Daniel J. Siegel - Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

Mindsight is a seminal piece on bringing neuroscience to everyday life, helping us to understand what can go awry in the mind so that, armed with that knowledge, we will be better able to change. The book is a wonderful journey from the mind through the brain and the body and then back again. Dr. Daniel Siegels use of elaborate personal as well as patient stories makes us feel as though we are on a guided tour with a friendly group of fellow travelers.

John J. Ratey, M.D., author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, and co-author of Driven to Distraction

Dr. Siegels groundbreaking explorations of the brain provide a remarkable window into the physiological underpinnings of human behavior. Mindsight is a literary MRI: a mind-blowing book that will change the way you think about the way you think.

Arianna Huffington

Right now, Dr. Siegel is creating a stir among therapists unmatched by any other in the field. Mindsight offers a fascinating synthesis of his innovative ideas about the implications of the new brain science for understanding relationships and the processes of human change.

Richard Simon, Ph.D., editor, Psychotherapy Networker

Mindsight is a remarkable exploration into the synergistic workings of the mind and the brain. Using clinical vignettes as well as revelations about his own life, Dr. Siegel shows us how we can go from reactive impulsiveness to receptive awareness so that we can make valid choices, not blindly repeat maladaptive behaviors. It will be enormously useful for patients and their families, as well as mental health workers and the lay public at large.

Clarice Kestenbaum, M.D., professor of clinical psychiatry, Columbia University

Mindsight is a rare book. Rooted in groundbreaking scientific research and searching professional practice, it is also a deeply compassionate and human account of what it is to be human. Mindsight has powerful lessons for doctors, for parents and educators, and for all of us who are trying to make sense of how we make sense of things.

Sir Ken Robinson, author of The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

This exciting book reveals the secrets of the mind that we have sought in Eastern and Western thought for two thousand years. How do we see the mind and learn to tame it for a happier and healthier life? Filled with engaging stories, Mindsight uses cutting-edge science and deep humanity to address the questions that we all have about the mystery in our skull.

Natalie Goldberg, author Old Friend from Far Away and Writing Down the Bones

In this brilliant and highly readable book, Dr. Siegel combines his prodigious knowledge of brain science, clinical psychology, and mind-fulness with his immense capacity for original thinking to develop a new and useful concept: mindsight. An intrepid navigator of the vast sea inside us all, he maps the territory and offers amazing insights into how to benefit from the journey. His work will forever change the way we understand ourselves and our relationships.

Dr. Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia and Seeking Peace

In The Developing Mind, Daniel Siegel brilliantly revealed how relationships sculpt and are sculpted by the brain. Mindsight is the perfect follow-up, a daring plan of action for a wiser and kinder life thats transformative yet easy to understand, and should appeal to specialists and laymen alikein fact, to anyone who wants to enrich their life, their childrens lives, and society.

Diane Ackerman, author of The Zookeepers Wife and A Natural History of the Senses

T HE GREAT LEAPS FORWARD IN PSYCHOLOGY have come from original insights that suddenly clarify our experience from a fresh angle, revealing hidden patterns of connection. Freuds theory of the unconscious and Darwins model of evolution continue to help us understand the findings from current research on human behavior and some of the mysteries of our daily lives. Daniel Siegels theory of mindsightthe brains capacity for both insight and empathyoffers a similar Aha! He makes sense for us out of the cluttered confusions of our sometimes maddening and messy emotions.

Our ability to know our own minds as well as to sense the inner world of others may be the singular human talent, the key to nurturing healthy minds and hearts. Ive explored this terrain in my own work on emotional and social intelligence. Self-awareness and empathy are (along with self-mastery and social skills) domains of human ability essential for success in life. Excellence in these capacities helps people flourish in relationships, family life, and marriage, as well as in work and leadership.

Of these four key life skills, self-awareness lays the foundation for the rest. If we lack the capacity to monitor our emotions, for example, we will be poorly suited to manage or learn from them. Tuned out of a range of our own experience, we will find it all the harder to attune to that same range in others. Effective interactions depend on the smooth integration of self-awareness, mastery, and empathy. Or so Ive argued. Dr. Siegel casts the discussion in a fresh light, putting these dynamics in terms of mindsight, and marshals compelling evidence for its crucial role in our lives.

A gifted and sensitive clinician, as well as a master synthesizer of research findings from neuroscience and child development, Dr. Siegel gives us a map forward. Over the years he has continually broken new ground in his writing on the brain, psychotherapy, and child-rearing; his seminars for professionals are immensely popular.

The brain, he reminds us, is a social organ. Mindsight is the core concept in interpersonal neurobiology, a field Dr. Siegel has pioneered. This two-person view of what goes on in the brain lets us understand how our daily interactions matter neurologically, shaping neural circuits. Every parent helps sculpt the growing brain of a child; the ingredients of a healthy mind include an attuned, empathetic parentone with mindsight. Such parenting fosters this same crucial ability in a child.

Mindsight plays an integrative role in the triangle connecting relationships, mind, and brain. As energy and information flow among these elements of human experience, patterns emerge that shape all three (and the brain here includes its extensions via the nervous system throughout the body). This vision is holistic in the true sense of the word, inclusive of our whole being. With mindsight we can better know and manage this vital flow of being.

Dr. Siegels biographical details are impressive. Harvard-trained and a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA and co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center there, he also founded and directs the Mindsight Institute. But far more impressive is his actual being, a mindful, attuned, and nurturing presence that is nourishing in itself. Dr. Siegel embodies what he teaches.

For professionals who want to delve into this new science, I recommend Dr. Siegels 1999 text on interpersonal neurobiology, The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience