Reply To: Psychotherapy with LH patients

  • Mike Todd

    Member
    June 15, 2023 at 4:18 pm

    Could you clarify how these people with “an over reliance on LH” present?

    I ask because the literature examining the relationship between mental health disorders and hemispheric (im)balance, while bedevilled by inconsistent terminology, nevertheless consistently affirms the following relationships, some of which Dr. McGilchrist similarly affirms:

    1) Depression appears correlated with a relatively overactive right anterior lobe and relatively underactive right posterior and left anterior lobes.
    2) Mania appears, with respect to hemispheric imbalance, more or less the mirror opposite of depression.
    3) Schizophrenia, ADHD and ASD all appear correlated with a relatively underactive RH and a relatively overactive LH.
    4) OCD appears correlated with a relatively overactive RH and a relatively underactive LH.

    Should I therefore take your observation as implying that, among other things, schizophrenia, ADHD and ASD appear on the rise, while depression and OCD appear less prevalent? Or is there a more nebulous, diagnosis-independent, criterion behind your ascription?

    I myself have attended a number of therapists, been medicated, and on one occasion hospitalised, for symptoms consistent with bipolar disorder. (I say “symptoms consistent with” because I’ve yet to be given a formal diagnosis.) I’d love to hear your thoughts on how hemispheric dynamics plays out in relation to bipolar disorder. I’d also like to add that I’ve been pretty much symptom-free since I started meditating daily last year.