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The Way We Are is a careful and deeply incisive tour of the scientific territory of human states of being (SoB) and their implications in the understanding of states related to bipolar disorder, drugs and addiction, memory and identity, personality, somatoform disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and dissociative disorders, as well as exceptional states of being, like hypnotic states, meditation, and spiritual awakenings. State-related disorders and associated phenomena are some of the most difficult to understand and treat. Creating a good heuristic for how a mind works is essential to clinical work and the understanding of states. In this review, as an enticement to read his work, I've endeavored to make an introduction to Putnam's conceptual frame. Human consciousness is built upon basic units called states of being. “If there's any basis for this contention…the reader should discover examples of the roles of states in his/her own life and those of others (p. 24).
For example, the multiple self-state model of mind currently embraced by relational psychoanalysis (Bromberg, 2011; Stern, 2010) is informed by the basic science of discrete states of being. These states are often hidden within patterned personal and interpersonal actions and interactions, some of which are described by the psychoanalytic term “enactment.” Likewise, no psychiatrist asked to medicate a person with