Jenni Ogden

Advance Praise and Reviews for TROUBLE IN MIND

In the spirit of Oliver Sacks, Jenni Ogden takes us on a remarkable journey into the inner workings of the human brain. Her fascinating tales examine how we think, how we feel, and how we communicate with the world. Fascinating!
Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, is the bestselling author of MEDICINE IN TRANSLATION, and editor of THE BELLEVUE LITERARY REVIEW.

Like Oliver Sacks in THE MAN WHO MISTOOK HIS WIFE FOR A HAT, Jenni Ogden introduces us to patients with neurological issues in TROUBLE IN MIND. Ogden creates characters who come to life like those in our favorite fiction, and shares with us the fascinating peculiarities of their brains. TROUBLE IN MIND is part science, part human interest, and 100 % terrific.
Ann Hood, is the bestselling author of THE KNITTING CIRCLE and THE RED THREAD

Ogden amazes us with the human brain and what we know about it so far - but more, she amazes us with her insight and her tender humanity. Ogden has the bedside manner we all long for from medical people. Warning – don’t read this book in public places, because you’ll be laughing and snorting and wiping away tears.
Dr. Sue Woolfe teaches creative writing at the University of Sydney, and is an award-winning novelist and author of THE SECRET CURE and THE MYSTERY OF THE CLEANING LADY: A WRITER LOOKS AT CREATIVITY AND NEUROSCIENCE.

TROUBLE IN MIND is a highly readable book that does double duty: It is ideal as an introductory text for undergraduates who are curious about neuropsychology, and for graduate students preparing for their first encounters with real patients. Its lively style and focus on the very human experiences of patients who have sustained brain damage and their often bewildered and distressed family members makes this book a fascinating set of tales for lay persons. Those who are curious about just what exactly does that gelatinous mass between our ears do will be rewarded with both knowledge about how the brain works and an empathetic understanding of how the disordered brain affects patients and their families, and its ripple effects on society.
The patients' stories Dr. Ogden chose from her case files relate the very varied consequences of the 13 most common brain disorders, told from a humanizing perspective. Following an introductory chapter, Dr. Ogden travels around the brain in 13 further chapters, each devoted to a different disorder, each with different origins, each involving different brain structures and processes, and each amenable or not to treatment. In the first two case-study chapters she relates the consequences of injury to the brain's left and right sides, introduces the reader to treatment possibilities, and to how cultural differences affect the understanding of and responses to brain dysfunction.
In the succeeding four chapters, Dr. Ogden visits specific areas of the brain, each necessary for normal functioning: frontal lobes for judgment, social understanding, self-appraisal, self-direction, and self-control; occipital lobes' contribution to visual perception and visual ideation; parietal lobes for sensory awareness and for both personal and extrapersonal spatial awareness; and memory and the temporal lobes. In each of the last seven chapters she relates stories of patients with specific brain disorders, beginning with epilepsy and concluding with three degenerative conditions: Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and Alzheimer's disease. All of the conditions dealt with in this book involve family and social relationships, but perhaps none so much as these three degenerative diseases, and severe brain injury which she tells about in the eleventh chapter.
So, besides being a good read about the world's most interesting topic--the human brain, the reader will gain a reliable foundation for understanding brain phenomena, both healthy and impaired. Enjoy and learn!
Muriel Lezak, Ph.D, is Professor Emerita of Neurology at the Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Oregon, and co-author of the bestselling text, NEUROPSYCHOLOGIOCAL ASSESSMENT.

The experience of caring for patients helps us learn more about these patients’ diseases than does just reading about these diseases in a text. In her new book, TROUBLE IN MIND, Jenni Ogden, one of the world’s premier neuropsychologists, shares her caring experiences, including her evaluation of patients who exhibited a rich variety of neurobehavioral disorders. In this book Dr. Ogden not only reveals the pathophysiology of these patients’ neuropsychological signs, but also portrays how these patient’s neurological diseases changed their lives. Reading these stories is like having actual clinical experiences and these experiences provide the reader with invaluable and indelible knowledge about brain function and dysfunction.
Kenneth M. Heilman M.D. Kenneth M. Heilman, MD, is the James E. Rooks Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University if Florida College of Medicine, and co-author of the best selling text CLINICAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY.

Readers will enjoy this book for several reasons. It is both scientific and practical and will appeal to academics and professionals engaged in the assessment and treatment of people with neuropsychological disorders. It also conveys the excitement of the detective work that goes into understanding the reasons behind those disorders. Jenni Ogden conveys her empathy and concern for individuals with aphasia, prosopagnosia, mind blindness, executive difficulties and other disorders associated with an insult or injury to the brain. Not only are readers given fascinating insights into some of the rare and more common disorders observed and treated by neuropsychologists but we are also provided with the moving personal stories behind the diagnoses. For example, as well as learning about the effects of Huntington’s Disease we are held emotionally by the author’s description of a daughter’s efforts to manage repercussions of this illness as experienced by her father and brothers; or, in the case of the woman who is trying to manage her life whilst on anticonvulsant medication, the reader is caught up in the dilemma caused by her wish to get pregnant. The strength of this book is that it reaches into deep levels associated with personal diagnosis and treatment and at the same time covers a very wide range of emotional and social consequences. Both students and experienced neuropsychologists will be spellbound.
Barbara A. Wilson, Ph.D, ScD, OBE, is Founder of the Oliver Zangwill Centre for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK, author of "MEMORY REHABILITATION: INTEGRATING THEORY AND PRACTICE and editor of the journal NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL REHABILITATION.

Jenni Ogden brilliantly illustrates the role of clinician as detective, delving into the worlds of neurological patients to reveal the mysteries and vulnerabilities of the human brain. She combines the expertise of a neuroscientist, the insight of a psychologist, and the eye of a novelist. The book is wonderfully accessible to anyone interested in how the brain works, and should be required reading for both students and established professionals.
Michael Corballis, Ph.D, is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Auckland, and author of "THE RECURSIVE MIND: THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN LANGUAGE, THOUGHT, AND CIVILIZATION and FROM HAND TO MOUTH: THE ORIGINS OF LANGUAGE.

A practical and insightful book on how various types of brain disorders actually affect people and their families. Using the case study method and her years of clinical experience, Dr. Ogden provides excellent descriptions of patients who experience some of the classic syndromes associated with know brain disorders. The book has many valuable lessons to teach neuropsychologists concerning issues of assessment, rehabilitation, and how to meaningfully interact with patients. It provides a level of clinical insight often not adequately described in traditional textbooks in clinical neuropsychology.
George Prigatano, Ph.D., holds the Newsome Chair, Department of Clinical Neuropsychology Barrow Neurological Institute, and is the author of PRINCIPLES OF NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL REHABILITATION and THE STUDY OF ANOSOGNOSIA.

TROUBLE IN MIND highlights the unique contributions that clinical neuropsychologists make to uncovering the specific cognitive and emotional deficits borne by patients with neurological or psychiatric disorders. Ogden’s case studies, the product of three decades of hands-on clinical experience, are insightful, entertaining, and informative. This engaging introduction to human brain function—normal and abnormal—will captivate the general reader and inspire students of neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience in their quest to understand the links between the brain and behavior.
Suzanne Corkin, Ph.D. is Professor of Behavorial Neuroscience, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.

This excellent book combines Ogden's renowned skills as an observer of important neuropsychological phenomena with a novelist's descriptive touch. She has produced a casebook that will fascinate at the same time as it educates. A superb achievement!
Michael Kopelman. Ph.D., Professor of Neuropsychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, co-author of LISHMAN'S ORGANIC PSYCHIATRY: A TEXTBOOK OF NEUROPSYCHIATRY.

Jenni Ogden's latest collection of neuropsychological case stories is full of insight and empathy. She is an engaging writer with the skill to move as well as inform. Her narratives illuminate the lives and troubled minds of a well-chosen variety of cases from 'HM', the most intensively researched patient in the history of neuropsychology, to 'ordinary' people with 'ordinary' neurological conditions. The message, ultimately, is that when it comes to the workings of our fragile brains, nothing is ordinary.
Paul Broks, PhD., teaches clinical neuropsychology at Plymouth Unversity, UK, and is the best-selling author of INTO THE SILENT LAND.