, Dr. Henslin did note the hazard of a med/supp combo, but not consistently. In that way, I fear this book might be a danger to any reader who is desperate enough, or uneducated enough, to follow all advice without hesitation.
I was provided this book for free by Thomas Nelson Publisher for the purpose of my honest review.
January 23, 2011
Dr. Henslin is a licensed marriage and family therapist. After reading Dr. Earl Henslin's first novel, This is your Brain on Joy, I had high expectations for this book. I expected this read to be somewhat about the biochemistry of love, but I was wrong. Instead, This Is Your Brain In Love focuses on various topics such as the concept of romantic love, the five "love styles" and then a chapter on sexuality and spirituality, which I thought should have been better integrated throughout the book. I found that the "love styles" were described in his first novel as well, talking about the five different kinds of brain pathology. Dr. Henslin's "secret to lasting love" I feel could be written by any deep person in a serious relationship. He explains how being honest, forgiving, kind, and patient will have its rewards.
This book does however carry some helpful information (some which I was fascinated by), and it is an easy and fun read. I was interested to know how the Jewish culture views marriage and sex. If you are married, want to get married, have been married, or especially have problems in your marriage, I would suggest this book for you. This book would also be a great gift for friends or family who fall into any of these categories. I picked up this book for a mindless read (also, I am hoping to get married one day, but not anytime soon) and while some of it I found disappointing, I rather did enjoy this novel as a whole. However, I hope if Dr. Earl Henslin writes another book, it would be more like his first one, and a little less like this one.
January 16, 2011
This was a fascinating book! I have long wondered why people are so easily diagnosed with brain imbalances (depression or anxiety or mental illness, etc) and prescribed medicine, yet there was no way to actually measure any of these things scientifically or physically. Well, this book introduced me to the ground-breaking research of brain scans and included pictures that show what healthy brains look like in comparison to brains that actually do have problem (and correctable!) issues.I would particularly be interested in seeing what the results were if Dr Henslin teamed up with somebody like Dr Neil Anderson! Although this book definitely points back to God and His Word, I did feel that it was a little light-on in addressing the spiritual part of our beings (emotional, physical, spiritual).What I really liked about the solutions in this book is that its not about guess-work. The brain scans let the practitioners know what medication best targets the particular brain area and problem the client is experiencing. Medication is also not their main solution nor is it a long-term one. The treatment plans demonstrated quite a holistic approach, including everything from medication to natural supplements to sufficient sleep to dietary requirementsusually a combination of multiple things from each of those groups. Personal responsibility is also stressed which is definitely a positive thing in this day and age.All in all, this was a very fascinating read and, in spite of the seeming very-scientific nature of the book, was quite easy to read.
September 19, 2010
This is Your Brain in Love is a scientifically researched guide to help reunite married couples in passion in marriage. Dr. Henslin uses SPECT brain-scan research pioneered by Dr. Daniel G. Amen as a tool to understand why a person is the type of lover they are to their spouse and how they function in life. There are self-assessments for each of the five types of lovers and then natural and medicinal ways to treat brain imbalances to provide a better marital relationship. I found this book to be very interesting, even covering very scientific information. Dr. Henselin uses humor and examples to express his points. I am very interested in the SPECT brain-scan that was used in Dr. Henselin's research. I have a loved one who I think would benefit greatly from such a medical test. I do have an uneasiness about some of the personal accounts in the book, that there were many of those Christian couples who were divorced and I understand that might be a reason to use them as a "how to avoid" example, but I just kind of cringe when I hear so many times about how someone was really unhappy in a marriage and now they are just so much happier without that person they made a covenant with before God. I also was left wondering about the view Dr. Henslin has on the openness within marriage with a section in the appendix that referred to not telling your spouse about an affair. Overall, I think the scientific information was very insightful and the book maybe very helpful pointing someone into getting additional help for brain imbalances. I do not think reading the book will help you treat yourself to much of an extent if your imbalance results are very high on the scales, it tends to point to the brain-scan and meeting with a doctor even with the supplements suggested.
February 4, 2010
Welcome to Christianbook.com! Sign in or create an account
Cart
0 items
Checkout
We now accept PayPalfor ALL orders
Limited Time Price)
![more information about Velocity, Compact Disc [CD]](http://g.christianbook.com/g/display/c/cd01033.gif "more information about Velocity, Compact Disc [CD]")
