Capture - by David A Kessler (Paperback)

About the Book

Why do we think, feel, and act in ways we wish we did not? For decades, Kessler has studied this question with regard to tobacco, food, and drugs. He identified one underlying mechanism common to a broad range of human suffering: capture, the process by which our attention is hijacked and our brains commandeered by forces outside our control. In this book he examines the central role of capture in mental illness, and questions traditional labels that have obscured our understanding of it.

Book Synopsis

"A breakthrough book. In a world of increasingly specialized knowledge, it takes a particular gift and some stubbornness to cut across the fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, philosophy and psychology and to ask the fundamental question: Why it is that we can allow our best selves to be captured by and torpedoed by thoughts and actions that sink us?. . . . [Kessler's] ultimate answer is profound and one that could be life-changing and life-saving. I know I will be handing this book out for just that reason." -- Abraham Verghese, MD, author of Cutting for Stone

In Capture, New York Times bestselling author Dr. David A. Kessler considers some of the most profound questions we face as human beings: What are the origins of mental afflictions, from everyday unhappiness to addiction and depression--and how are they connected? Where does healing and transcendence fit into this realm of emotional experience?

Analyzing an array of insights from psychology, medicine, neuroscience, literature, philosophy, and theology, Dr. Kessler deconstructs centuries of thinking, examining the central role of capture in mental illness and questioning traditional labels that have obscured our understanding of it. Looking to the emotionally resonant lives of figures such as David Foster Wallace, Virginia Woolf, William James, Tennessee Williams, John Belushi, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell, among others, he explains how this concept is at play in their lives and--by extension--our own.

Ultimately, Capture offers insight into how we form thoughts and emotions, manage trauma, and heal. For the first time, we can begin to understand the underpinnings not only of mental illness but also of our everyday worries and anxieties. Capture is an intimate and critical exploration of the most enduring human mystery of all: the mind.

From the Back Cover

In Capture, Dr. Kessler considers some of the most profound questions we face as human beings: What are the origins of mental afflictions, from everyday unhappiness to addiction and depression--and how are they connected? Where does healing and transcendence fit into this realm of emotional experience?

Analyzing an array of insights from psychology, medicine, neuroscience, literature, philosophy, and theology, Dr. Kessler deconstructs centuries of thinking, examining the central role of capture in mental illness and questioning traditional labels that have obscured our understanding of it. Looking to the emotionally resonant lives of figures such as David Foster Wallace, Virginia Woolf, William James, Tennessee Williams, John Belushi, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell, among others, he explains how this concept is at play in their lives and--by extension--our own.

Ultimately, Capture offers insight into how we form thoughts and emotions, manage trauma, and heal. For the first time, we can begin to understand the underpinnings not only of mental illness but also of our everyday worries and anxieties. Capture is an intimate and critical exploration of the most enduring human mystery of all: the mind.

Review Quotes

"In this richly documented, beautifully written, and original work, David Kessler has given us an idea that explains one of the most strange and most powerful processes in the human brain." - E. O. Wilson, University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
"Capture is a breakthrough book. In a world of increasingly specialized knowledge, it takes a particular gift and some stubbornness to cut across the fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, philosophy and psychology and to ask the fundamental question: Why it is that we can allow our best selves to be captured by and torpedoed by thoughts and actions that sink us? Kessler's exploration of the question makes for a compelling read. His ultimate answer is profound and one that could be life-changing and life-saving. I know I will be handing this book out for just that reason." - Abraham Verghese, MD, author of Cutting for Stone
"Capture is a breakthrough book. It takes a particular gift to cut across neuroscience, psychiatry, philosophy, and psychology and to ask the fundamental question: Why do we allow our best selves to torpedoed by thoughts and actions that sink us? His answer is profound, life-changing, and life-saving." - Abraham Verghese, MD, author of Cutting for Stone
"This book offers a bold, overarching explanation for many of the great problems of the mind, problems that are often merely named. Dr. Kessler writes persuasively and with unusual clarity. Capture is an engrossing book, impressive in its cultural as well as its scientific reach." - Tracy Kidder, New York Times best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Mountains Beyond Mountains and The Soul of a New Machine
"Capture definies a shape of human experience that seems to inform everything from the smallest action to the largest life aim, a unified-field theory of human activity that draws in how we form thoughts, manage trauma, and even try to reconcile will and cause." - Chris Ware, author of Building Stories
"In Capture, David Kessler proposes an original theory of mind. His cogent argument is that a great deal of the apparently inexplicable behavior of human beings is the result of impulses, drives, and obsessions that may share fundamental neural and psychodynamic mechanisms. This carefully researched book is both startling and engaging, and is written with brio." - Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon
"Kessler's cogent argument is that a great deal of the apparently inexplicable behavior is the result of impulses, drives, and obsessions that may share fundamental neural and psychodynamic mechanisms. This carefully researched book is both startling and engaging, and written with brio." - Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon
"Kessler writes about the concept of capture, or forces that strongly influence the mind, overriding reason and will. Invoking novelists, Freudian drives, and current neuroscience, Kessler explains how capture motivates, clarifies thoughts, and provides insight. A challenging and rewarding book for both scholars and lay readers." - Library Journal
"Capture defines a shape of human experience about which I'm pretty sure no one has ever written before, a shape that seems to inform everything from the smallest action to the largest life aim, a unified-field theory of human activity that draws in how we form thoughts, manage trauma, and even try to reconcile will and cause." - Chris Ware, author of Building Stories
"Kessler is an excellent storyteller, and Capture is bursting with human drama drawn from real lives rather than the bland, composite case studies that clinicians tend to favor." - Washington Post
"[A] Big Idea about how to conceptualize the mind and the brain... capture offers a new lens through which to understand human behavior." - New York Times Book Review