73: Dr. Dan Siegel: why personality is at the core of mental health, and how working with personality can alter neurological pathways for better health and happiness

In this captivating live event for The MindHealth360 Show and Alternatives, Dr. Dan Siegel discusses his upcoming book, Personality and Wholeness in Therapy, released in November 2024. It gives practitioners insight into different types of personality, and shows how this understanding can be used to help clients live happier, more harmonious lives, and have better relationships. Presenting a revolutionary new way to incorporate neurobiology and its impact on personality into therapeutic practice, Dr. Siegel reveals his theory of developmental pathways. In doing so he addresses a key oversight in conventional therapy training: personality - both what the personality is scientifically, and how to work with it therapeutically.

Dr. Seigel’s ground-breaking understanding of personality encourages therapists to unlock the neurological underpinnings of personality, and to help adjust ‘stuck’ personality patterns - often formed through poor childhood attachment or trauma - transforming it from a prison into a playground, to ultimately improve states of wholeness and wellness in patients.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

·        What personality is and what it’s for.

·        Dr. Siegel’s nine Patterns of Developmental Pathways (PDPs) in relation to the enneagram types, showing therapists the neurological basis of personality patterns as applied in therapy.

·        Ways temperament and attachment interact in the formation of personality, and what that has to do with childhood development as well as long-term relationships, our brains and our mental health.

·        The four key factors that shape temperament: sensitivity (activation of the nervous system), intensity (size of response), novelty (how reactive a person is) and tone (manner of response).

·        Why parental responsiveness to children’s temperaments is key to the outcomes of child development and well-being.

·        Why the in-utero experience is of being and wholeness, while being born is about surviving, and how this shapes personality.

·        Dr. Siegel''s three ‘vectors’ that mirror the enneagram; 1) agency 2) bonding 3) certainty, and how these impact a sense of wholeness, as well as the influence of ‘inward’ and ‘outward’ energies.

·        How therapists can use Dr. Siegel’s nine Patterns of Developmental Pathways (PDPs) to improve the mental health of their patients, and why seeking ‘wholeness’ is the goal.

·        Why there is no such thing as a personality ‘type’ but rather why there are personality patterns.

·        Ways temperament and life experiences intensify our adaptive strategies, which can then become a prison of behaviour and feeling.

·        What personality imprisonment is and how therapists can identify negative dominant personality patterns (such as fear or sadness) and identify their root causes (often poor attachment or trauma); and how awareness can help us find our deeper self and free us from these personality prisons.

·        Why every measure of wellbeing is predicted by the interconnection of neurological pathways, how this is damaged by developmental trauma and non-secure childhood attachments, and ways to increase/repair pathways to enable them to flourish.

·        How mindfulness and therapeutic psychedelics can open neuroplasticity potential to alter seemingly fixed neurological patterns of behaviours.

·        Why personality structures become inflexible, how to find harmony between chaotic and rigid states, and why integration and attachment security are key.

·        Why modern society is traumatising, and what this means for the ‘Self,’ the personality, and our mental health.