Project Description
In this expansion of his ongoing studies on the adaptive functions of the social emotional right brain, Allan Schore describes the interpersonal neurobiology and clinical psychodynamics of right brain psychotherapy. He offers numerous clinical implications of recent research on the central role of these right brain processes in early dysregulating attachment interactions, in unconscious nonverbal emotional communications in the evolving therapeutic alliance, in mutual reenactments of relational trauma, in ruptures of the therapeutic bond co-created by the therapist and patient, in synchronized mutual regressions, and in the empathic affect regulatory and repair of the subjective self.
In this extraordinary volume, Allan Schore shows how the right-lateralized unconscious mind and its relationship to the left-lateralized conscious mind offer a neurobiologically-informed model of psychodynamic psychotherapy and a psychodynamic model of neuropsychoanalysis. Clinicians will especially appreciate Schore’s illustrations of the changes in the patient’s and therapist’s unconscious right minds over the course of the treatment, beneath and beyond the verbal narratives – through the relationship itself. Through a unified theory of psychoanalysis as ‘the science of the unconscious mind,’ Schore shows what it means to be human. He bridges past, present, and future as well as childhood and adulthood, while simultaneously bridging neuroscience, the individual mind, and human relatedness.
Allan Schore is one of the leading figures in the brain-based understanding of psychotherapy today. This book is an outstanding work on the topic of the importance of the right hemisphere in attachment, in trauma, and in the establishment of the emotionally mature human individual, by its greatest theoretician. It is both humane and scientific, of practical import, and intellectually stimulating.
In this meticulously researched and lovingly crafted masterpiece, the trailblazing, internationally renowned neuroscientist-clinician Allan Schore, Ph.D., evolves his interpersonal neurobiological paradigm of Right Brain Psychotherapy to the next level of nuanced refinement. In what is most certainly destined to become a classic in the field Schore celebrates the beauty and quantum power of a therapeutic dynamic that invites mutual surrender and the co-creation of precious moments of authentic meeting ‘beneath the words’ – once both participants dare to bring heart and soul to the ever-deepening, affectively attuned resonance between them. You would not be in your ‘right mind’ were you to pass up this opportunity to evolve to your own next level by immersing yourself in the magic of Schore’s seamless integration of left-brain neuroscientific theory and right-brain clinical practice.
Being interdisciplinary in the best sense of the word, it is quite remarkable how Alan N. Schore connects psychotherapy research with neuroscientific laterality research, two fields that rarely interact and have very different scientific traditions….
Right Brain Psychotherapy is an important and timely addition to the laterality literature…. I hope that it inspires more researchers to investigate possible applications of laterality research in psychotherapy, as this highly relevant field certainly deserves much more exploration.
