LifeManagementToolsOnline
Life Management Resources
BRAIN LATERALIZATION: WHAT IS IT AND WHY IS IT
IMPORTANT?
In the late 60s and early 70s surgeons Akelietas and Bogen were using a brain-splitting protocol for severe epilepsy. To prevent the spread of the epilepsy from one cortical hemisphere to the other they severed the corpus callosum and anterior commissure (the connecting bridges across hemispheres). The result was a patient relatively free of seizures but whose brain was forever changed. To study these unusual individuals they brought psychologist Roger Sperry to Cal Tech since Sperry had been studying similar phenomena in cats. Because these so-called split-brain patients had no communication between left and right cortical hemispheres the functions of these respective hemispheres could be studied without the one interfering with the other as happens with intact individuals. Sperry found that hemisphere functions differed considerably between the left and right.
The degree to which these functions differed was called the degree of brain lateralization. It was subsequently discovered that males are, in general, more lateralized than females, and that right handers are more lateralized than left-handers. Two important lateralized functions are the emotions and speech. Most people have speech processed in the left or dominant hemisphere, although the intonation of the speech is processed in the right hemisphere. In fact, speech information coded in music or rhyme, as in song lyrics or poetry may receive a good deal of right, or non-dominant hemispheric processing. Most experts generally agree that the left hemisphere can interpret complex and abstract speech while the right side can only understand very simple, concrete, brief word commands or strings. However, if these simple commands are coded in lots of voice intonation or put to music or rhyme, they stand a better chance of being understood by this non-dominant hemisphere.
But why are we interested in getting messages into the right hemisphere? David Galin, in very important article in the Archives of General Psychiatry (1974, vol. 31, 572-583) detailed just how the recent findings of Sperry, Bogen, and Gazzaniga et al supported the Freudian idea of an unconscious. Galin also stated that the majority of the unconscious mediating structures appeared to be in the right brain. Galin noted that Ferenczi, one of Freud's followers, carried out a research study which showed that most conversion reactions and hysterical conditions appeared on the left side of the body (controlled primarily by the right brain). Galin surveyed hospitals in the San Francisco area and found, as did Freneczi many years before, that indeed most conversion symptoms were found on the left side of the body. Conversion Disorder is by definition a voluntary motor or sensory loss (pseudoneurological) or a change in function that implies a physical disorder. The symptom cannot be explained by any known pathophysiological mechanism or general medical condition, and is not intentionally produced. The symptom is an expression of a psychological conflict or need. Symptoms usually appear during times of extreme psychosocial stress. It would appear that such disorders may be the right brain's response to such a conflict.
The question thus becomes, how are we to modify negative scripts in the right hemisphere? A simple answer is that the right hemisphere is more likely to accept and implement the positive affirmation than is the left. Why? Because many of the defenses our brain erects to protect us are contained in this so-called conscious hemisphere. Each time we suffer a psychological or physiological trauma the brain erects a defense such that we are not so likely to suffer that trauma again. An example might be the bite of a dog when we are very young. The brain erects the defense of generating a fear response whenever we are in the presence of a dog. This defense tends to generalize such that even the picture of a dog may cause feelings of anxiety. Thus, the defense has now become maladaptive because for the rest of life we avoid dogs, even nice, friendly ones.
Defenses have this way of evolving into over-reactive tendencies. Another interesting fact is that any new information that tends to disagree with the low self-esteem self our experiences have created is rejected, even though the new information may be true and positive. If, for example, we have been taught (by less than ideal parenting, or teachers, or other authoritative individuals) that we are no good, we will reject any suggestions that we are good. To summarize then, our self-esteem has been warped to the extent we (our brain and nervous system in general) have adopted the negative comments directed at us by authoritative figures in our early lives. Now we exist as adults with many onion layers of critical defenses and a bruised and distorted self-esteem. The final result is that we go through life feeling afraid, unsure and unhappy most of the time.
The brain lateralization research showed that many of these negative avoidances and emotional tendencies were mediated by the right, non-dominant, unconscious hemisphere. Perhaps there is a way of influencing these negative programs without running up against the critical screening defenses that attempt to keep us as we are. In an important article in the August 1977 Psychology Today, Dr. Budzynski presented the theory behind this model of the brain and outlined one method of changing these negative scripts. The article described Twilight Learning, a technique of using the EEG to automatically allow the presentation of positive affirmations only when the client¡¦s brain dropped into a theta state and the critical screening was shut down.
In the late 60s and early 70s surgeons Akelietas and Bogen were using a brain-splitting protocol for severe epilepsy. To prevent the spread of the epilepsy from one cortical hemisphere to the other they severed the corpus callosum and anterior commissure (the connecting bridges across hemispheres). The result was a patient relatively free of seizures but whose brain was forever changed. To study these unusual individuals they brought psychologist Roger Sperry to Cal Tech since Sperry had been studying similar phenomena in cats. Because these so-called split-brain patients had no communication between left and right cortical hemispheres the functions of these respective hemispheres could be studied without the one interfering with the other as happens with intact individuals. Sperry found that hemisphere functions differed considerably between the left and right.
The degree to which these functions differed was called the degree of brain lateralization. It was subsequently discovered that males are, in general, more lateralized than females, and that right handers are more lateralized than left-handers. Two important lateralized functions are the emotions and speech. Most people have speech processed in the left or dominant hemisphere, although the intonation of the speech is processed in the right hemisphere. In fact, speech information coded in music or rhyme, as in song lyrics or poetry may receive a good deal of right, or non-dominant hemispheric processing. Most experts generally agree that the left hemisphere can interpret complex and abstract speech while the right side can only understand very simple, concrete, brief word commands or strings. However, if these simple commands are coded in lots of voice intonation or put to music or rhyme, they stand a better chance of being understood by this non-dominant hemisphere.
But why are we interested in getting messages into the right hemisphere? David Galin, in very important article in the Archives of General Psychiatry (1974, vol. 31, 572-583) detailed just how the recent findings of Sperry, Bogen, and Gazzaniga et al supported the Freudian idea of an unconscious. Galin also stated that the majority of the unconscious mediating structures appeared to be in the right brain. Galin noted that Ferenczi, one of Freud's followers, carried out a research study which showed that most conversion reactions and hysterical conditions appeared on the left side of the body (controlled primarily by the right brain). Galin surveyed hospitals in the San Francisco area and found, as did Freneczi many years before, that indeed most conversion symptoms were found on the left side of the body. Conversion Disorder is by definition a voluntary motor or sensory loss (pseudoneurological) or a change in function that implies a physical disorder. The symptom cannot be explained by any known pathophysiological mechanism or general medical condition, and is not intentionally produced. The symptom is an expression of a psychological conflict or need. Symptoms usually appear during times of extreme psychosocial stress. It would appear that such disorders may be the right brain's response to such a conflict.
The question thus becomes, how are we to modify negative scripts in the right hemisphere? A simple answer is that the right hemisphere is more likely to accept and implement the positive affirmation than is the left. Why? Because many of the defenses our brain erects to protect us are contained in this so-called conscious hemisphere. Each time we suffer a psychological or physiological trauma the brain erects a defense such that we are not so likely to suffer that trauma again. An example might be the bite of a dog when we are very young. The brain erects the defense of generating a fear response whenever we are in the presence of a dog. This defense tends to generalize such that even the picture of a dog may cause feelings of anxiety. Thus, the defense has now become maladaptive because for the rest of life we avoid dogs, even nice, friendly ones.
Defenses have this way of evolving into over-reactive tendencies. Another interesting fact is that any new information that tends to disagree with the low self-esteem self our experiences have created is rejected, even though the new information may be true and positive. If, for example, we have been taught (by less than ideal parenting, or teachers, or other authoritative individuals) that we are no good, we will reject any suggestions that we are good. To summarize then, our self-esteem has been warped to the extent we (our brain and nervous system in general) have adopted the negative comments directed at us by authoritative figures in our early lives. Now we exist as adults with many onion layers of critical defenses and a bruised and distorted self-esteem. The final result is that we go through life feeling afraid, unsure and unhappy most of the time.
The brain lateralization research showed that many of these negative avoidances and emotional tendencies were mediated by the right, non-dominant, unconscious hemisphere. Perhaps there is a way of influencing these negative programs without running up against the critical screening defenses that attempt to keep us as we are. In an important article in the August 1977 Psychology Today, Dr. Budzynski presented the theory behind this model of the brain and outlined one method of changing these negative scripts. The article described Twilight Learning, a technique of using the EEG to automatically allow the presentation of positive affirmations only when the client¡¦s brain dropped into a theta state and the critical screening was shut down.