Sep 25, 2026 · 40 min · 9 segments
A conversation with Dr. Allan Schore, known as the world's leading expert in neuropsychoanalysis, focusing on his latest book: The Right Brain and the Origin of Human Nature.
Um, I thought I might start, if we could, uh, just getting a sense from you if there's any context around this book, uh, that you think would be useful for a reader to know or a listener.
Well, uh, this is the seventh book that I've written, beginning, as you just said, with the Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self in, in 1994.
This is the capstone volume, and essentially what I'm doing at this point in time is I'm recapitulating the field, the, the theory, which has evolved over these, over these different books to this point in time right now.
And so there's a lot of familiar material here, and yet there's a great deal of new material here because the science, as well as the clinical models, have rapidly changed, uh, ov- even over the last ten years, et cetera.
And a lot of the ideas that I presented in 1994 as hypotheses have now literally been s- validated scientifically as well as clinically.
But along the way, what we've seen is that there has been a shift, that there has been a shift here from a behavioral, uh, psychology to a cognitive psychology and now to an emotional psychology.
And so this shift now about working directly with emotions, et cetera, has really changed the way that we have worked at this point in time.
And I wanna say literally, uh, my work has paralleled very closely, uh, the work o- of Russell, who also has been interested in some of the very same problems that I have been in, so to speak, and he's also talking about the differences at this point in time in the clinical theory and also in the clinical practice than we had seen from an earlier time.
So, uh, again, uh, the capstone volume, and I also take a look now at what I see is need- is ahead of us.
And a problem, one of the problems essentially here is, and this goes for life in general, what do we keep from the past, what new we add to that, and what we leave behind, so to speak.
That, I think that really puts it in perspective and, uh, the connection with Russell Mears' work will be, I know, interesting to some of the listeners we have.
Should we say as opposed to? [chuckles] In addition to or as opposed to, uh, working at a cognitive level is something, as you say, there's so much interest in, and I think there's a lot of questions about how, and we may end up talking about that some, about what it looks like to work with emotion.
Because as you say, it's only recently that working with emotion has become more prominent.
Uh, and I suppose, uh, from the ANZAP perspective, uh, there's that interest in training, and how do we help psychotherapists become able to work with, with feeling, with emotion?
Well, along those lines, you know, in the, in the conference itself, I'm going to be s- uh, spending time giving two lectures about these matters exactly, and one of them on how to work with not only conscious emotion, but unconscious emotion in psychotherapy.
Remember that both Russell and I share a psychody- dynamic psychoanalytic perspective, et cetera.
And then another lecture on literally how to work with trauma, uh, to give examples, very specific examples about how to work, uh, w- with both of these problems, et cetera.
And then incidentally, I, I'll give also, uh, one on working with, uh, narcissistic personality disorders also on the second day of the conference.
Um, I thought I might start, if we could, uh, just getting a sense from you if there's any context around this book, uh, that you think would be useful for a reader to know or a listener.
Well, uh, this is the seventh book that I've written, beginning, as you just said, with the Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self in, in 1994.
This is the capstone volume, and essentially what I'm doing at this point in time is I'm recapitulating the field, the, the theory, which has evolved over these, over these different books to this point in time right now.
And so there's a lot of familiar material here, and yet there's a great deal of new material here because the science, as well as the clinical models, have rapidly changed, uh, ov- even over the last ten years, et cetera.
And a lot of the ideas that I presented in 1994 as hypotheses have now literally been s- validated scientifically as well as clinically.
But along the way, what we've seen is that there has been a shift, that there has been a shift here from a behavioral, uh, psychology to a cognitive psychology and now to an emotional psychology.
And so this shift now about working directly with emotions, et cetera, has really changed the way that we have worked at this point in time.
And I wanna say literally, uh, my work has paralleled very closely, uh, the work o- of Russell, who also has been interested in some of the very same problems that I have been in, so to speak, and he's also talking about the differences at this point in time in the clinical theory and also in the clinical practice than we had seen from an earlier time.
So, uh, again, uh, the capstone volume, and I also take a look now at what I see is need- is ahead of us.
And a problem, one of the problems essentially here is, and this goes for life in general, what do we keep from the past, what new we add to that, and what we leave behind, so to speak.
That, I think that really puts it in perspective and, uh, the connection with Russell Mears' work will be, I know, interesting to some of the listeners we have.
Should we say as opposed to? [chuckles] In addition to or as opposed to, uh, working at a cognitive level is something, as you say, there's so much interest in, and I think there's a lot of questions about how, and we may end up talking about that some, about what it looks like to work with emotion.
Because as you say, it's only recently that working with emotion has become more prominent.
Uh, and I suppose, uh, from the ANZAP perspective, uh, there's that interest in training, and how do we help psychotherapists become able to work with, with feeling, with emotion?
Well, along those lines, you know, in the, in the conference itself, I'm going to be s- uh, spending time giving two lectures about these matters exactly, and one of them on how to work with not only conscious emotion, but unconscious emotion in psychotherapy.
Remember that both Russell and I share a psychody- dynamic psychoanalytic perspective, et cetera.
And then another lecture on literally how to work with trauma, uh, to give examples, very specific examples about how to work, uh, w- with both of these problems, et cetera.
And then incidentally, I, I'll give also, uh, one on working with, uh, narcissistic personality disorders also on the second day of the conference.
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