The Healing Power of Emotion

The Healing Power of Emotion

Affective Neuroscience, Development & Clinical Practice

by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

This book–the fruit of a dialogue among eminent neuroscientists, clinicians, attachment researchers, and body workers–achieves a level of integration among these various disciplines that has not been seen before. A magisterial achievement!

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., The Trauma Center, Boston, MA

This book, edited by Diana Fosha, Daniel J. Siegel, and Marion Solomon, draws on cutting-edge neuroscience to help understand emotion better.  Normal human development relies on the cultivation of relationships with others to form and nurture the self-regulatory circuits that enable emotion to enrich, rather than enslave, our lives. And just as emotionally traumatic events can tear apart the fabric of family and psyche, the emotions can become powerful catalysts for the transformations that are at the heart of the healing process. We are hardwired to connect with one another, and we connect through our emotions. Our brains, bodies, and minds are inseparable from the emotions that animate them.

In this book, the latest addition to the Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, leading neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, therapy researchers, and clinicians illuminate how to regulate emotion in a healthy way. A variety of emotions, both positive and negative, are examined in detail, drawing on both research and clinical observations. The role of emotion in bodily regulation, dyadic connection, marital communication, play, well-being, health, creativity, and social engagement is explored. The Healing Power of Emotion offers fresh, exciting, original, and groundbreaking work from the leading figures studying and working with emotion today.

This book--the fruit of a dialogue among eminent neuroscientists, clinicians, attachment researchers, and body workers--achieves a level of integration among these various disciplines that has not been seen before. A magisterial achievement!

Imagine that some of the most brilliant neuroscientific contributors to our understanding of the emotion and brain development teamed up with some of the most knowledgeable, creative psychotherapists alive, and really learned to understand each others work. The result is this essential, palpably exciting, at times profound volume, which shows how to use brain-based insights, and inevitable emotions themselves, to foster mental healing.

A masterful, panoramic view of emotion. This is an important and superbly done book, especially strong in balancing the clinical with the scientific.

It is gratifying to see this important new volume direct a long-overdue spotlight on the essential element of emotional change in psychotherapy. This volume provides information on neurophysiology, phenomenology, and interactive dynamics that can benefit clinicians of all orientations.

Sign up for Dr. Dan Siegel's monthly update to stay informed about new courses, upcoming events, latest research, and newly released books.