Whenever I conduct modules in SPoR I find most commonly that people in safety read very little. Often, they explain that they have no time because their working life is exhaustive with so much paperwork and meetings. Similarly, their formation in the industry is consumed with reading regulations and legislation but with no emphasis on reading as research. Most often, they have never been challenged to articulate their own worldview, ethical view or anything beyond the basics of traditional safety. If they do read a safety book per chance, it usually endorses the behaviourist/engineering worldview with which safety indoctrinates people into its culture.
When it comes to neuroscience, Safety assumes one can just take this worldview to the research and interpret the nature of persons through this behaviourist/engineering lens (https://safetyrisk.net/a-leadership-worldview-for-psychosocial-safety/ ). All this provides is, more ‘confirmation bias’ and more ‘sunk cost’. Any view outside of this view is deemed non-compliant or anti-safety.
In all this recent clamouring for Psychosocial Safety there is simply no focus on the nature of the whole person. The idea of the ‘whole person’ is assumed to be known (using the behaviourist/engineering lens) thinking that the recent codes of practice and standard ISO 45003 will help establish Psychosocial Safety.
However, the philosophy that underpins the codes and standard never discuss the ‘whole person’. Indeed, nowhere in safety will you find a discussion on an ethic of Personhood. Similarly, many texts in safety on leadership also endorse the behaviourist/engineering worldview. Most of the stuff circulating in safety branded as neuroscience is NOT about neuroscience.
There are other worldviews than the safety worldview.
For this reason, I have collected together the best books I have read on the neuroscience of the whole person, for your interest. I have underlined the books that are the easiest to read.
· Claxton, G., (2009) The Wayward Mind, An Intimate History of The Unconscious. Abacus. London.
· Claxton, G., (2015) Intelligence in the Flesh. Yale University Press. New York.
· Colombetti, G., The Feeling Body, Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind. MIT Press, London.
· Damasio, A., (1994) Descartes’ Error, Emotion, Reason, and The Human Brian. Penguin, New York.
· Damasio, A., (1999) The Feeling of What happens, Body and Emotions in the Making of Consciousness. Harvest Books, New York.
· Damasio, A., (2003) Looking for Spinoza, Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain. Harvest Books. New York.
· Damasio, A., (2010) Self Comes to Mind, Constructing the Conscious Brain. Pantheon Books. New York.
· Damasio, A., (2018) The Strange Order of Things, Life, Feeling and the Making of Cultures. Pantheon Books. New York.
· Damasio, A., (2021) Feeling and Knowing, Making Minds Conscious. Pantheon Books. New York.
· Durt, C., Fuchs, T., and Tews, C., (eds.) (1997) Embodiment, Enaction, and Culture. MIT Press. London.
· Fuchs, T., (2018) Ecology of the Brain, The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind. Oxford University Press. London.
· Fuchs, T., (2021) In Defense of the Human Being Foundational Questions of an Embodied Anthropology. Oxford University Press. London.
· Ginot, E., (2015) The Neuropsychology of the Unconscious, Integrating Brain and Mind in Psychotherapy. Nortons. New York.
· Johnson, M., (1987) The Body in Mind, The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
· Johnson, M., (2007) The Meaning of the Body, Aesthetics of Human Understanding. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
· Johnson, M., (2014) Morality for Humans, Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
· Johnson, M., (2017) Embodied Mind, Meaning and Reason. How Our Bodies Give Rise to Understanding. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
· Lakoff, G., and Johnson, M., (1980). Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
· Lakoff, G., and Johnson, M., (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh, The Embodied Mind and Its Challenges to Western Thought. Basic Books, New York.
· Macknik, S., and Martinez-Conde, S., (2010) Sleights of Mind, What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals About Our Everyday Deceptions. Henry Holt Co., New York.
· Meyer, C., Streeck, J., and Jordan, J. S., (2017). Intercorporeality, Emerging Socialities in Interaction. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.
· Noe, A., (2009) Out of Our Heads, Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from The Biology of Consciousness. Hill and Wang. New York.
· Norretranders, T., (1991) The User Illusion, Cutting Consciousness Down to Size. Penguin. London.
· Panksepp, J., (1998) Affective Neuroscience, The Foundations of Human Animal Emotions. Oxford University Press. London.
· Raaven, H., (2013). The Self Beyond Itself, An Alternative History of Ethics, the New Brain Sciences and the Myth of Free Will. The New Press. New York.
· Ramachandran, V. S., (2004) A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness. PI Books, New York
· Robinson, K., (2011). Out of Our Minds, Learning to Be Creative. Capstone. London.
· Thompson, E., (2010) Mind in Life, Biology, Phenomenology, and the Science of the Mind. Belknap Press. London.
· Tversky, B., (2019) Mind in Motion, How Action Shapes Thoughts. Basic Books. New York.
· Van Der Kolk, B., (2015) The Body Keeps the Score, Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin, New York.
· Varela, F., Thompson, E ., and Rosch, E., (1993) The Embodied Mind, Cognitive Science and Human Experience. MIT Press, London.
Dr Rob Long
Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)
- Gesture and Symbol in Safety, the Force of Culture - March 20, 2023
- Celebrating 60 Years of Lifeline - March 19, 2023
- Smart Phone Addiction, FOMO and Safety at Work - March 19, 2023
- Entertainment, Suckers and Making Money From Safety - March 19, 2023
- Breaking the Safety Code - March 18, 2023
Do you have any thoughts? Please share them below