Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive

by Daniel J. Siegel

Approaches toward changing these adaptations are those that promote bilateral integration. Often right-mode processing may be underdeveloped, demonstrated by the possession of minimal mindsight abilities, diminished self-awareness, and at times a decreased ability to perceive the nonverbal signals of others. Self-reflection may be limited because it is primarily the logical and nonautobiographical left mode that becomes engaged. For this reason, efforts to activate the right mode may be helpful and necessary. Research has shown the presence of heightened physiological reactions in these people during discussion of attachment-related issues, in contrast to their comments minimizing the importance of attachments. This indicates the reality that their minds respond as though relationships are significant, even if behavior and overt attitude do not reveal this emotional valuing of connections. In other words, the inborn attachment system that values relationships is still intact, even though the person’s adaptation has required a minimization approach. This view is crucial in considering how to reach out to individuals who may have spent much of their lives automatically minimizing the importance of relationships in order to adapt to past deficits in family life. Those families can be seen as having offered little right-mode stimulation and connection. Finding a way to activate these aspects of mental life can be crucial in liberating the mind’s innate drive toward interperson...