Inventing Ourselves

WINNER of the 2018 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize 2018

'Finally, a book about the adolescent brain written by someone who actually does the science! Highly readable, ground-breaking' Professor Laurence Steinberg

Why does an easy child become a challenging teenager?
Why do teenagers struggle to get up in the morning?
Why do they often take excessive risks?

We often joke that teenagers don’t have brains. For some reason, it’s socially acceptable to mock people in this stage of their lives. The need for intense friendships, the excessive risk taking and the development of many mental illnesses – depression, addiction, schizophrenia – begin during these formative years, so what makes the adolescent brain different?

Drawing upon her cutting-edge research in her London laboratory, award-winning neuroscientist, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explains what happens inside the adolescent brain, what her team’s experiments have revealed about our behaviour, and how we relate to each other and our environment as we go through this period of our lives. She shows that while adolescence is a period of vulnerability, it is also a time of enormous creativity – one that should be acknowledged, nurtured and celebrated.

Our adolescence provides a lens through which we can see ourselves anew. It is fundamental to how we invent ourselves.

'Beautifully written with clarity, expertise and honesty about the most important subject for all of us. I couldn’t put it down' Robert Winston