The Man Who Tasted Shapes Summary

Synesthesia is a unique condition in which stimulation of one sensory pathway causes a response from another sensory pathway. The Man Who Tasted Shapes tells the story of the experiments performed by neurologist Richard Cytowic and his experiments on a man with synesthesia. In the book, Cytowic recalls the first time he heard about synesthesia while working as a resident in a hospital and is brushed off by his coworkers who can not imagine a condition with no physical signs. This leads to Cytowic’s philosophical consideration of whether or not synesthesia matters in a clinical setting. Since the book was published, copious amounts of new research has emerged about the condition, making it more widely-recognized in the field of psychology and

If a therapist’s job is to provide comfort and a listening ear to a patient, synesthetes are in particular need. “Persons presenting with synesthesia commonly avoid mentioning their unusual percepts and even tend to close on themselves in psychological distress” (Safran & Sandra, 2015). People with synesthesia often experience extreme bouts of emotion when they have symptoms that they do not understand or symptoms that are unpleasant. This can lead to impaired mental health, as it is stressful for the individual. Therapists may be able to provide coping mechanisms for the overstimulation that oftentimes accompanies synesthesia. A quote from The Man Who Tasted Shapes comes from the conversation Cytowic had with his coworkers when he first heard about synesthesia. His coworker claimed, “It can't be real without physical signs.” (Cytowic, 1994). In a counseling and clinical setting, synesthesia research can add to the array of information that supports conditions being real despite not having physical signs. This is an extremely important aspect of psychology, as anxiety and depression were regarded in the same manner before the stigma was

To this argument, he remarks that “Subjective experiences are the bread and butter of clinical neurology. They are, for example, the only means in classical neurology to assess any sensory quality” (Cytowic, 1994). Sensory experiences can be studied physiologically, but scientists can only understand how they work because of reported experience. Physicians can only know that individuals afflicted with parosmia (distorted sense of smell) as an aftereffect of COVID-19 have this affliction due to anecdotal reports. However, doctors and scientists that study this phenomenon are not inclined to treat the patients like outcasts, or assume they are lying. Sacks discussed how individuals with invisible disabilities should be treated the same way because their maladies can serve as useful information for further research. Moreover, Sacks remarks that “Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives—we are each of us unique” (Sacks, 1985). Part of the fascinating manner of synesthesia is the uniqueness that each form brings. This very uniqueness is what makes synesthesia, and invisible disabilities of its kind, so vitally important to psychology in a scientific