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. I’ve 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 I’ve 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
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THE GREAT LEAPS FORWARD IN PSYCHOLOGY have come from original insights that
suddenly clarify our experience from a fresh angle, revealing hidden
patterns of connection. Freud’s theory of the unconscious and Darwin’s
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 Siegel’s theory of mindsight—the brain’s capacity for
both insight and empathy—offers a similar “Aha!” He makes sense for us
out of the cluttered confusions of our sometimes maddening and messy
emotions.
