On the Integrated Brain: The Left-Right Connection

Many of you know that there are two brain hemispheres, the left and right; each has its own functions which differ seriously in the psychic economy.   But what is well less known is that these two hemispheres are connected mainly by a group of 200 million neurons called the corpus callosum.  Eighty five percent of our emotions traverse this structure.   There are lesser connections, as well, but none as important as the corpus callosum.

Sometimes there are those who are born without it, and others due to serious epilepsy have it severed so that information no longer travels along this route.  The surgery stops the epilepsy but also cause brain impairment.

The corpus callosum begins its life just about the time the two hemispheres are differentiating—11 weeks of gestation.   When there is trauma in the womb this structure thins out and it is not as strong.  Also early in life adverse circumstances can weaken it.   Thus trauma can interrupt the connection among feelings from right to left and back.    When pain is inordinate early on, the feelings can be blocked by repression along this structure.  So no proper connection can be made. Connection, remember, can be vertical, from deep in the brain to higher areas, and also from right to left brains, horizontal connection.

The corpus callosum, about the length/width of my four fingers goes on developing even through  adolescence.  These cells seem to be guided toward each other by key cells known  as pioneer axons. They lead the way and then hundreds of millions of nerve cells follow, and the connection is complete.  But repression can be enhanced against pain and block this connection.  Those who live in their head have a failure of this horizontal connection.    They cannot feel. This is not the case with most of our patients who feel too much. That is, too much pain information is getting through and flooding the other (left) side.  The right left barricade does not function well and the brain cannot hold back information.

The corpus callosum is most malleable; those who learned a musical instrument very early have larger corpus callosums.   And I believe that those babies who were deal with in a feeling way also may have a more efficient structure.   So they can think and know what they feel and feel what they know.  They are integrated.  They have themselves.

 Neglected children on average have a smaller corpus callosum.  There is not a broad capacity for feeling.  When feelings methodically reach the other side there is the beginning of a whole human being.  I believe that one way repression exerts its force is through disconnecting left and right  brains.  The left is saying, “there is more information coming in than I can accept.”  It then pushes more information away.  It is then that other structures take over and deliver feelings—the anterior commissure.   But these other structures are not as good as delivery of feelings as the corpus callosum.   Now we see how those intellectual beings can figure out so much yet not know about feelings.  Those who are very intellectual never learn how to do our therapy.  They cannot sense or feel what is the right move to make, and when making a move is not appropriate.

What I think we do in our therapy is produce over time,  bit by bit, a connection in both directions top/bottom  and right/left.  It, to me, is normalizing the individual, making her and him integrated souls.  They can care because that emotion is not blocked.  With an intact limbic system they know instinctively how to rear a child; not having to read how-to books.    The goal of therapy has to be feeling because it was feeling that either went astray early on or was blocked from proper access.  We can sense when someone is feeling and when he is not.  Feeling beings exude feeling and it is palpable.