Mindsight
Siegel's signature concept of perceiving one's own and others' minds, with clinical stories.
In his new, wise, and utterly approachable book, Dr. Siegel uses beautiful and often remarkable case histories to show us how we can change our minds, brains, relationships, and even the course of certain mental illnesses.
Siegel sets out mindsight as the capacity to perceive one's own mind and the minds of others, and to use that perception to reshape entrenched patterns of feeling and behaviour. He grounds the idea in interpersonal neurobiology, arguing that focused attention can alter the brain's structure, and that integration across its regions underlies mental health. The clinical chapters carry the weight: a bipolar teenager who turns to meditation, a woman uncovering childhood trauma, a twelve-year-old working through OCD, each followed session by session.
For a clinician, the value lies in the detailed case narratives, which show how Siegel listens for where integration has broken down and works to restore it. He translates findings from attachment research and affective neuroscience into language a patient can hold, and offers concrete practices for steadying attention. First published in 2010, the book pairs consulting-room detail with a working model of how the mind changes.
About the author
Daniel Siegel
Daniel J. Siegel is an American physician and clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. Trained in pediatrics and in child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry, he founded the approach he calls interpersonal neurobiology and serves as director of education at the Mindsight Institute. He is founding editor of the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology and the author of many books, among them The Developing Mind, Mindsight, Brainstorm, and Aware. He was a founding co-director of UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center.
Details
- 2010
- Bantam
- Bantam
- 336
- 9780553386394