The Right Brain and the Origin of Human Nature
Book Details
- Publisher : WW Norton & Co
- Published : November 2025
- Cover : Hardback
- Pages : 464
- Category :
Forthcoming - Category 2 :
Neuroscience - Catalogue No : 98355
- ISBN 13 : 9781324082958
- ISBN 10 : 132408295X
Free UK Delivery over £25
There are currently no reviews
Be the first to review
A new, cutting-edge volume of original work from a luminary in neurobiologically-informed models of mental health.
The culmination of three decades of Allan Schore’s groundbreaking work, this book details how the right brain—the psychobiological locus of Freud’s unconscious mind—plays a fundamental role in the early origin of human nature (the general characteristics and feelings attributed to human beings). The early developing right brain, not only grounds our bodily-based subjective experience of the world, but also allows us to make sense of it.
This volume offers interdisciplinary and clinical evidence indicating that during human infancy, right brain intersubjectivity (the emotional communication between unconscious minds) and attachment (the subliminal interactive regulation of emotion) underlie the essential foundation of the human personality. Beneath conscious awareness, the early evolving right brain implicitly generates the emotional capacity for both love and hate, ecstasy and agony, good and evil, forgiveness and revenge, creativity and destructiveness—all products of the deeper stratum of human nature.
Reviews and Endorsements
There is only one person alive who deeply understands the linkages between modern neuroscience, the unconscious mind, and clinical psychology with the academic and practical depth required to effectively teach them to the world. That person is Dr. Allan Schore. The Right Brain and the Origin of Human Nature brings forward that understanding so we can all think, feel, and act with more clarity and compassion about who we are and how we can evolve—as individuals, in relationships, and as a species.
Andrew D. Huberman, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine
The Right Brain and the Origin of Human Nature is the culmination of Allan Schore’s pioneering three-decade exploration of the unconscious mind and brain asymmetry. Blending neuroscience, attachment theory, and psychotherapy, Schore invites both clinicians and curious readers into a compelling inquiry of how the right brain shapes our emotional lives, relationships, and sense of self. His integrative approach highlights the vital interplay of cortical and subcortical systems, conscious and unconscious processes, and left–right brain dynamics that underlie our human experience.
Stephen W. Porges, PhD, creator of Polyvagal Theory
Allan Schore deserves to be congratulated for his important work over many decades on the crucial role played by the right hemisphere in affect regulation. This ‘capstone’ volume reviews, expands, and consolidates the evidence for the central place of right hemisphere to right hemisphere communication in the development of healthy human beings and a healthy society, and why it is of critical importance to each of us in the world we live in now.
Iain McGilchrist, BM, MA, FRCPsych, author of The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things
In this latest triumphant tour de force, Allan Schore once again ventures into uncharted territory—a realm in which the enduring wisdom of what it means to be human intersects with the empirical rigor of affective neuroscience and the energetic resonance of the relational fabric that binds us all. A world-renowned, universally revered neuroscientist–clinician–scholar, Schore’s ongoing evidence-based and holistic exploration of the convergence of right brain implicit processes, attachment theory, trauma research, the collective unconscious, and spiritual interconnectedness is gradually unveiling the origin of our shared humanity, firmly establishing him as the undisputed father of affective, relational, and spiritual neuroscience.
Martha Stark, MD, clinical faculty, Harvard Medical School, and award-winning author of Relentless Hope: The Refusal to Grieve and Modes of Therapeutic Action
Allan Schore offers a compelling foundation for understanding the processes that shape intersubjectivity, affect regulation, and human development. Grounded in decades of clinical and neuroscientific research, this stimulating account resonates with contemporary work about the neurobiological basis of interpersonal dynamics, bridging brain science, mental health, and human relationships.
Guillaume Dumas, PhD, associate professor of computational psychiatry, Université de Montréal
Allan Schore has done it again! In yet another masterpiece, he’s brought his love of the right brain and impeccable scholarship into what is inarguably his most comprehensive volume to date. The Right Brain and the Origin of Human Nature uses the totality of Schore’s research to present the highs and lows of being human within mind–body–brain development, relationships, psychotherapy, and culture at large. This book is destined to be a classic.
Terry Marks-Tarlow, PhD, author of Clinical Intuition in Psychotherapy, Awakening Clinical Intuition and Mythic Imagination Today
About the Author(s)
Allan N. Schore, PhD, 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 three seminal volumes, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self and Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, as well as numerous articles and chapters. His Regulation Theory, grounded in developmental neuroscience and developmental psychoanalysis, focuses on the origin, psychopathogenesis, and psychotherapeutic treatment of the early forming subjective implicit self. His contributions appear in multiple disciplines, including developmental neuroscience, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, attachment theory, trauma studies, behavioral biology, clinical psychology, and clinical social work. His groundbreaking integration of neuroscience with attachment theory has lead to his description as ""the American Bowlby"" and with psychoanalysis as ""the world's leading expert in neuropsychoanalysis."" His books have been translated into several languages, including Italian, French, German, and Turkish.
Customer Reviews
Our customers have not yet reviewed this title. Be the first add your own review for this title.
You may also like
The Lost Legacy of Franz Alexander: A Psychoanalytic Pioneer Revisited
Ilonka Venier Alexander
Price £22.39
save £5.60
An Introduction to Fairbairn’s Psychology of Dynamic Structure: The Analysis of...
Graham S. Clarke
Price £19.19
save £4.80
Identity and the Foundational Myth: Psychoanalytic Insights into Gender Distress
Marcus Evans
Price £23.19
save £5.80