Mindsight – by Dr. Daniel Siegel

A lot of books these days bear the subtitle “The New Science Of…”, but usually it’s not new, and often it’s not even science. So how does this one measure up?

• Is it new? The core ideas are mostly very old, but some of the interventions are new in presentation—and backed by relatively recent research—so we can give him this one on a technicality at least
• It is science? Yes! The author is a clinician (a psychatric clinician, specifically) and there’s nothing here that doesn’t have its foundations in robust science.

So, what’s this “mindsight”, then? Dr. Siegel wants to express to us a concept “for which no word currently exists”, so he had to make one up, to convey the idea of having a conscious awareness of what is going on in our brain, on an experiential basis. In other words: “mindfulness”. There was totally already a word for this, which he goes on to lampshade not very far into the book.

Nevertheless, we’ll forgive him a little copywriting swizzle with the title, because the content here is genuinely top-tier.

In the book, many ideas from many other pop-psychology books are covered, in useful, practical, no-nonsense fashion, laying out tools and interventions to strengthen various parts of our brain and our relationship with same.

Bottom line: this is the most comprehensive, science-centric, book on mindfulness that this reviewer has read.

Click here to check out Mindsight, and level up yours!