Dan Siegel - The Emerging Mind: How Relationships and the Embodied Brain Shape Who We Are

Dan Siegel spoke recently at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, otherwise known as the RSA. As always, Siegel is entertaining and erudite, without being obscure - and in this talk he explores a working definition for the mind.

Here are the most relevant of his many books for this discussion:

• The Developing Mind, Second Edition: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are
• The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being
• The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician's Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration
• Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

Siegel's books have done more to bring contemporary, relational psychoanalytic theory, based in attachment theory and interpersonal neurobiology, into the mainstream of modern psychology than any other author.

The Emerging Mind: How relationships and the embodied brain shape who we are

11th July 2012

Listen to the audio

(full recording including audience Q&A)
Please right-click link and choose "Save Link As..." to download audio file onto your computer.

RSA Keynote: Dan Siegel

What is the mind? From where and what does the mind emerge? Can our minds be made more resilient? What is ‘interpersonal neurobiology’?

Astonishingly, over ninety-five percent of mental health professionals from around the world have never received even a single lecture defining what the mind is. Bestselling author of both academic textbooks and works of popular science, and currently the clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, Daniel Siegel visits the RSA to explore a working definition of the mind.

Join Daniel Siegel as he outlines how the mind can be defined as an emergent, self-organizing process that arises from, and also regulates energy and information flow within the brain and within relationships with others. The mind’s functions in body and relationships will be described and then steps to strengthening this regulatory process of mind will be outlined as a surprising principle of mental health is revealed.

Underlying both the neural and the relational pillars of a healthy mind is the process of integration — the linkage of differentiated aspects of a system. Cultivating integration within relationships and the nervous system means we can create the flexible, adaptive, coherent, and stable states of a resilient emerging mind.

Chair: Dr Jonathan Rowson, the RSA Social Brain project.

See what people said on Twitter: #RSAmind

Get the latest RSA Audio

Subscribe to iTunes | RSS | Mixcloud

You are welcome to link to, download, save or distribute our audio/video files electronically. Find out more about our open access licence.