Chapter 2 - Unconscious processing of emotions and the right hemisphere

Abstract

Many influential authors maintain that, even if emotions are conscious experiences, the processing of information that produces emotions is usually unconscious. This chapter discusses the nonconscious aspects of emotional processing and the critical role played in them by the right hemisphere. This chapter first reviews the studies that have demonstrated the existence of unconscious or subconscious forms of emotional processing and then discusses the data supporting the hypothesis that the right hemisphere is dominant for the processing of emotions. After these topics are reviewed, the chapter will discuss investigations that have shown that the right and left amygdala have different roles in the processing of emotional stimuli, the former being involved in nonconscious and the latter in conscious forms of emotional learning. This chapter will also address the distinction proposed by Freud between "removed" and "nonremoved" forms of unconscious processing and will consider whether "nonremoved preverbal implicit memories" have a preferential link with the right hemisphere. The possibility that the right hemisphere may play a critical role not only in the formation of nonremoved subconscious memories but also in the development of denial phenomena, resulting from dynamic processes of unconscious repression, will also be discussed.