Dr. Allan Schore: How Relationships Shape Your Brain

Right Brain

Dr. Allan Schore highlights the dominance of the right brain in unconscious processing, emphasizing its role in emotional regulation and behavior. He explains that the right brain is constantly processing emotional information beneath conscious awareness, influencing up to 95% of our motivations and actions 1. This dominance begins early in life, with the right hemisphere showing significant growth from the last trimester of pregnancy through the third year of life 2.

The right brain is always processing information, always especially emotional information at levels beneath conscious awareness.

--- Allan Schore

Understanding these processes can help us become more aware of our emotional defenses and blind spots, which are often governed by the right brain 3.

   

Attunement

Emotional attunement is a critical aspect of right brain activity, facilitating unconscious processes that enhance interpersonal connections. Schore describes how therapists use right brain synchronization to connect with patients, aligning their physiological states to foster a therapeutic alliance 4. This synchronization allows for the creation of heightened affective moments, where both parties share a deep emotional connection, enhancing memory and emotional change 5.

These are moments when all of a sudden we are both in the right and we are both synchronized and the affective now is out there.

--- Allan Schore

Such interactions are crucial in therapy, where the therapist's ability to form a secure attachment with the patient can significantly impact the therapeutic outcome 6.