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The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy
The latest work from a pioneer in the study of the development of the self. Focusing on the hottest topics in psychotherapy―attachment, developmental neuroscience, trauma, the developing brain―this book provides a window into the ideas of one of the best-known writers on these topics. Following Allan Schore’s very successful books on affect regulation and dysregulation, also published by Norton, this is the third volume of the trilogy. It offers a representative collection of essential expansions and elaborations of regulation theory, all written since 2005.
As in the first two volumes of this series, each chapter represents a further development of the theory at a particular point in time, presented in chronological order. Some of the earlier chapters have been re-edited: those more recent contain a good deal of new material that has not been previously published. The first part of the book, Affect Regulation Therapy and Clinical Neuropsychoanalysis, contains chapters on the art of the craft, offering interpersonal neurobiological models of the change mechanism in the treatment of all patients, but especially in patients with a history of early relational trauma. These chapters contain contributions on “modern attachment theory” and its focus on the essential nonverbal, unconscious affective mechanisms that lie beneath the words of the patient and therapist; on clinical neuropsychoanalytic models of working with relational trauma and pathological dissociation: and on the use of affect regulation therapy (ART) in the emotionally stressful, heightened affective moments of clinical enactments. The chapters in the second part of the book on Developmental Affective Neuroscience and Developmental Neuropsychiatry address the science that underlies regulation theory’s clinical models of development and psychopathogenesis. Although most mental health practitioners are actively involved in child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapeutic treatment, a major theme of the latter chapters is that the field now needs to more seriously attend to the problem of early intervention and prevention. Praise for Allan N. Schore: "Allan Schore reveals himself as a polymath, the depth and breadth of whose reading–bringing together neurobiology, developmental neurochemistry, behavioral neurology, evolutionary biology, developmental psychoanalysis, and infant psychiatry–is staggering." – British Journal of Psychiatry "Allan Schore's...work is leading to an integrated evidence-based dynamic theory of human development that will engender a rapproachement between psychiatry and neural sciences."– American Journal of Psychiatry "One cannot over-emphasize the significance of Schore's monumental creative labor...Oliver Sacks' work has made a great deal of difference to neurology, but Schore's is perhaps even more revolutionary and pivotal...His labors are Darwinian in scope and import."– Contemporary Psychoanalysis "Schore's model explicates in exemplary detail the precise mechanisms in which the infant brain might internalize and structuralize the affect-regulating functions of the mother, in circumscribed neural tissues, at specifiable points in it epigenetic history." – Journal of the American Psychoanalytic "Allan Schore has become a heroic figure among many psychotherapists for his massive reviews of neuroscience that center on the patient-therapist relationship." –Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence
As in the first two volumes of this series, each chapter represents a further development of the theory at a particular point in time, presented in chronological order. Some of the earlier chapters have been re-edited: those more recent contain a good deal of new material that has not been previously published. The first part of the book, Affect Regulation Therapy and Clinical Neuropsychoanalysis, contains chapters on the art of the craft, offering interpersonal neurobiological models of the change mechanism in the treatment of all patients, but especially in patients with a history of early relational trauma. These chapters contain contributions on “modern attachment theory” and its focus on the essential nonverbal, unconscious affective mechanisms that lie beneath the words of the patient and therapist; on clinical neuropsychoanalytic models of working with relational trauma and pathological dissociation: and on the use of affect regulation therapy (ART) in the emotionally stressful, heightened affective moments of clinical enactments. The chapters in the second part of the book on Developmental Affective Neuroscience and Developmental Neuropsychiatry address the science that underlies regulation theory’s clinical models of development and psychopathogenesis. Although most mental health practitioners are actively involved in child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapeutic treatment, a major theme of the latter chapters is that the field now needs to more seriously attend to the problem of early intervention and prevention. Praise for Allan N. Schore: "Allan Schore reveals himself as a polymath, the depth and breadth of whose reading–bringing together neurobiology, developmental neurochemistry, behavioral neurology, evolutionary biology, developmental psychoanalysis, and infant psychiatry–is staggering." – British Journal of Psychiatry "Allan Schore's...work is leading to an integrated evidence-based dynamic theory of human development that will engender a rapproachement between psychiatry and neural sciences."– American Journal of Psychiatry "One cannot over-emphasize the significance of Schore's monumental creative labor...Oliver Sacks' work has made a great deal of difference to neurology, but Schore's is perhaps even more revolutionary and pivotal...His labors are Darwinian in scope and import."– Contemporary Psychoanalysis "Schore's model explicates in exemplary detail the precise mechanisms in which the infant brain might internalize and structuralize the affect-regulating functions of the mother, in circumscribed neural tissues, at specifiable points in it epigenetic history." – Journal of the American Psychoanalytic "Allan Schore has become a heroic figure among many psychotherapists for his massive reviews of neuroscience that center on the patient-therapist relationship." –Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence
458 pages, Hardcover
First published April 2, 2012
49 people are currently reading
823 people want to read
About the author
Allan N. Schore
34 books84 followersAllan N. Schore (/ʃɔr/; born February 20, 1943) is a leading researcher in the field of neuropsychology, whose contributions have influenced the fields of affective neuroscience, neuropsychiatry, trauma theory, developmental psychology, attachment theory, pediatrics, infant mental health, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and behavioral biology.
Schore is on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. He is author of the seminal volume Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, now in its 11th printing, and two recent books Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self and Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, as well as numerous articles and chapters. Schore is Editor of the acclaimed Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, and a reviewer or on the editorial staff of 27 journals.
Schore is on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. He is author of the seminal volume Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, now in its 11th printing, and two recent books Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self and Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, as well as numerous articles and chapters. Schore is Editor of the acclaimed Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, and a reviewer or on the editorial staff of 27 journals.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 1, 2022
Spectacular theoretical work, research and writing on right brain, relationally oriented, attachment based, neuroscience informed psychotherapy.
Allan Schore drops some of the most lucid, sober and clinically useful writing in the neuropsychoanalytic space that I’m aware of.
This book represents another big advance for interpersonal neurobiology and for the field of psychotherapy more generally.
I’m knocking Schore’s books down one after the other lately.
And I’m GREATLY enriched for it.
In brief: Allan Schore proposes a new emotionally focused, bio psychologically informed, somatically aware, intuitive, creative and interpersonally attuned paradigm in psychology and psychotherapy.
I’m HERE4IT!
5/5 stars ⭐️
Allan Schore drops some of the most lucid, sober and clinically useful writing in the neuropsychoanalytic space that I’m aware of.
This book represents another big advance for interpersonal neurobiology and for the field of psychotherapy more generally.
I’m knocking Schore’s books down one after the other lately.
And I’m GREATLY enriched for it.
In brief: Allan Schore proposes a new emotionally focused, bio psychologically informed, somatically aware, intuitive, creative and interpersonally attuned paradigm in psychology and psychotherapy.
I’m HERE4IT!
5/5 stars ⭐️
July 21, 2012
Allan Schore's latest work covers the most recent developments in interpersonal and affective neuroscience since his last works nearly 10 years ago. Schore's formidable legacy is having taken Bowlby's concept of attachment and fused it to our modern understandings of neuroscience, further weaving this fusion into a modern understanding of human emotional development, effectively bringing psychoanalytic concepts into the 21st century.
Schore is one of the pioneers of a new wave of neuroscience which reveals the importance of unconscious processes in human consciousness, cognition and psychosomatic processes. In this work he further crystallizes an understanding of the right and the left hemisphere in human emotional development and consciousness. He puts forward a potent argument for the centrality of affective neurscience (the neuroscience of emotions - dominant in the right brain) as primary in development and importance over the heretofore dominant field of cognitive neuroscience (for which the left brain is dominant). Schore helps us understand how cognitive, effort full control over emotional processes is often doomed to failure and what clinical practices may better lead to changes in unconscious, right brain emotional regulation. Schore's work continues to be pivotal and paradigm changing. From a readability point of view this is a pretty technical read but it is manageable. Each chapter is written to stand alone and it can therefore be repetitive if you are making your way through it, but that does tend to bring the various arguments home.
Schore is one of the pioneers of a new wave of neuroscience which reveals the importance of unconscious processes in human consciousness, cognition and psychosomatic processes. In this work he further crystallizes an understanding of the right and the left hemisphere in human emotional development and consciousness. He puts forward a potent argument for the centrality of affective neurscience (the neuroscience of emotions - dominant in the right brain) as primary in development and importance over the heretofore dominant field of cognitive neuroscience (for which the left brain is dominant). Schore helps us understand how cognitive, effort full control over emotional processes is often doomed to failure and what clinical practices may better lead to changes in unconscious, right brain emotional regulation. Schore's work continues to be pivotal and paradigm changing. From a readability point of view this is a pretty technical read but it is manageable. Each chapter is written to stand alone and it can therefore be repetitive if you are making your way through it, but that does tend to bring the various arguments home.
January 20, 2021
I really learned a lot about some important topics in the field of mental health, particularly attachment, developmental neuroscience, and trauma. If you loved Van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score, you might want to move towards Shore's work.
It is interesting how Freud's ideas about the human unconscious and the important influence of early experiences on the brain are becoming validated by neuroscience, especially realizing that the right brain (seat of emotion, art, nonverbal connection, music) is developed before the left (seat of rational judgment, logic, cognition) during the attachment period of the first year of life. It helped me to understand how, on a neurological level, therapy can actually change the brain in insecurely attached people and help them to learn a healthy attachment style that they weren't able to get in infancy, through a right-brain-to-right-brain connection between therapist and client.
He emphasizes that this change happens through nonverbal and affective mechanisms behind the words of the patient and therapist, therefore concluding that psychotherapy is not the talking cure, but rather the communicating cure. On a practical level, this helped me to shift my focus from learning techniques and more knowledge as a burgeoning counselor, to stretching my emotional capacity and ability to empathize, because this, in the end, is more important than any technique.
This concept of the primacy of the therapeutic alliance is something we hear all the time in counseling school, but this added some research and rationale behind why it is so powerful to really hear and connect to another brain. A caveat is that this is a series of very dense, scientific essays so you really have to be invested in the subject matter to wade through the complexity. I had to read in bite-sized chunks to really comprehend.
It is interesting how Freud's ideas about the human unconscious and the important influence of early experiences on the brain are becoming validated by neuroscience, especially realizing that the right brain (seat of emotion, art, nonverbal connection, music) is developed before the left (seat of rational judgment, logic, cognition) during the attachment period of the first year of life. It helped me to understand how, on a neurological level, therapy can actually change the brain in insecurely attached people and help them to learn a healthy attachment style that they weren't able to get in infancy, through a right-brain-to-right-brain connection between therapist and client.
He emphasizes that this change happens through nonverbal and affective mechanisms behind the words of the patient and therapist, therefore concluding that psychotherapy is not the talking cure, but rather the communicating cure. On a practical level, this helped me to shift my focus from learning techniques and more knowledge as a burgeoning counselor, to stretching my emotional capacity and ability to empathize, because this, in the end, is more important than any technique.
This concept of the primacy of the therapeutic alliance is something we hear all the time in counseling school, but this added some research and rationale behind why it is so powerful to really hear and connect to another brain. A caveat is that this is a series of very dense, scientific essays so you really have to be invested in the subject matter to wade through the complexity. I had to read in bite-sized chunks to really comprehend.
March 19, 2024
Very technical. Very insightful. Comprehensive understanding of caregiver-infant attunement and impact on brain and psyche development
March 5, 2017
Exciting evolution in affect regulation theory. Writing style is a bit redundant
January 5, 2014
great book for those interested in the neuroscience of psychotherapy i.e. brain changes that occur with therapy. used it to teach my graduate psychotherapy class.
August 27, 2019
Brilliant! Love how this book draws on cutting edge neuroscience to give weight to the therapeutic alliance and the art of therapy.
October 23, 2019
Long heady read
Schore always brings it and makes you think. His scholarship is unmatched and the material incredibly timely and important to our work
Schore always brings it and makes you think. His scholarship is unmatched and the material incredibly timely and important to our work
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews