ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that clinical and experimental studies of the unconscious, implicit domain can do more than support a clinical psychoanalytic model of treatment, but, rather, this interdisciplinary information can elucidate the mechanisms that lie at the core of psychoanalysis. The concept of a single unitary “self” is as misleading as the idea of a single unitary “brain”. The left and right hemispheres process information in their own unique fashions, and this is reflected in a conscious left lateralised self system and an unconscious right lateralised self system. One reason for the strong attraction of psychoanalysis to the right brain is found in its unique survival functions, processes that are disturbed in various psychopathologies. The chapter discusses a surface, verbal, conscious, analytic explicit self vs a deeper non-verbal, non-conscious, holistic, emotional, corporeal implicit self. The quintessential clinical context for a right brain transferential–countertransferential implicit communication of a dysregulated emotional state is the heightened affective moment of a clinical enactment.
