Friday, February 17, 2012

New Book from Allan N. Schore: The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy


In the world of Interpersonal Neurobiology, a new book from Allan Schore is bigger than the original members of Van Halen making a new album (which they have done, by the way). Alongside Daniel Siegel, there is no one more highly regarded in that field than Schore. His new book is The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy (April, 2012), and it joins his four previous books, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development (1994), Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self/Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self (2003, two-volume set), and Reader's Guide to Affect Regulation and Neurobiology (February 29, 2012).

I have requested a review copy of the newest book and will offer a review when it comes.

Schore combines an incredible understanding of neuroscience with attachment theory, intersubjectivity theory (see Robert Stolorow and George Atwood: Contexts of Being: The Intersubjective Foundations of Psychological Life, 2002), and Self Psychology (a la Heinz Kohut). For anyone interested in a psychodynamic or psychoanalytic approach to therapy, he is required reading in my opinion.

From his personal website (which has a page with many free PDFs of his papers/book chapters), here is a brief bio statement (there's more at his site):
Dr. Allan 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 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."
Here is the marketing material from Norton's site announcing the book. The email I received says the book is officially publishing on April 2, but is available now directly from Norton at 20% off the list price ($45). Please enter promotion code SCHORE during checkout for the discount. This special offer ends March 31st. Sounds like a good deal.

The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy

Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology

Allan N. Schore (Author, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine)

  • Not Yet Published: Preorder Now
  • Our Retail Price: $45.00

Overview | Contents 

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.
Here is the Table of Contents:

    PART I. AFFECT REGULATION THERAPY (ART) AND CLINICAL NEUROPSYCHOANALYSIS

    1. Modern Attachment Theory: The Central Role of Affect Regulation in Development and Treatment (With Judith Schore)

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

    3. Right Brain Affect Regulation: An Essential Mechanism of Development, Trauma, Dissociation, and Psychotherapy

    4. The Right Brain Implicit Self Lies at the Core of Psychoanalysis

    5. Therapeutic Enactments: Working in Right Brain Windows of Affect Tolerance

    PART II. DEVELOPMENTAL AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND DEVELOPMENTAL NEUROPSYCHIATRY

    6. Attachment, Affect Regulation, and the Developing Right Brain: Linking Developmental Neuroscience to Pediatrics

    7. How Elephants are Opening Doors: Developmental Neuroethology, Attachment and Social Context (With Gay Bradshaw)

    8. Attachment Trauma and the Developing Right Brain: Origins of Pathological Dissociation

    9. Relational Trauma and the Developing Right Brain: The Neurobiology of Broken Attachment Bonds

    10. Is Borderline Personality Disorder a Particularly Right Hemispheric Disorder? A Study of P3A Using Single Trial Analysis (With Russell Meares and Dmitry Melkonian)

    11. Bowby’s Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness: Recent Studies on the Interpersonal Neurobiology of Attachment and Emotional Development

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