IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the Integration of Self, Identity, and Belonging

by Daniel J. Siegel

Exploring the nature of how our experience of what we call “self” emerges across the lifespan. Both a personal and general meditation on identity and belonging, Daniel J. Siegel’s book combines personal reflections with scientific discussions of how the mind, brain, and our relationships shape who we are. Weaving the internal and external, the subjective and objective, IntraConnected reveals how our culture may give us a message of separation as a solo, isolated self, but a wider perspective unveils that who we are may be something more―broader than the brain, bigger even than the body―and fundamental to social systems and the natural world. Our body-based self―the origin of a Me―is not only connected to others but connected within our relational worlds themselves―a WE―forming the essence of how we belong and our identity. If the pandemic has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that we are all connected. IntraConnected discusses that bond, as well as other realities of our intraconnected lives. 21 black-and-white figures

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Self Help, Spirituality, Philosophy, Health, Counselling

336 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2022

About the author

Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., is an internationally acclaimed author, award-winning educator, and child psychiatrist. Dr. Siegel received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. He is currently a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, where he also serves as a co-investigator at the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development, and is a founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center. In addition, Dr. Siegel is the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute.

Dr. Siegel has the unique ability to convey complicated scientific concepts in a concise and comprehensible way that all readers can enjoy. He has become known for his research in Interpersonal Neurobiology – an interdisciplinary view that creates a framework for the understanding of our subjective and interpersonal lives. In his most recent works, Dr. Siegel explores how mindfulness practices can aid the process of interpersonal and intrapersonal attunement, leading to personal growth and well-being.

Published author of several highly acclaimed works, Dr. Siegel’s books include the New York Times’ bestseller “Brainstorm”, along with "Mindsight," "The Developing Mind," "The Mindful Brain," "The Mindful Therapist," in addition to co-authoring "Parenting From the Inside Out," with Mary Hartzell and "The Whole-Brain Child," with Tina Bryson. He is also the Founding Editor of the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, which includes "Healing Trauma," "The Power of Emotion," and "Trauma and the Body." Dr. Siegel currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife.

For more information on Dr. Siegel's work, please visit DrDanSiegel.com.

Reviews

[Jasmine St. John · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really good book as a discussion about how identity is more than simply the western notion of the body. The way Dr. Siegel takes such a beautiful systemic approach to understanding how the self and identity can work beyond ego-focus. Yet, this book is filled with so many places to weave a stronger place to really integrate self with others, nature, ideas, and projections. I would have liked even more science thrown in however, I think that is what the other books previous to this that he wrote with more details. Otherwise, a nice look at how self can look and feel very different given perspective.

[Jana M · Rating 2 out of 5]

WAY WAY TOO REPETITIVE. Good points. Should have been a 30 page book.

[Philippe Gagné · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ideas expressed in this book are very interesting. Daniel Siegel is presenting us with an extended and enriched perspective of this thing we call "our self," in which our interactions, our history, and nature itself are included. His perspective is brilliantly backed by neuroscience, psychology, and even quantum physics. The only downside I have to mention is that the book is indeed a bit repetitive and would need some editing, but it is still worth reading.

[Razi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished it a few days ago but didn't know what to say about it. It really deserves 3 stars but the author intends well and the ambitions of this work are noble. It is just too long. All this could be said in a shorter book which would have attracted a wider readership and taken less time to read.

Siegel is one among the long line of very, very intelligent people in our time who are saying everything that needs to be said but are ignored by those who rule this world and who manufacture our psyche through media-manipulation and propaganda. Never in the history of mankind was the truth so clearly visible and so vehemently ignored/denied. Our present social, economic and educational systems do not bode very well for the future of humanity. We are doing many things that are wrong and we are persisting in doing them in the face of overwhelming evidence to show the harm we are causing by persisting in our errors.

Siegel suggests a synergistic relation to the planet and our communities. A symbiotic contact with our human and environmental relationships wherein each supports and is supported by each. Community, family, nature, empathy, all that is bad for corporate profits is good for human well-being. All these things were supported by traditional social and tribal systems. We need to learn some humility and approach those traditions to learn the solution to our endemic problems of psycho/physical ailments. All that is well and good but where is the profit in all this? Is there a market for human compassion and connection?

[Jasen Robillard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good follow-up to William B Irvine's You: A Natural History. While Irvine's inquiry into the self takes ever-increasing and decreasing scales of natural science observation, Dr Siegel takes a similar whole-part view from a developmental perspective mixing in concepts from quantum physics and Friston's free energy principle. IntraConnected offers a cohesive and consilient perspective with useful lenses and meditative approaches to achieving MWE personal and cultural integration.

make your centre wide,
expansive,
encompassing of much and many.

you are singularity & milieu:
as small as you narrow your vision,
as great as the universe,
and possibly greater.

[Ryan Meachen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents a refreshing take on the tension between individualism and being a part of a wider whole. There are some real highs in this book, passages that you'll be hungry to read again and again.

Some passages, on the other hand, felt a little self-indulgent - erring towards embellishing the author's personal interests and curiosities - rather than speaking directly to the reader. Referring to the planes of possibility and 3ms lost me, or at least, didn't grip me in the ways other passages did.

The introduction was long-winded and meandering. About 60 pages worth. At points, I was near ask Siegel myself to cut to the chase and get going!

In saying this, the final 2 chapters are excellent. Punchy. Concise messaging. A really beautiful commentary on human nature, and a call for being intentional about the next iteration of our cultural evolution.

[Melanie Mann · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book because the central theme is a really important one and the overall message is something that people need to hear. However, the book was borderline unreadable for a few reasons:

1. I’m going to echo other reviewers and say that this book is repetitive and needs heavy editing.

2. The author uses overly complex and jargon-filled language to describe very simplistic ideas. Basically saying a whole lot of nothing as complicated as possible.

3. I expected more from this book. As a social worker, systems theory is quite elementary of a concept to me.

4. I was hoping for more practical solutions as to how we could be more “intraconnected” but was just met with a bunch of incohesive abstract musings instead.

5. I think this entire book could have been condensed down into a really thoughtful blog post.

[Ruth Habermehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me it brought together a couple of ideas i moved in heart and mind for a longer time. It was an eyeopener. I am not sure, if the theories about quantumphysics are correct, but that doesn't belittle the content.
In the end, i wrote a blogarticle in German about the content (https://zufriedenleben.eu/selbstbild)

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a great book and highly recommend it. It was challenging to read at times and I had to have a distraction free space. The content was great and I learned a lot regarding reflective and contemplative practices.

[Mihail Pricop · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mix of scientific, metaphysical and pseudo-scientific arguments with quotes from self-proclaimed gurus presenting the current complex problem of the society and the solution of connection with the old indigenous intelligence.

[Carol Caruso · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave it 5 stars because I love the concept. I read the book twice to understand the content. Dr. Dan Seigel is a brilliant and I wish I could mind meld with him but his writing and graphs are sometimes hard to follow.

[Vlad Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extensive instructions manual about how to develop an healthy perspective of YOU, a corrective measure for the actual point of our evolution as human beings, and not the least, about how to treat the environment we are living in and have a massive destructive impact at this point in our time.

[Whitney Kennelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book

[chiara · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5⭐

[Paige Hofschire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great ideas but too redundant

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love this kind of stuff, but this was so boring. I couldn’t continue.

[Andy Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

some high level concepts made relatively accessible

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should have been an email. I had to put it down because it was so repetitive and I got so aggravated with its lack of editing. Siegel is brilliant, but needs a good editor to wrangle his ideas into a coherent through line. It felt like he was left to his own devices here, and the ideas suffer for it.