Daniel Siegel: The Mind and IFS

Today I speak with Dr. Daniel Siegel, founder of Interpersonal Neurobiology, about the mind and how Internal Family Systems (IFS) may function in the brain.
Dr. Siegel is someone I consider to be one of the most thoughtful and clear innovators in teaching and talking about neurobiology and how it affects our behaviors-and not just behaviors we can see but the behavior and patterns of our mind.
He created a field of study within neurobiology called interpersonal neurobiology: It addresses how the biological processes within my body at any given time are affected and changed by the biological processes going on inside the bodies of people I interact with, care for, and depend upon and vice versa.
I love hearing Dan speak about how we have healthy minds when we are connected to the various parts of us that have very distinct needs and drives. This is what he calls an integrated mind-like spokes on a wheel connected to the hub, and what is synonymous with the IFS concept of Self.
Dan speaks persuasively about the linkages between physics-and even quantum physics, the way energy behaves at the incredibly small subatomic scale-and our sense of consciousness.
Dan's Wheel of Awareness Meditations: drdansiegel.com/wheel-of-awar...
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Dan said to me: "So this is where Dick and I may differ. Certainly, some of his students see the parts as things that need to say intact. But from the interpersonal neurobiology framework we see them as temporary amalgamations so for us-no-you don’t keep parts intact."
His feedback to students of IFS , to my ears, is incredibly helpful if we want IFS to grow and evolve and integrate further in the field and the world, and take on the qualities of self-organization and Self.
It also raises interesting questions for me, such as:
- How can we both honor parts as entities and not become enchanted with their entity-ness?
- How could Dan’s IPNB perspective that parts should dissolve their noun-like qualities be introduced helpfully within the IFS protocol?
- Does the current IFS Level I prepare participants for a rigid or flexible attachment to IFS?
I’m sure you will have questions and comments about this, too. I’d love to hear them and I’m going to invite both Dan and Dick to read them.