I read this book as part of a reading group at work. We had read Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, and we had mixed feelings about that book. We had enjoyed the ideas but were disappointed by a lack of practical suggestions for personal growth. Siegel's Mindsight only focuses on one of Goleman's domains of emotional intelligence, self-awareness, but that piece is the fundamental one on which all other skill of social and emotional intelligence are built.

Siegel's book describes many practical actions one can take to increase self-awareness. These techniques will sound familiar to anyone familiar with mindfulness traditions (observing the breath, the sensations of the senses, sensations within the body, thoughts, connections to others), but he brings a different perspective. Siegel is a practicing psychotherapist with an interest in understanding the neuroscience behind different techniques. Instead of presenting mindfulness practices from a religious/spiritual point of view, he presents these practices from a practical (e.g., case study oriented) and scientific point of view. For those who have studied mindfulness from a spiritual perspective, this book will broaden your perspective For those who see mindfulness as new age woo woo, this book shows the scientifically and practically grounded effects and benefits of mindfulness practices.

That said, this book was much more focused on the stories of the case studies than on the concepts or the science. This was interesting, but most of us in the reading group would have liked to see this coupled with a more conceptual presentation. Oddly enough, the author would have preferred that too. We had coordinated the reading of this book with a visit from Dr. Siegel. In addition to giving an interesting talk, Dr. Siegel was generous enough to have a more focused session with the members of the reading group. During that talk, he revealed to us that he wrote this book for a general audience, and most people learn best through stories. However, he did have another book which, as he put it, contains everything his editor would not let him put into Mindsight. That book is The Mindful Therapist, and I look forward to reading it! ( )

Basisboek over de flexibiliteit van onze geest, traumabehandeling en lichaam-geest-hersenen verhoudeing. ( )

The author talks about integrating the different parts of your brain with each other and even your brain with the brains of others using mindfulness practices. He ends with a lovely discussion on how we are connected to others and the world around us and meditating on this can give us peace of mind. I found a lot of things to like about this book. The author is really doing an interesting job blending neuroscience and psychology with maybe a splash of spirituality thrown in. There were a couple of shortcomings in my mind. For one, the book is not really a how to, as his discussions of the actual techniques he uses are quite brief. Also, I'm a little weary of the psychology book that is really a string of case studies where the author has helped each person overcome some huge obstacle. I don't doubt the power of the personal antidote, but I find it to be a dry, slightly dull book format at this point to just string them together with each person's problem representing a new point in the author's thinking, even though I've read lots of helpful books that employ this strategy. Overall, I found it worth reading. ( )

I found the book rather disappointing because I wanted more of a how-to guide to explain the steps of the mindfulness and awareness approach he outlined ( )

Superlative. I was resistant as I picked up Siegel's book for parents but then that was because anything written in the self-help vein causes brain freeze and or nausea. This book does the best job of any I have read tying together the practical (and often mechanical) discoveries of current neurology and what was formerly thought of as psychiatry. The writing is lucid and yet the book is prescriptive. Siegel wants to advance the notion that we possess an integrative homeostatic capacity that the locates in the prefrontal cortex. He uses various patient studies to elucidate how mindfulness and meditation as well as other practices helped people regain a sense of themselves. While not all of it is well written - the ground up/top down section on integrating personal history with current reactions was not as strong as I had hoped, nonetheless this is a kind of enlightened owner's manual for the mind. As he says the mind creates the brain it needs, but then he goes on to show how. Much more to be done, I particularly need to better understand implicit memory and mirroring neurons but this is a fantastic book. I will read it every year until it goes out of date. ( )