QUOTE : This was the first study ever to show that cognitive-behavior therapy—or, indeed, any psychiatric treatment that did not rely on drugs—has the power to change faulty brain chemistry in a well-identified brain circuit. What’s more, the therapy had been self-directed, something that was and to a great extent remains anathema to psychology and psychiatry. The changes we detected on PET scans were the kind that neuropsychiatrists might see in patients being treated with powerful mind-altering drugs. We had demonstrated such changes in patients who had, not to put too fine a point on it, changed the way they thought about their thoughts. Self-directed therapy had dramatically and significantly altered brain function. There are now a wealth of brain imaging data supporting the notion that the sort of willful cognitive shift achieved during Refocusing through mindful awareness brings about important changes in brain circuitry as we will see in later chapters.