The Developing Mind : How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are

http://drdansiegel.com/books/the_developing_mind/

This bestselling book put the field of interpersonal neurobiology on the map for many tens of thousands of readers. Daniel J. Siegel goes beyond the nature and nurture divisions that traditionally have constrained much of our thinking about development, exploring the role of interpersonal experiences in forging key connections in the brain. He presents a groundbreaking integrative framework for understanding the emergence of the growing, feeling, communicating mind. Reflecting significant scientific and technical advances, the second edition incorporates new discussions of cutting-edge topics, plus an epilogue describing specific pathways to well-being and therapeutic change.

Using a wealth of illustrative examples from clinical practice and everyday life, Siegel traces the interplay of human and neural connections in early childhood and beyond. The book reveals how difficulties with attachment to caregivers can result in problems with memory, self-organization, and emotional regulation. Implications for adult states of mind, emotional competence, and the ability to cope with stress are considered, as are links to such clinical problems as dissociation and depression. Siegel offers compelling insights into how therapeutic and personal relationships can promote healing and integration as the mind continues to develop throughout the lifespan. The second edition provides expanded discussions of neuroplasticity, epigenetics, mindfulness, the neural correlates of consciousness, and more. It also includes useful pedagogical features: pull-outs, diagrams, and an extensive glossary.

Illuminating how and why interpersonal neurobiology matters, this book is essential reading for clinicians, educators, researchers, and students interested in promoting healthy development and resilience. It has been widely adopted as a text in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in developmental psychology, child development, and clinical practice.

Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology : An Integrative Handbook of the Mind

http://drdansiegel.com/books/pocket_guide_to_interpersonal_neurobiology/

What is the mind? What makes a healthy mind? How do we become aware and come to know about life? And perhaps most importantly, what are the connections among the mind, brain, and relationships? From psychologists to linguists, neuroscientists to philosophers, people have explored the nature of mental life, yet no interdisciplinary framework has existed for wisely answering these fundamental questions or even offering a definition of what the mind is. Here, Siegel bridges domains of knowledge to offer a book that reveals the way the mind works via a format that reflects the brain’s natural mode of learning (flip the Pocket Guide open to any page and you will find an “entry point” that guides you to explore, in your own way, the web of integrated knowledge). Walking us through the intricate foundations of interpersonal neurobiology, Siegel allows us to see the personal and professional applications of this exciting new approach to developing a healthy mind, an integrated brain, and empathic relationships.

Delusion and Self-Deception

Affective and Motivational Influences on Belief Formation

Edited by Tim Bayne, Jordi Fernández

About the Book
This collection of essays focuses on the interface between delusions and self-deception. As pathologies of belief, delusions and self-deception raise many of the same challenges for those seeking to understand them. Are delusions and self-deception entirely distinct phenomena, or might some forms of self-deception also qualify as delusional? To what extent might models of self-deception and delusion share common factors? In what ways do affect and motivation enter into normal belief-formation, and how might they be implicated in self-deception and delusion? The essays in this volume tackle these questions from both empirical and conceptual perspectives. Some contributors focus on the general question of how to locate self-deception and delusion within our taxonomy of psychological states. Some contributors ask whether particular delusions - such as the Capgras delusion or anosognosia for hemiplegia - might be explained by appeal to motivational and affective factors. And some contributors provide general models of motivated reasoning, against which theories of pathological belief-formation might be measured.

The volume will be of interest to cognitive scientists, clinicians, and philosophers interested in the nature of belief and the disturbances to which it is subject.

About the Author(s)
Tim Bayne obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 2002. He taught in the philosophy department at Macquarie University (Sydney) from 2002 until 2007, when he moved to the University of Oxford where he is University Lecturer in the Philosophy of Mind and a Fellow of St. Catherine’s College. He has published widely on consciousness, and is an editor of the forthcoming Oxford Companion to Consciousness. He is completing a monograph on the unity of consciousness.

Jordi Fernández obtained his Ph.D. from Brown University in 2003. He has held positions at Bowdoin College, Macquarie University (Sydney), and the Australian National University (Canberra). At present he is a lecturer in the Philosophy Department at the University of Adelaide. He has published widely on the philosophical problems raised by self-knowledge and memory.

Understanding Consciousness

2nd Edition

Max Velmans Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London and Visiting Professor of Consciousness Studies at the University of Plymouth. He has been researching, writing and teaching consciousness studies for over 30 years and has over 90 publications in this area.

About the Book
Understanding Consciousness, 2nd Edition provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense. Building on the widely praised first edition, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last 10 years.

The book is divided into three parts; Part one surveys current theories of consciousness, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Part two reconstructs an understanding of consciousness from first principles, starting with its phenomenology, and leading to a closer examination of how conscious experience relates to the world described by physics and information processing in the brain. Finally, Part three deals with some of the fundamental issues such as what consciousness is and does, and how it fits into to the evolving universe. As the structure of the book moves from a basic overview of the field to a successively deeper analysis, it can be used both for those new to the subject and for more established researchers.

Understanding Consciousness tells a story with a beginning, middle and end in a way that integrates the philosophy of consciousness with the science. Overall, the book provides a unique perspective on how to address the problems of consciousness and as such, will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned with mind/body relationships, and all who are interested in this subject.

Understanding Consciousness

Understanding Consciousness