Expert Series - Healing through the Power of Attunement

Introduction
Dr. Scott Lyons

Setting the foundation for the series — orienting participants to the integrative framework of Interpersonal Neurobiology and the explorations to come.

Module 1 — Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence
Dr. Dan Siegel

A scientific view of consciousness and change drawing on diverse disciplines. Dr. Siegel proposes the mind as an embodied and relational self-organizing emergent process that regulates the flow of energy and information — and integration, defined as the linkage of differentiated parts, as the basis of health and optimal self-organization. The Wheel of Awareness is introduced as a practice to integrate consciousness by differentiating the knowing (hub) from the knowns (rim), potentially allowing access to the "plane of possibility" — a source of pure awareness. Through this practice, experience clarity, joy, belonging, and a shift from separate self to interconnected identity essential for both personal wellbeing and addressing global challenges.

Module 2 — Adjusting an Identity Lens: Facilitating a Great Turning
Dr. Dan Siegel

How adjusting the identity lens through which the mind experiences itself can facilitate a "great turning" toward a different way of being. The mind is more than brain activity — it's an embodied, relational, emergent self-organizing process that regulates energy and information flow. Health arises from integration — the linkage of differentiated parts — challenging the modern cultural view of a separate, solo self. Through practices like the Wheel of Awareness, access a deeper "plane of possibility," expand self beyond the individual body, and cultivate relational connection and agency for the greater good.

Module 3 — Cross-Generational Trauma and Personality: How Overwhelming Experiences, Genetics, and Epigenetic Inheritance Shape Who We Are and Who We Can Become
Dr. Dan Siegel

Drawing on Interpersonal Neurobiology and the concept of consilience, Dr. Siegel explains how trauma assaults the fundamental human needs of agency, bonding, and certainty. Personality is reframed not as fixed types but as adaptable patterns of developmental pathways — shaped by inborn temperament (sensitivities to these needs) and attachment relationships. Non-secure attachment and trauma push individuals toward less integrated expressions of their pattern. Includes the mechanisms of cross-generational trauma — violations of epistemic trust through unreliable communication, and the biological transmission of trauma via epigenetic inheritance — and how therapeutic work fosters movement toward higher integration and greater wholeness.

• Understand the mind as an embodied, relational, self-organizing emergent process
• Apply integration — the linkage of differentiated parts — as the foundation of health
• Use the Wheel of Awareness to integrate consciousness and access pure awareness
• Differentiate the knowing (hub) from the knowns (rim)
• Adjust the identity lens to shift from "solo self" to interconnected identity
• Facilitate a "great turning" toward agency for the greater good
• Explain personality as adaptable developmental patterns shaped by temperament and attachment
• Recognize how trauma assaults agency, bonding, and certainty
• Understand cross-generational trauma through Interpersonal Neurobiology and epigenetics
• Foster movement from less integrated patterns toward greater wholeness