How Relationships Shape Your Brain | Dr. Allan Schore

In this episode, my guest is Dr. Allan Schore, Ph.D., a faculty member in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, a longtime clinical psychotherapist, and a multi-book author. We discuss how early child-parent interactions shape brain circuitry, impacting our ability to form attachments, manage emotions, and navigate conflict and stress. We cover how the development of right-brain circuitry related to emotional processing and the unconscious mind regulates physiological responses, influencing adult friendships and romantic relationships. We also explore how improving your ability to listen to the emotional tone—rather than just the meaning—of words is a vital skill for fostering better relationships with yourself and others, and how it plays a role in reshaping brain circuitry.

Additionally, we explain how circuits in the right brain hemisphere drive creativity and intuition and discuss activities to access the unconscious mind. This episode delves into how the unconscious mind regulates emotions—both your own and others’—and shapes our sense of self. By the end, you’ll have new knowledge and tools to build more secure, meaningful, and impactful connections of all kinds: professional, romantic, familial, friendships, and beyond.

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Timestamps

00:00:00 Dr. Allan Schore

00:02:37 Sponsors: David & Eight Sleep

00:05:49 Thoughts & Unconscious Mind

00:07:36 Right vs Left Brain, Child Development, Attachment

00:13:19 Attachment Styles & Development, Emotions & Physiology

00:18:12 Intuition, Arousal, Emotional Regulation & Attachment

00:23:13 Psychobiological Attunement, Repair; Insecure & Anxious Attachment

00:28:33 Attachment Styles, Regulation Theory; Therapy

00:34:20 Sponsor: AG1

00:35:51 “Surrender,” Therapy, Patient Synchronization

00:39:46 Synchrony, Empathy, Therapy & Developing Autoregulation

00:45:07 Mother vs Father, Child Development; Single Caretakers

00:50:51 MDMA, Right Brain; Fetal Development

00:55:58 Sponsor: Function

00:57:46 Integrating Positive & Negative Emotions, Quiet vs Excited Love