According to psychiatrist and bestselling author Dan Siegel, we’re in the midst of an unprecedented period in time, where humans have a remarkable influence in shaping our environment for generations to come. But just thinking about the specter of global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, and melting polar ice caps is enough to make even the most ardent environmentalist throw up their hands. So what can ordinary therapists do?
In this video clip from his 2015 Networker Symposium keynote address, “Healing and Hope in the Human Age,” Siegel shares a story from his work with a climate change awareness organization that helped him come up with a strategy for personal transformation.
Hear Siegel explain how therapists can handle the flood of emotion that comes when contemplating our duty to the environment, and how we can help clients do the same.
“It’s our job to attend to the way we relate to each other and the planet,” Siegel says. As educators, he adds, we can teach people about the mind’s energy and how to regulate information flow without getting overwhelmed—a first step to having clients think constructively about their impact on the world around them and what they can do to improve it.
“It’s crucial that we recognize the things, no matter how small they seem, that we can do,” Siegel says. “We always need to bear in mind that we can help people develop a quality of integration and awareness in their lives that enables them to be more effective in having an impact on the world and making it a kinder, more compassionate place—a place where, in fact, there’s healing and hope.”
Dan Siegel
Dan Siegel, MD, is the founder and director of education of the Mindsight Institute and founding codirector of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, where he was also coprincipal Investigator of the Center for Culture, Brain and Development and clinical professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine. An award-winning educator, he’s the author of five New York Times bestsellers and over 15 other books, which have been translated into over 40 languages. As the founding editor of the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB), he’s overseen the publication of over 100 books in the transdisciplinary IPNB framework, which focuses on the mind and mental health. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dan completed his postgraduate training at UCLA specializing in pediatrics, and adult, adolescent, and child psychiatry. He was trained in attachment research and narrative analysis through a National Institute of Mental Health research training fellowship focusing on how relationships shape our autobiographical ways of making sense of our lives and influence our development across the lifespan.
