Project Description
This volume (one of two) is the first presentation of Schore’s comprehensive theory in book form, as it has developed since 1994.
In 1994 Allan Schore published his groundbreaking book, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, in which he integrated a large number of experimental and clinical studies from both the psychological and biological disciplines in order to construct an overarching model of social and emotional development. Since then he has expanded his regulation theory in more than two dozen articles and essays covering multiple disciplines, including neuroscience, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, attachment, and trauma. Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self contains writings on developmental affective neuroscience and developmental neuropsychiatry. It is absolutely essential reading for all clinicians, researchers, and general readers interested in normal and abnormal human development.
This is an ambitious and wide-ranging extension of Dr. Schore’s earlier work, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self. It incorporates the vast amount of data from neuroscience that has accrued since that earlier book, and paints a detailed picture of how the regulation of social and emotional behaviors emerges during the developmental interaction of an organism with its social environment. The book will be of great interest not only to those working in affective neuroscience, but also to clinicians and health care practitioners. In fact, it will be of interest to laypersons who want a better understanding of how genes, environment, and an infant’s own behavior sculpt the way in which its brain processes emotions.
Schore’s new book, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self, provides the much-needed understanding on how the growth of brain and self are intertwined within the context of relationships. His magnificent integration of research on attachment and developmental neuroscience demonstrates how we fundamentally mature and thrive in pairs and groups. Disruptions of those relationships disturb the basic biological processes necessary for managing our relationships to others and ourselves. In this book Schore unravels how these processes are interwoven and guides us towards developing corrective interventions at various stages of development.
What is the nature of the self that it may become fragmented into an incomplete and pathological personality? From the pioneering studies in psychoanalysis to modern psychological research, a striking and difficult realization has been that the self is not an isolated structure, but a dynamic, self-organizing system that forms its foundation around early childhood interpersonal relations. Schore recognizes that, beginning in the first days of life, the development of the internalized self-regulatory processes of the self must occur through attentive parental guidance. …To identify the essential mechanisms of affective self-control, Schore conducts a remarkably complete survey of the modern psychology and neuroscience literatures. . . . This volume is a remarkable exercise in the scientific analysis of personality and its disorders.
In this compelling and provocative volume, Allan Schore proffers an interdisciplinary theory of the processes underlying affect regulation in normal and abnormal self-development. Utilizing a multiple levels of analysis perspective, Schore has provided an impressive theoretical synthesis of the extant literature on affect regulatory systems. Through its multi-disciplinary framework, this work has the potential to break down the barriers that traditionally have impeded the development of a comprehensive understanding of the self and its disorders. I highly recommend this volume!
