Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mona Lisa Schulz, M.D., Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont School of Medicine and Maine Medical Center, Portland, is a practicing neuropsychiatrist and medical intuitive. She serves as a research editor and consultant for bestselling author Dr. Christiane Northrup's popular newsletter and is the author of Awakening Intuition. Her media appearances include national radio, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and the Discovery channel. She lives in Yarmouth, Maine.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The New Feminine Brain

Free Press

Introduction

Women have a unique feminine brain. It is different from a man's brain. And it has its own styles of thought. Yet for the last fifty years women have had to fit their brains into a "male" world. We have had to learn how to, as the song says, "walk like a man," and "talk like a man," but stay a woman inside. To accommodate these two divergent roles, our brains have had to rewire themselves.

It's a biological fact that the process of learning any new skill creates physical, structural changes in the brain. Much research has demonstrated learning-induced changes in the brain. A recent study showed that even learning to juggle objects caused physical changes in brain anatomy. When a woman learns to juggle the traditional feminine role with newer, once typically male responsibilities, her brain changes physically and functionally. And as our world has gotten more technologically complex, the task of assuming roles common to both sexes has taken its toll on women's emotional and physical health.

So just being a woman today gives you some inborn mental and emotional challenges. However, the unique wiring of your brain and body also gives you some unique gifts and abilities.

In this book, I'll tell you how, as a woman, you can keep your brain tuned in to your natural mood cycles and thought patterns, but also be able to tune in to the new challenges that you face as you go to work in the boardroom, the home, the hospital, or the office -- without compromising your health.

I can help you do this because I have done it myself.

The New Feminine Brain

After four years of medical school and three years of a Ph.D. program in neuroanatomy and behavioral neuroscience, I knew how traditional science viewed the female brain. I had studied it and compared it to the male brain. I had researched how emotions are wired in the brain; how memory and attention are wired; how morality, movement, desire, and passion are wired; and how the brain and body are interconnected. But fourteen years ago, when I walked onto the medical floor at Boston City Hospital as a medical student doing a clerkship, I looked around at the other doctors and realized that a lot of women working there didn't have the traditional feminine brain I'd learned about. Sure, there were the empathetic, motherly types who went into pediatrics or family practice and in their spare time ran recycling drives and worked for the homeless. But one woman we all had pegged for pediatrics shocked us by going into surgery -- the most macho of all medical specialties.

In short, my understanding of how a woman's brain is wired was turned on its head. And what I had learned in seven years of training didn't amount to a row of pins when it came to making clinical decisions about my patients. At no time was this more obvious than my first day in the hospital, when I was sent to the emergency room to examine my first patient. I looked the part of a traditional doctor in my brand-new white 100-percent-cotton doctor's jacket, carrying my brand-new black doctor's bag. But it soon became apparent that despite two advanced degrees and $275,000 in tuition (and student loans), the traditional -- read, masculine -- approach to medicine wasn't going to work for me.

All I was told about the patient was her name and age. But as soon as I heard her name, information about her started coming to me intuitively. I could see in my mind's eye where her body was affected, and at the same time, I could sense her emotional state and how that might have predisposed her to illness. With these clues, I quickly checked the reference books in the on-call room for background in illnesses and conditions associated with her symptoms and made a note of tests I might need to do to make a diagnosis. It was the intuitive information, combined with all the knowledge packed in the traditional doctor's bag of my brain, that helped me approach that first patient with some degree of skill, if not poise. Even so, using my ophthalmoscope that first time, I shone the light into my own eye, not the patient's, to her great amusement.

Though I quickly realized I wasn't going to be a traditional doctor, it seemed that I wasn't going to be like some of my female colleagues either. I still couldn't get my hair and wardrobe organized like many other women, and I didn't go for the bib jumpers and clogs of some of the female doctors headed for family practice. I knew I had to figure out how my brain worked so that I could fit into this system and be successful.

Today, I know that's what we all do when thrust into a new situation or encountering a problem: We learn where our strengths lie, where our areas of genius are, where our flaws and "loose screws" are, so we can cultivate the areas in which we excel, and work around our shortcomings. Back then, I figured it out by trial and error. I learned, for example, that I was really good at finding a vein and drawing blood, but I was terrible at figuring out blood gas -- checking the oxygen level of the blood leaving the heart, a delicate procedure that involves inserting a needle into an artery. We medical students learned each other's strengths and weaknesses, so that together, as a team, we could combine our skills and create one big brain. Some drew blood; others took blood gas readings.

This book will show you how you have done much the same thing in your life -- compensated for your weaknesses by developing your strengths. When you were born, you had a traditional female brain that combined the genetic heritage of your parents and the in utero environment in which your mother developed you until you were born. Then, as you grew up in the incubator of your childhood, that genetic heritage was molded and acculturated to life in this society.

At the same time, you discovered the ways in which you weren't Everywoman. You found unique parts of yourself that were decidedly your genius, and other parts that tripped you up. You learned very quickly what your flaws are, and chose whether or not to show that vulnerability in relationships, in vocational settings, or even in your family. You learned very quickly whether you had the attention span of a gnat or you could stare for hours at a flower or a puzzle, trying to figure it out. Your mother and father learned whether they had to give you a list and copy it in triplicate because your memory was like a sieve and you lost everything. And your friends learned very quickly whether you had a memory like the Encyclopaedia Britannica and recorded anything they said or did.

Perhaps your personality, your temperament, was your foible but also your genius. Maybe everyone thought of you as a Mother Teresa, always ready to help with a kind and caring smile. Perhaps when you became a teen, you hit a dark, rainy week and cloistered yourself until your mood lifted. Maybe you were habitually irritable, but were also capable of focusing that edginess into creating an amazing short story or a play that kept your entire class riveted. Perhaps you jumped a mile when someone sneaked up behind you; anxiety and nervousness were your challenges, but also kept you alert to what others wanted or needed. Maybe you put your obsessiveness and compulsivity to good use in a detail-oriented after-school job such as shelving books at the library or canned...