The Development of the Unconscious Mind

The latest groundbreaking, interdisciplinary work from one of our most eloquent and significant writers about emotion and the brain.

An exploration into the adaptive functions of the emotional right brain, which describes not only affect and affect regulation within minds and brains, but also the communication and interactive regulation of affects between minds and brains. This book offers evidence that emotional interactions reflect right-brain-to-right-brain affective communication. Essential reading for those trying to understand one-person psychology as well as two-person psychology relationships, whether clinical or otherwise.

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This book records the inspiring work of a psychoanalyst and therapist intrigued with Freud’s theory of the feelings that move the ‘unconscious’ mind. Allan Schore reviews 30 years of discoveries in psychology and neuroscience to support appreciation of the creativity of emotional engagements mediated between right hemispheres in intimate attachments through all stages of life.

Colwyn Trevarthen, PhD, FRSE

Professor (Emeritus) of Child Psychology and Psychobiology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh

In The Development of the Unconscious Mind we join Allan Schore on his intellectual journey as he weaves a scholarly narrative integrating neuroscience into his theoretical model of attachment. At the foundational base of his scholarship is the insightful assumption that modern attachment theory is functionally a theory of self-regulation with a neurobiological substrate. By citing studies across several disciplines, he brilliantly builds a compelling argument for a neurobiological base for his theoretical conceptualizations and applies these conceptualizations to several relevant clinical and developmental questions related to vulnerability, trauma, sex differences, intimacy, and autism.

Stephen W. Porges, PhD

Distinguished University Scientist, Kinsey Institute, Indiana University, author of The Polyvagal Theory

Prepare the left side of your brain to be gobsmacked by Schore’s argument for the centrality of the right side of your brain in the development not only of the self, but in loving relationships as well, and the psychopathology of both. Schore is exceptional among most contemporary theorists in simultaneously speaking to the structural organization of the brain and how it functions over the course of early and lifelong development. Through it all Schore never loses sight of the actual messy moment-by-moment reparatory process of social interactions that sculpts individuals’ becoming who they are.

Ed Tronick

University Distinguished Professor, University of Massachusetts, author of The Neurobehavior and Social Emotional Development of Infants and Young Children

Book review: The Development of the Unconscious Mind & Right Brain Psychotherapy – by George Halasz (PDF)

Over the last three decades, Dr. Allan Schore’s vast body of ‘disruptive’ research publications has significantly contributed to the current paradigm change in the world of mental health…I recommend to all mental health professionals the challenge to immerse themselves in these two books, a contribution and gift from a pioneer clinician-scientist…Dr. Schore’s work…has pushed beyond the limits, unconstrained by conventional expectations, to redefine basic assumptions in mental health and dared to engage with the ever-changing world of neuroscience informing psychotherapy, in both directions.

George Halasz

Adolescent Psychiatrist, Department of Psychological Medicine at Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, Australia