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

The audio for this talk by Dan Siegel at the RSA was posted back in July, but now there is also a video to go with it, although the video is only a short, edited highlights selection from the full talk.

Siegel defines the mind as an emergent, self-organizing process that arises from, and also regulates energy and information flow within the brain and within relationships with others. He describes the mind’s functions in body and relationships and then offers steps to strengthen this regulatory process of mind, revealing "a surprising principle of mental health."

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

11th Jul 2012

Listen to the audio

(full recording including audience Q&A)

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Watch the video (edited highlights)

RSA Keynote

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.