The Mindful Therapist: An Interpersonal Neurobiology Approach to Healing and Wholeness (2nd Edition)
by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.
COMING October 20, 2026 – Published by W. W. Norton
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On the plane of deep, sensitive, and boundless possibilities for enduring healing for clients and therapists alike, let Daniel Siegel’s genius … guide and illuminate your own.
—Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of MBSR (mindfulness-based stress reduction)
Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., an internationally recognized expert on mindfulness and therapy, brings mindfulness techniques to your psychotherapeutic work with clients. An integrated state of mindful awareness is crucial to achieving mental health. Siegel reveals practical techniques that enable readers to harness their energies to promote healthy minds within themselves and their clients. He charts the nine integrative functions that emerge from the profoundly interconnecting circuits of the brain, including bodily regulation, attunement, emotional balance, response flexibility, fear extinction, insight, empathy, morality, and intuition.
A practical, direct-immersion, high-emotion, low-techno-speak book, The Mindful Therapist engages readers in a personal and professional journey into the ideas and processes of mindful integration that lie at the heart of health and nurturing relationships.
In The Mindful Therapist, Daniel Siegel offers a powerful reminder that who we are with each other is what brings meaning to our lives. Blending neuroscience with deep insight, he shows how presence and felt connection awaken our full capacity for healing. This book is an invitation to trust awareness, cultivate compassion, and actively participate in creating a more loving world. A truly valuable contribution for these times.
As a therapist, I know that what heals people isn’t just the technique—it’s the presence we bring to the room. In this eye-opening and deeply practical second edition, Dan Siegel gives clinicians a scientifically grounded roadmap for becoming that kind of therapist. With his signature warmth and clarity, he shows us how cultivating mindfulness in ourselves transforms the work we do for others.
Siegel does what few clinical writers can: He braids contemplative wisdom, interpersonal neurobiology, and the lived art of psychotherapy into a coherent guide for healing. The Mindful Therapist gives clinicians the conceptual scaffolding and the practical exercises to cultivate the presence research keeps showing matters most. A rare book that strengthens both how we think about therapy and how we show up for it.
Dr. Dan Siegel absolutely gets It—the synthesis of psychotherapy and neuroscience—and translates It into engaging prose, pithy acronyms, and compelling practices. The Mindful Therapist is an irresistible, inspiring guide to cultivating our healing presence.
A brilliant look at what it means to do psychotherapy ‘with the brain in mind.’ Daniel Siegel's bold vision of integration—mind, brain, and relationships—has the power to heal. Take it in slowly and therapy will never seem the same again.
The internationally renowned Dan Siegel has written a truly wonderful book on the essence and process of psychotherapy. Developing his unique neurophysiological approach to empathy, mindfulness and change, and illuminating the importance of therapist presence, openness, attunement and resonance, Siegel writes with deep compassion, scholarly wisdom, transparent clarity and healing gentleness. This book is a source of deep reflection and learning, and a great gift to new and old therapists alike. Our understanding of the micro-skills of the therapeutic endeavor have been significantly advanced.
In my 40 years of practice, I can count on one hand the number of books I would call seminal. After reading The Mindful Therapist, that number just increased by one. Scientifically grounded, evidence-based, compassionate, and exquisitely human, this approach will fundamentally change the way we do psychotherapy. I hope everyone who practices our craft reads this book, and I hope they read it often.
[A]n in-depth resource, encapsulating both the essence and the process of a unique, neurophysiological approach to psychotherapy.
[T]hose of us interested in mindfulness, both for ourselves and for our clients, will find this book a vault of new discoveries...an excellent resource and training manual....Siegel has set up the exercises to benefit both therapists and their clients; this approach gives even more value to the book....[C]ould be used by couples working through problems, professors attempting to better connect with their students, employees wishing to relate to their bosses, or even just everyday people seeking to improve their relationships with those around them.
