About
Dan Siegel is a psychiatrist and clinical professor at UCLA School of Medicine. He completed his medical degree at Harvard and postgraduate training at UCLA in pediatrics and psychiatry, with research focus on attachment and family dynamics. He is founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA and executive director of the Mindsight Institute. Siegel developed the field of interpersonal neurobiology and authored The Developing Mind and The Mindful Brain. His work examines how relationships and neural processes interact in human development. He maintains a psychotherapy practice and serves on advisory boards including the Blue School in New York City, which incorporates his Mindsight approach into its curriculum.
Teaching focus
Dan Siegel, MD's teaching focus, drawn from the source profile, sits in the Secular tradition. Several threads come up: dharma applied to social and collective suffering;. On talks, the style is closer to thinking-along than presenting. Dan Siegel, MD works with whatever shows up in the room rather than reading from notes, which is part of why these talks land as conversational instead of scripted. Short pauses, longer sits, and questions that come back to direct experience are usual. Listed specialties on the source profile include relationships, trauma. The bigger move Dan Siegel, MD keeps making is back toward attention itself: what's happening, how it's being held, and what gets in the way. That keeps the teaching close to practice rather than drifting into commentary about practice. For talks, schedules, and longer essays, the affiliated organization's page is where the live material lives. Dan Siegel, MD's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on. Dan Siegel, MD's sessions tend to keep returning to the body, to breath, and to the felt quality of attention as the steady ground that the rest rests on.
Background
Dan Siegel, MD teaches in the Secular tradition. The teaching home is InsightLA. From the teacher's own profile: Daniel J. Siegel received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. He served as a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow at UCLA, studying family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions, behavior, autobiographical memory and narrative. Dr. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. An award-winning educator, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of several honorary fellowships. Dr. Siegel is also the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, an educational organization, which offers online learning and in-person seminars that focus on how the development of mindsight in individuals, families and communities can be enhanced by examining the interface of human relationships and basic biological processes. His psychotherapy practice includes children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. He serves as the Medical Director of the LifeSpan Learning Institute and on the Advisory Board of the Blue School in New York City, which has built its curriculum around Dr. Siegel’s Mindsight approach. Dr. Siegel has published extensively for the professional audience. He is the author of numerous articles, chapters, and the internationally acclaimed text, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (2nd. Ed., Guilford, 2012). This book introduces the field of interpersonal neurobiology, and has been utilized by a number of clinical and research organizations worldwide. Dr. Siegel serves as the Founding Editor for the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology which contains over sixty textbooks. The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being (Norton, 2007) explores the nature of mindful awareness as a process that harnesses the social circuitry of the brain as it promotes mental, physical, and relational health. The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician’s Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration (Norton, 2010), explores the application of focusing techniques for the clinician’s own development, as well as their clients’ development of mindsight and neural integration. Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind (Norton, 2012), explores how to apply the interpersonal neurobiology approach to developing a healthy mind, an integrated brain, and empathic relationships. Dan Siegel, MD's teaching tends to stay close to direct experience, working with attention, ethics, and the felt sense of the body rather than abstract doctrine.
Lineage
Dan Siegel, MD teaches as a lay teacher in the Secular tradition. The institutional home, per the source listing, is InsightLA, and that's where most of the public teaching schedule and any retreat offerings will be posted. Teaching authority and lineage details, where stated, live with the affiliated organization's profile page rather than with this directory entry.
What to expect
On a class or retreat with Dan Siegel, MD, the basic shape is short instruction, longer sittings, and some Q&A. Online sittings and talks, mostly in real time with optional recordings, are part of the offering. The container is shaped by InsightLA, so format details, fees, and access policies follow that organization's norms. Expect plenty of silence, less talking-at-you than you might think, and an emphasis on letting the practice do its work rather than chasing experiences. For exact dates, registration, and any sliding-scale or scholarship information, There's usually a short Q&A window and, on retreats, optional teacher interviews where students can bring specific questions about their practice.
