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This article examines the role of the right cerebral hemisphere in mediating psychopathology. An emerging literature indicates that it plays a pivotal role in disorders of social processing, disorders of awareness (especially bodily self-awareness), and disorders of emotional functioning. The bulk of the relevant studies have examined emotional communication and perception, particularly in language prosody and facial expression. These consistently indicate thedifferential importance of the right hemisphere, especially for processing (i.e., understanding and expressing) negative or withdrawal/avoidance emotions. As such, depression has often been linked to the right hemisphere, thereby providing one rationale for unilateral (right-sided) electroshock therapy (Sackheim, Greenberg, Weiman, Gur, Hungerbuhler, and Geschwind, 1982). This extensive literature has been frequently and well reviewed (e.g., Borod, 1992; Borod, Haywood, and Koff, 1997; Borad, Koff, Tabert, and Zgaljardic, in press) and is not repeated here. Instead, we focus on the less well-known role of the right hemisphere in psychiatric disorders of awareness and social understanding/behavior.
Awareness disorders are considered in the sections dealing with history of lateral specialization and adult onset psychopathology (such as hysteria and schizophrenia). Links between the posited neurophysiological dysfunction and “primitive” forms of psychopathology are made. Social disorders are largely considered under childhood onset psychopathology (such as attention deficit disorder, nonverbal learning disability, and Asperger's Syndrome). An argument will be made that these developmental disorders represent points on a continuum of right brain dysruption, which may also be implicated in other less obviously connected