The talk will cover the main thesis of The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, which explains the phenomenological significance of brain lateralisation, each hemisphere giving rise to an experiential world with differing qualities.  It will also touch on the light this casts on certain aspects of mental illness, and its implications for psychotherapy.

(Follow-up discussion for attendees:  Wednesday December 16^th 19.30 – 20.30)

Dr Iain McGilchrist is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate  Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London.  He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch.  He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry.  He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009), and is currently working on a book of epistemology and ontology for Penguin Random House.  He lives on the Isle of Skye, and has 2 daughters and a son.