A response piece to the Hidden Brain Podcast by Dr Veronica Lunn

In our travels and meeting so many people in workshops we are often given great suggestions for podcasts to listen to or good books to read.  One of our clients recently recommended a podcast called One Head, Two Brains. I found this absolutely fascinating listening.

In this podcast, Iain McGilchrist (a psychiatrist, writer and former Oxford scholar)  is interviewed about his book The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Bran and the Making of the Western World.  He has been a neuroimaging researcher at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and uses his research and clinical practice to explore the fraught question about the function of the right and the left hand sides of the brain.  

He talks about the left hand side of the brain being more direct, linear, good at the detail, categorisation, and mathematics.  It is more black and white and sees a more narrow view of the world. The right hand side of the brain, however,  is better at seeing the whole. It  can deal in shades of grey and can make associations that are necessary to comprehension, to understand analogies or pick up on humorous references and connotations.  It is more emotionally literate and can make the connections. He describes it  as “more like flow in motion”.

We clearly access both sides of the brain in order to see the part within the whole. His argument is that in Western civilisation we have become increasingly more attuned to or fascinated with the rational mind (which he calls the “faithful” servant or “the emissary” – rather than the master (which he calls the intuitive mind –  “a precious gift for humanity”).  He argues that this has led to a loss of the humanistic view and more narrow thinking in the western world.

Have a listen - it is worth taking the time.   Iain is very entertaining, drawing on lots of examples from his own research and practice, music,  the arts, comedy and everyday life to support his view – which is quite compelling:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/one-head-two-brains/id1028908750?i=1000429186242

Author: Dr Veronica Lunn

Veronica has had significant experience working with large and small organizations, industry groups and individuals, providing workshops, seminars, forums and one on one coaching. With a strong background working with local government and state government, as well as the private sector, Veronica is an accredited Enneagram practitioner and teacher and brings high level facilitation and relationship skills to Griffith Consulting.

For more information about Veronica or the Enneagram, please contact us here, today.