This citation is a self-critical and reflexive phrase from a person (12) who tried multiple brain enhancers to solve his problems, especially concentration problems. He started with brainwave meditation, used several pharmaceuticals, tried various (brain) therapies, and bought some technical devices and computer games in order to manipulate his brain. Some of these devices had some effects, in the sense that they temporarily âcleared his mindâ, and others had no result at all. Hence, this person is quite skeptical about certain brain devices and therapies, but this does not restrain him from trying other brain therapies. He is critical about some brain-enhancing practitioners and manufacturers, but he is also convinced of the need and possibility to change his brain.
One might wonder where this idea to change the brain comes from, and for what reason people keep on trying the recipeâeven if they do not notice any immediate effect. The explanation of user 12 is clear: on the Internet you are âbombardedâ with options. The message to take care of your brain is indeed widespread on the Internet and in other media. âYou think what you eatâ warns a newspaper headline. âFool your brainâ reads the heading of a news item about dieting. âReclaim your brainâ orders an advertisement for brain games. âAre your neurotransmitters out of balance?â asks a website for mood and energy management for women. âDo you think this guy can be his real self with such a brain?â inquires the medical director of a brain clinic while he points at an awful-looking brain picture (SPECT) in an Internet commercial.1 The same doctor contributes a more creative phrase: âA lot of people think that mood problems are all in their head, that these are psychological problems. But they are not: they are brain problems.â
Spreading the message that people should work on their brains is not only a commercial trend, but also a serious quest of neuroscientific associations that, for example, organize âbrain awareness weeksâ to make people more alert on their brainsâ capacities and how these can be to improved.2 Such brain awareness campaigns followed a scientific development in which many problems that were formerly called âmentalâ or âsocialâ, such as depression, anxiety, hyperactivity, or learning disabilities, were reconceptualized as brain disorders (Conrad & Potter, 2000; Lane, 2006; Rose, 2007). The causes and solutions of these problems altered with the concepts: from life events to brain disturbance and from psychotherapy to brain interference (Clarke, Mamo, Fishman, Shim, & Fosket, 2003; Rose, 2007). These scientific developments, combined with a political drive to increase health and happiness in the population, contributed to increasing attention being paid to the brain.3
These transformations were preceded by a shift in thought style regarding the brain. A few decades ago, the idea emerged that the brain was plastic and malleable, instead of stable and immutable as most neurologists thought before (Rubin, 2009). This change in perspective brought the promise of brain intervention as therapeutic intervention rapidly into action, since the brain was no longer seen as an organ that determined behavior, but also as an organ that could be trained or enhanced to change this behavior (Rubin, 2009). Moreover, the idea of a plastic brain transformed several academic disciplines because many researchers started to focus on the flexible neuro part of their work and formed new subdisciplines, such as neuropsychology, neuropedagogy, neuropolitics, or neuroeconomy, often subsumed under the name of âneuroscienceâ. In other words, the shift in thought style in neurology from a brain that was static to a brain that was plastic gave rise to contemporary neuroscience (Abi-Rached & Rose, 2010; Pitts-Taylor, 2010).
As a consequence of these neuroscientific developments, people are increasingly taught that not only the cause of their behavior but also the solution for their problems is located in their brains, and hence they are more and more inclined to work on their brains to become better, happier, more peaceful, or smarter. Although user 12 might be more fanatic or experimental than others in his quest to improve his brain, he is not an exception. Many people nowadays try to manipulate their brains by using techniques varying from pharmaceuticals, to special diets or nutrition, games, or technical devices (e.g. Pitts-Taylor, 2010; Thornton, 2011). On the Internet, or in special âbrain clinicsâ, several devices are obtainable that promise to improve peopleâs brains and make them happier, healthier, or more successful. Light and sound machines, for instance, promise to switch someoneâs brain state into meditation, hallucination, or concentration (e.g. Heller, 1991). Neurofeedback is promoted to cure people from disorders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or to improve their performance in music or sports (e.g. S. Johnson, 2004; Mattin, 2006; Roberts, 2006). And devices that produce electric or magnetic current are said to aid people in recovering from their depressions, anxieties, physical pain, or sleeping problems (e.g. Harvey, 2004; Naish, 2007).4
Brains and Selves
Working on the brain to improve oneself brings an ontological difficulty. As the presented media quotes demonstrated, the brain seems to be turned into an entity that can be changed and fooled, whereas it can also be out of balance, disorder your mood, and keep you away from being your real self. That is, the brain has a passive and an active function. This raises the question of who or what responds to these actions of the brain. Listening to media quotes, neuroscientists, or brain device users immediately gives the answer: you, or the self, is the respondent of the brain. People work on their brains because they want to improve themselves. This, however, requires a distinction between the self and the brain, because the self tries to regulate the brain. While the self is reduced to the brain, it simultaneously is the operator of this brain. To state this more clearly: you have to take care of your brain, while your brain takes care of you.
I argue that this ontological distinction between oneâs self and oneâs brain should not be considered as a Cartesian distinction between something material (the brain) and something ânon-materialâ (the mind). But the monistic view, generally stated as âthe mind is what the brain doesâ (c.f. Churchland, 1986; Rose, 2007, pp. 192, 198), does not suit either because it veils the ambiguity between the brain and the self. In this book, I examine how people handle this ambiguity. I analyze how working on the brain operates on the self by studying people who seem to be convinced that their selves are (or are in) their brains, since they have decided to change themselves by manipulating their brains. As mentioned, people can swallow pills, take specific nutrition, do special brain games or trainings, or directly intervene into the working processes of their brains with technical devices. I am especially intrigued by those people who use technical brain devices to improve themselves, since these techniques suggest direct interventionâwithout any bodily detoursâin the working processes of the brain. As a consequence, using a brain device to improve oneself appears to create a very close connection between the brain and the self.
To examine how improving oneself by using a brain device operates on peopleâs sense of self, I study therapeutic brain devices as contemporary examples of what Michel Foucault called âtechnologies of the selfâ: techniques people use to strive for their own health and happiness (Foucault, 1988). In his History of Sexuality (Foucault, 1990a, 1990b, 1992) Foucault described how since antiquity people had used techniques such as reading manuscripts, listening to teachers, doing confessions, or saying prayers to act on their selves and control their own thoughts and behaviors. Different techniques, Foucault argued, are based on different kinds of knowledge and ideas of self, and as a consequence, they also constitute different ways of being oneself (Foucault, 1988). To give an example, depending on the techniques people useâtaking antidepressants, seeing a psychoanalyst, or confessing oneâs sinsâthey will see themselves as persons with chemical unbalances, repressed sexual desires, or struggles with the devil, which are three completely different ways of being oneself. Following Foucault, I wonder what kind of self is constituted by using a brain device.
Multi-sited Ethnography
To find out how users of brain devices think about, act on, and constitute themselves, I relied upon multiple sources and used multiple methods. That is, I made use of a multi-method qualitative study in which I did not study a subject, or a thing, but a subjectivity. As such, my methods can probably best be described as a âmulti-sited ethnographyâ (Hine, 2007, see also Marcus, 1995). This kind of ethnography differs from traditional ethnography because it combines several methods to study a social phenomenon, a subject, or a thing, which is not situated at one site (e.g. a tribe, a laboratory). The term is adopted by several scholars who not only describe, but sometimes also intervene in their research project, for example, by organizing workshops on the topic. Multi-sited ethnography is not meant as a method for âobjectivelyâ or âdistantlyâ describing a phenomenon, but it shows the complexity of phenomena, including the influence the researcher can have on his or her studied phenomenon (Hine, 2007). Since the possibility to influence your research topic is quite an important issue when studying something as reflexive as the self, I reflect on this issue in the last chapter of this book.
This introduction will be followed by a chapter about brain devices that people can use to change themselves, namely, light and sound machines, non-invasive electric and magnetic stimulation, and neurofeedback. I give an overview of the uses, background, and scientific s...