The Handbook of Knowledge-Based Coaching: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

MINDFULNESS AND ATTUNEMENT WITH OTHERS: DANIEL SIEGEL

According to Siegel, who has developed the concept of interpersonal neurobiology, mindfulness may be seen as an attuned relationship with oneself (focusing on one’s own internal world) as well as an attuned relationship with others (focusing on the internal world of another). The focus on the mind of another person harnesses neural circuitry that enables two people to “feel felt” by each other. Siegel sees a commonality of mechanisms between the two forms of internal and interpersonal attunement, and both are cultivated by a direct focus of mindful awareness. In The Mindful Brain, Siegel writes that in this way we “come to not only know the mind, but to embrace our own inner world and the ...