Dan Siegel: What Makes a Healthy Mind
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tami Simon speaks with Dan Siegel, MD, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the executive director of the Mindsight Institute in Los Angeles. He is the author of several books, including The Developing Mind; the Sounds True audio learning programs The Mindful Brain and The Neurobiology of We; and the October Soundstrue.com online course Mindfulness and the Brain. Dan discusses what it means to have a healthy mind. (68 Minutes)
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Dan & Tami,
Very helpful, outstanding interview. The implications of this research were actually very well explained. Thank you. Can’t wait to read Mind Sight.
Congratulations and Thank You!
Comment by Jo-Ann Triner — October 8, 2009 @ 12:34 am
What is the mind? A good and useful question. The regulatory process of energy and knowledge flow for the purpose of monitoring and modifying.
Comment by Stan — December 14, 2009 @ 10:55 am
Dan found that all mental suffering is due to chaos or rigidity. Health involves flexibility and harmony which feels good.
He linked accepting the way things and people are and love. Good one.
Comment by Stan — December 15, 2009 @ 10:25 am
How to benefit from his insights? Learn, monitor, and play the eight domains of integration. Health is the integration of the brain, mind, and relationships for harmonious functioning. It sounds like this man is working with some very helpful ways of helping us suffer less in these days of famine of well being.
Comment by Stan — December 16, 2009 @ 10:18 am
When Dan was speaking of the importance of both differentiation AND linkage I was reiminded of the concept on nonduality. If we allow ourself the gift of free awareness without judgement we will tend to integrate, heal, and develop. I had rarely considered my connection to sentient beings living hundreds of years from now. Nice insight here.
Comment by Stan — December 17, 2009 @ 10:17 am
More information here: http://www.ithou.org/node/2730
Some rough notes-
Nine Domains of Integration
1) Integration of consciousness – Learn to place your attention where it will do the most good for yourself and others.
2) Vetical integration – focusing awareness on the input from the body, our affective states, and our range of thoughts and ideas.
3) Bilateral Integration – right & left hemispheres
4) Integration of Memory – Experience past memories skillfully in the present and anticipate a good future.
5) Narative integration – Change old maladaptive patterns by changing the narative themes we tell ourself about ourself and our past.
6) State Integration – We can embrace the differentiated states of mind and their drive to satisfy different needs for familiarity and comfort, novelty and challenge, connection and love, mastery and exploration.
7) Temporal Integration – Use our insight about the tempory nature of our lives to help us consider the deep questions of purpose in life.
8) Interpersonal Integration – Learn to resonate with the states of one who is suffering to help him develop adaptive capacities for self-regulation and well-being.
9) Transpirational Integration – Develop the awareness that we are connected to a larger whole, beyond our immediate life.
Comment by Stan — December 21, 2009 @ 6:17 pm
I have taken the online course with Dan Siegel and Jack Kornfield. I have read the book Mindsight and now I have listened to the podcast. I can only say Thank you to Tami and to Dan for offering this most valuable information for my own wellbeing but also to share with others as I journey. I occasionally give presentations and include this wonderful new research that helps evolve our consciousness to hopefull be more moral humans. Susan
Comment by Susan Griffiths — March 30, 2010 @ 11:44 am
I have spent the last eight years doing research on trauma and recovery, PTSD and healing an injured mind through the mind/body connection. I am probably a perfect case study to support Mindsight research.
I was a victim of cumulative childhood traumas and my brain was altered at an early age by my Gestapo-like mother. I had a right brain awakening eight years ago that led to a period of hypergraphic writing, and to me becoming an avid researcher to avoid falling victim to a therapeutic world who wants to treat people like me with drugs and therapeutic labeling and confusion. I didn’t know what I was doing in the beginning and had no coaching but came to the same conclusion as Dan Seigel did.
My theory in the beginning was that if the brain can be altered it can be changed back. So that is what I set out to do. And that is what I did.
I know that this information will help so many people like me who suffer from Fibromyaligia, Chronic Myofasial Pain and Post Traumatic Stress. I feel strongly that victims are empowered by understanding the brain and viewing their problems from a neuro-scientific viewpoint. I wish I could have found this information at the beginning of my journey of healing. But alas I did find it. My hope is that this kind of research and insight will spread out to people like me who have had to suffer so much because of not knowing or understanding the mind body connection. (Knowledge dispenses fear)
Thank you for sharing this information with me.
Comment by Janie Lancaster — December 6, 2010 @ 5:36 pm
Dan outlined some possible benefits of mindfulness meditation; regulating your body, of attuning to others, of having emotional balance, of being flexible, of reducing fear, of having empathy and insights and even morality, and intuition. These sound like more than worthwhile goals to me.
Comment by Cloud — November 12, 2011 @ 8:12 am