ABSTRACT
The right brain has more connections with the limbic system and the amygdala, and the right is dominant in the attachment process, controlling implicitly emotion, bodily experience between self and other, and autonomic processes, affecting future capacities for affect regulation, social cognition and mentalization. The medial prefrontal cortex, fundamental for attachment, is the area that links the brainstem to the amygdala and the limbic system and therefore connects the superior areas of the brain. The Self in formation therefore is directly influenced by this dual right brain process. Patients with histories of attachment trauma thus contain unconscious insecure working models that automatically trigger right brain stress responses at low thresholds of ruptures of the therapeutic alliance. Implicit traumatic memories are therefore encoded and encrypted in the right brain, in connection with amygdala activation more than cortical awareness.
