Book Review: Four Ways to Click by Dr Amy Banks

Four Ways To Click: Rewire Your Brain for Stronger, More Rewarding Relationships  by Dr Amy Banks & Leigh Ann HirschmanPaperbackReview copy provided by publisherAllen & Unwin, March 2015 Synopsis- Research shows that people cannot reach their full potential unless they are in healthy connection with others. Dr Amy Banks teaches us how to rewire our brains for healthier relationships and happier, more fulfilling lives. We all experience moments when we feel isolated and alone. Research has found that many people cannot name one person they feel close to. Yet every single one of us is hardwired for close relationships. The key to more satisfying relationships - be it with a significant other, family member, or colleague - is to strengthen the neural pathways in our brains that encourage closeness and connection.There are four distinct neural pathways that correspond to the four most important ingredients for healthy and satisfying relationships: calmness, acceptance, emotional resonance and energy. This ground-breaking book gives readers the tools they need to strengthen the parts of their brain that encourage connection and to heal the neural damage that disconnection can cause.

Review- Four Ways to Click is a non-fiction novel developed by American Psychiatrist Dr Amy Banks who specialises in relational psychopharmacology and therapy for people who suffer from chronic disconnection.

She has a very clear writing style which unpacks complicated neurological jargon and research and translates it into and easy to understand format. There's a foreward by Dan Siegel who is very well known in the area of neuropsychology.

I was attracted to this book because on both a professional and personal level; I like to understand how people are in relationships and my core work is all about relationships. The neurological element drew me in to find out more.

Having read many, many psychology and attachment-based text books, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this book was to read. She takes complex concepts and breaks them down for the lay person. There are plenty of clinical examples which I found really useful. It actually had quite a similar style to The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, a book that was ground-breaking upon its release. It claimed that the brain is elastic and we can train our brains to recover from physical and emotional trauma. Four Ways To Click seems to build on this idea but looks at it from a relationship-based perspective. How can people retrain their brains to engage in healthier relationships? Dr Banks’ explains how this can be done via her model known as CARE- Calmness, Acceptance, Resonance and Energy. While much of the neurological information about brain plasticity wasn’t new to me, I did like how she applied this to human relationships and provided practical examples of how to retrain the brain.

I’ve recommended this book to many of my colleagues, but I think it’s a book that’s equally inviting of people from all kinds of backgrounds and walks of life that are interested in understanding their relationship patterns, or just interested in people in general.

Overall Rating

4/5

"I loved this book!"

Four Ways to Click can be purchased from Fishpond and other leading book retailers