Review: Blame My Brain: The Amazing Teenage Brain Revealed - New Updated Edition

User manual on how teenage brains work

Who would have guessed that the ability to accurately assess the emotion in a face actually diminishes between the ages of about 11 and 16 before recovering again afterwards? This means that while most children between four and 10 and most adults between 19 and 90 can distinguish fear on an adult face, lots of teenagers can’t. Where adults see fear, teens may see anger, shock, or disgust.

As it happens, it seems that adolescents use a different part of their brains when recognising facial emotions than adults do. They are more likely to lean on their amygdala (the home of the gut instinct) rather than the pre-frontal cortex (home of executive function) that adults tend to use. When you think about how much goes wrong in communications between teens, their parents, their teachers, and each other, this little titbit of information goes a long way towards explaining it.

And this is the point of the book; it is like a user’s manual for the teenage brain. Its author Nicola Morgan, relying on some of the most recent brain studies, sets out to explain the teenage brain to adolescents as well as their parents. The fact that the book is written for both parent and teenager invites some minor problems with regard to the nature of its content, but all in all, it is a creative part of a solution to an age-old problem: understanding the enigmatic teenager.

This is both a strength and weakness of the book, because it has to be necessarily reductive. Limited brain studies are often utilised towards greater ends than the studies themselves warrant. Morgan is upfront about the limitations of such studies, and offers a variety of explanations that enable further debate (biological, evolutionary, and cultural theories). Because of its inherent complexity, the book bites off a little more than it can chew: but as a way towards non-judgmentally enabling teens and their parents to understand what may be going on during this confusing time, it is a truly excellent way in.

Morgan covers a great deal of material, starting from brain basics and then applying this cerebral knowledge to subjects dear to the hearts of teens and parents alike, including teens’ famous penchant for sleep; attraction to risk; the draws and consequences of substance misuse; the differences between the sexes; and the potential for mental and emotional anguish (depression, anxiety, self harm, etc.).

This book helps teens understand how their brains are contributing to their equally exciting and frustrating experiences, while allowing parents and carers to get a deeper understanding into what happened to their dear sweet babies who have turned into rather less knowable and often more difficult progeny.

Aaron Balick, psychotherapist and psychological consultant, www.mindswork.co.uk

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