In The Brain That Changes Itself, Toronto-based psychiatrist and researcher Norman Doidge engagingly described the most important breakthrough in our understanding of the brain in four hundred years: the discovery that the brain can change its own structure and function in response to mental experience—what we call neuroplasticity.

His revolutionary new book, The Brain’s Way of Healing shows, for the first time, how the amazing process of neuroplastic healing really works. Now in an expanded paperback edition, with an afterword describing new approaches to concussion, traumatic brain injury, dystonia, spinal cord injuries, learning disorders, and more.

 Doidge describes natural, non-invasive avenues into the brain provided by the forms of energy around us—light, sound, vibration, movement—which pass through our senses and our bodies to awaken the brain’s own healing capacities without producing unpleasant side effects. Doidge explores cases where patients alleviated years of chronic pain or recovered from debilitating strokes or accidents; children on the autistic spectrum or with learning disorders normalizing; symptoms of multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons disease, and cerebral palsy radically improved, and other near-miracle recoveries. And we learn how to vastly reduce the risk of dementia with simple approaches anyone can use.

The body abounds with neurons, the gut alone having 100 million… In terms of the way it functions, the brain is always linked to the body and, through the senses, to the world outside. Neuroplasticians have learned to use these avenues from the body to the brain to facilitate healing. Thus, while a person who has had a stroke may not be able to use his foot because the brain is damaged, moving the foot can, at times, awaken dormant circuits in the injured brain. The body and mind become partners in the healing of the brain, and because these approaches are so noninvasive, side effects are exceedingly rare…

What follow are stories of people who have transformed their brains, recovered lost parts of themselves, or discovered capacities within that they never knew they had. But the true marvel is less the techniques than the way that, through millions of years, the brain has evolved, with sophisticated neuroplastic abilities and a mind that can direct its own unique restorative process of growth.

For centuries it was believed that the brain’s complexity prevented recovery from damage or disease. The Brain’s Way of Healing shows that this very sophistication is the source of a unique kind of healing. As he did so lucidly in The Brain That Changes Itself, Doidge uses astonishing, moving human stories to present cutting-edge science with practical real-world applications, and principles that everyone can apply to improve their brain’s performance and health.