Cited by 182Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology ResearchPsychosomatic Disorders and Their TreatmentsPsychology and Mental Health

Relational Trauma and the Developing Right Brain: An Interface of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology and Neuroscience

Schore, Allan N.·2009·Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Psychoanalysis, the science of unconscious processes, has recently undergone a significant transformation. Self psychology, derived from the work of Heinz Kohut, represents perhaps the most important revision of Freud's theory as it has shifted its basic core concepts from an intrapsychic to a relational unconscious and from a cognitive ego to an emotion-processing self. As a result of a common interest in the essential, rapid, bodily based, affective processes that lie beneath conscious awareness, a productive dialogue is now occurring between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Here I apply this interdisciplinary perspective to a deeper understanding of the nonconscious brain/mind/body mechanisms that lie at the core of self psychology. I offer a neuropsychoanalytic conception of the development and structuralization of the self, focusing on the experience-dependent maturation of the emotion-processing right brain in infancy. I then articulate an interdisciplinary model of attachment trauma and pathological dissociation, an early forming defense against overwhelming affect that is a cardinal feature of self-psychopathologies. I end with some thoughts on the mechanism of the psychotherapeutic change process and suggest that self psychology is, in essence, a psychology of the unique functions of the right brain and that a rapprochement between psychoanalysis and neuroscience is now at hand.

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Crossref · 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04474.x

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  • According to Schore (2009), responsivity involves a wider view of dyadic behavior that involves psychobiological attunement, affective communication between the mother (or caregiver) and infant or child that is bodily based.

    “According to Schore (2009), responsivity involves a wider view of dyadic behavior that involves psychobiological attunement, affective communication between the mother (or caregiver) and infant or child that is bodily based.”

    From The evolved nest, oxytocin functioning, and prosocial development (2023) · cites this paper as Schore (2009)

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Authors
Schore, A. N.
Affiliations
University of California, Los Angeles (US)
Corresponding author
Schore, Allan N.
Venue
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2009-04
Volume
1159
Issue
1
Pages
189-203
ISSN
  • 0077-8923 (ISSN-L)
  • 1749-6632
OpenAlex
W2134717635
Cited by
182
References
94
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 13 · 2012: 18
FWCI
1.71
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychology and Mental Health
Keywords
relational trauma, self psychology, Heinz Kohut, attachment trauma, pathological dissociation, psychotherapeutic change, infancy, self-development, defense mechanisms
MeSH terms
Brain, Child Development, Dissociative Disorders, Humans, Infant, Interpersonal Relations, Models, Psychological, Neurosciences, Object Attachment, Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Theory, Unconscious, Psychology, Wounds and Injuries, Self Psychology

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