BKonthescene

Tuesday, May 12, 2026
5:00 PM – 6:00 PM PDT Registration is required for this
free live private Zoom event.Join UCLA’s Friends of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital Board of Advisors for an Open Mind program featuring Dr. Helen Lavretsky, renowned integrative psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and author of the critically acclaimed book Living from the Soul: The Neuroscience of Spiritual Awakening.In conversation with Dr. Daniel Siegel, Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute, Dr. Lavretsky will explore the powerful intersection of spirituality and neuroscience, and how integrating both can support optimal mental and spiritual health.Dr. Lavretsky’s work seeks to bring the psyche, our “soul”, back into psychology. Drawing on cutting-edge research and insights from her clinical practice, she presents a holistic approach that combines psychological tools with mind-body practices. These methods are designed to foster spiritual awakening and reconnect us with a deeper sense of purpose and higher consciousness.By integrating the neuroscience of spiritual awakening into daily life, we can access inner guidance and cultivate lasting peace. This approach may help alleviate depression and anxiety, strengthen resilience, and nurture a steady sense of well-being—while deepening gratitude, compassion, joy, and authentic living.BIOS: Helen Lavretsky, MD, MS, is a Professor In-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA and an integrative geriatric psychiatrist with federally funded research program in integrative mental health investigating mind-body interventions (yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, art). She is a recipient of the several Career Development awards from the NIMH/NIH and the NCCIH/NIH, and other prestigious research awards. Her current research studies include investigations of novel therapeutic options for caregiver stress, mood, and cognitive disorders in older adults, and Long-COVID. She is the Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, and the Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the American College of Psychiatrists, and the recipient of the Distinguished Investigator awards for research from the American College of Psychiatrists and the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, and the American Psychiatric Association. She is the Director of Research for the UCLA Integrative Medicine Collaborative and the Integrative Psychiatry program. She is the immediate Past President of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, and is one of the leaders of the American Brain Health Coalition, and serves on the Research Advisory Boards to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the American Heart Association, among others.  Dan Siegel, MD, is the Founder and Director of Education of the Mindsight Institute and founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, where he was also Co-Principal Investigator of the Center for Culture, Brain and Development and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine. An award-winning educator, Dan is the author of five New York Timesbestsellers and over fifteen other books which have been translated into over forty languages. As the founding editor of the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology (“IPNB”), Dan has overseen the publication of over one hundred 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. To watch videos of our past Open Mindprograms, 
please visit our