The Soul of Desire: Discovering the Neuroscience of Longing, Beauty, and Community

A Spiritual and Neurobiological Redemption of Desire

We are people of desire.

In The Soul of Desire, psychiatrist Curt Thompson suggests that underneath all our longings is the desire to be known—and what's more, that this fundamental yearning manifests itself in our deep need to make things of beauty, revealing who we are to others. Desire and beauty go hand in hand.

But both our craving to be known and our ability to create beauty have been marredby trauma and shame, collapsing our imaginati...