A unique guide to the fascinating world of the human mind by the award-winning Dr. Daniel J. Siegel. What is the mind, how does it develop, how is it shaped and emerges our personality through the interaction of the brain and interpersonal experience, and how can we promote healthy development and mental resilience. 

This influential book is an authoritative presentation of Daniel J. Siegel's approach to interpersonal neurobiology, which has inspired and nourished clinicians, teachers, and students for over two decades. Combining research from multiple cognitive subjects, Siegel proposes a radical understanding of what the mind is, how it develops, and how we can promote healthy development and resilience. Revised and expanded to include major advancements in the field, the third edition reexamines and identifies the basic assumptions, incorporates over a thousand new references, highlights new issues, and introduces a chapter on belonging and identity development.

With tangible arguments from clinical practice and everyday life, the book invites readers to explore and develop their own minds and traces the interaction of close relationships and neural processes from infancy. It reveals how early attachment difficulties can lead to memory, self-organization, and emotion regulation problems. It also examines the impact on adult cognitive status, emotional ability, coping ability, and mental health. Siegel emphasizes that the mind continues to develop throughout our lives, a fact that is very important for those who have not experienced optimal early experiences. It analyzes how cultivating deeper relationships with others and our own internal experiences can promote the development of internal and interpersonal processes that are at the core of well-being and resilience. 

The third edition includes new or expanded references to epigenetics, the default mode network of the brain, social neuroscience, issues of culture and gender, theory of mind, the Wheel of Awareness, the science of consciousness, and much more. Readers of various cognitive subjects - clinical and developmental psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, social work, counseling, child rearing, and education - will find a valuable companion in this book. After all, many professors praise this classic work for its usefulness in teaching subjects such as developmental psychology, child development, neuroscience, and counseling.