Introduction
This series explores the process by which a person recovers connection, approached from neuroscience, attachment theory and Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB). Part 6 takes up the shape of development and integration as a whole — the double movement of right hemisphere to left, and lower brain to higher — and sets it alongside the practice of coaching, NLP and Rolfing.
The Brain Develops Bottom-Up — A Hierarchical Model of Structural Integration (IPNB × Rolfing)
Dr Daniel Siegel, one of those who proposed Interpersonal Neurobiology, holds that brain development is hierarchical both structurally and functionally, growing in the order brain stem → limbic system → cerebral cortex.
- Brain stem: governs the most basic physiological functions that keep us alive — breathing, heart rate, body temperature — and forms the bodily ground of safety and ease
- Limbic system: governs affect, memory and attachment behaviour, and forms the basis of relationship with others and of motivation
- Cerebral cortex (the prefrontal cortex in particular): carries the higher functions — rational judgement, self-regulation, empathy, social cognition — and does the integrative work of joining self and world
This hierarchy shows a person developing in the order bodily ease → stability of feeling → maturity of cognition, and it chimes deeply with the working principle of Rolfing: a structural approach that goes from the bottom upward.
In practice, Rolfing builds the body upward so that it comes into accord with gravity — from the soles of the feet through the pelvis and spine to the head. Almost as though development were being done again, body and nervous system are rebuilt in stages: from stability at the level of the brain stem, to fluidity of feeling, to flexibility of cognition. Breathing deepens, the axis comes into order, and a way of being that gravity carries is recovered.
This bottom-up reintegration of structure and function does not stop at the body. It bears closely on the workings of the social brain — on relationship and on the regulation of affect. The right hemisphere in particular, central to the limbic system, is known to develop in infancy through non-verbal communication.
What follows is Dr Allan Schore’s research on the right hemisphere.
The Brain Develops Right-to-Left — From Non-Verbal to Verbal, Sensation to Meaning (IPNB × NLP)
Dr Allan Schore’s research confirms an asymmetry in development: the right hemisphere grows first, the left afterwards.
- Right hemisphere: non-verbal empathy, bodily sensation, processing of affect (attachment, resonance)
- Left hemisphere: language, logic, analysis, structuring in time (meaning-making, planning)
Human understanding begins with something being sensed, and unfolds from there into something being given meaning.
This developmental process corresponds to the VAK model in NLP (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic): resonance of sensation in the right hemisphere comes first, and labelling and reconstruction by the left follow. Mirroring and pacing, on which NLP places weight, are likewise techniques for encouraging resonance between right hemispheres.
Schore emphasises that right-hemisphere development is not confined to infancy: it is a region that goes on growing throughout life, alongside social relationship. Non-verbal communication in particular — a parent’s gaze, the inflection of a voice, contact of skin — activates the neural networks of the right hemisphere and lays the ground for the regulation of feeling.
Co-regulation of this kind — dyadic regulation — encourages neuroplasticity and grows the neural basis for ease and for the capacity to regulate oneself. Where co-regulation is absent, the result is over-sensitivity of the stress response and difficulty in self-regulation.
The integration of right and left, and of the non-verbal with meaning, thus holds the key to human social adaptation. The right hemisphere is not simply a place where sensation is processed; it is a mirror that reflects the quality of relationship at the neural level. And for taking that question further, what matters is John Bowlby’s attachment theory.
Attachment and Neuroplasticity — Relationship Changes the Brain (Attachment Theory × Coaching)
On Dr John Bowlby’s attachment theory, a stable relationship in infancy bears directly on the structural and functional development of the brain. Above all, when the relationship with a caregiver establishes the sense that the world is safe and that one is held as mattering, a child can move beyond mere survival into social development.
- A parent’s gaze, tone of voice and touch bring about resonance in the right hemisphere
- Dyadic regulation — co-regulation — encourages neuroplasticity
- A safe relationship becomes the ground that supports development of the prefrontal cortex (self-regulation, empathy)
Bowlby held that when a child has access to another person who serves as a secure base, social behaviour such as exploration and learning becomes possible. It was Allan Schore who developed this theory from the side of neuroscience. He took the essence of attachment to be a continuous process of resonance and readjustment at the level of the right hemisphere, and held sensory interaction to be indispensable to its development.
The view carries over into coaching. Within a safe and empathic relationship, a client opens up and finds their way to new choices and to the possibility of change. Coaching as a second attachment experience holds within it a transformative process that works on the right hemisphere.
Polyvagal Theory and the Switch Called Safety — The Neurophysiology of Social Relationship
Next, Dr Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal Theory. On this view the autonomic nervous system has three evolutionary layers, and switches between them according to circumstance:
- Dorsal vagal nerve (shutdown, freeze)
- Sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight)
- Ventral vagal nerve (empathy, connection, curiosity)
What is worth noticing is that the third pathway, the ventral vagal, governs ease and connection. Working through facial expression, tone of voice, breathing and hearing, this system activates within a safe relationship, and is the key to drawing out the higher prefrontal functions — creativity, empathy.
The mechanism overlaps with Bowlby’s secure base and Schore’s right-hemisphere resonance, and shows that a sense of ease at the bodily level supports the regulation of the brain as a whole.
In coaching, non-verbal elements — presence, tone of voice, the timing of a pause — bring ease to a client’s nervous system and become the ground for change. In Rolfing too, careful touch and the recovery of structural stability stimulate the ventral vagal system, and the bodily conviction that it is safe to be here now returns.
Polyvagal theory makes plain the neural workings that underlie ease, empathy and connection, and serves as a strong framework bridging attachment theory, IPNB, coaching and Rolfing.
The Fast Brain and the Slow Brain in Conversation — Mindfulness Between Feeling and Choice (Coaching × Rolfing)
The brain holds two regions working on different timescales and at different speeds: the fast brain and the slow brain.
- Amygdala: the immediate-response system. The fast brain, reacting to threat in an instant, at the centre of defensive response to emotional triggers
- Prefrontal cortex (PFC): the slow brain, carrying self-regulation, rational judgement and the reading of social context, with the capacity to deliberate at leisure and choose a response
When the two work together properly, what becomes possible is not impulsive reaction but choice suited to the situation. What supports that connection is practice of the kind found in mindfulness and in noticing bodily sensation. Being able to notice inner affect without being caught up in it quietens over-response in the amygdala and restores the work of the PFC.
Rolfing supports this process of neural integration from the body. As breathing deepens, the axis comes into order and the relation to gravity returns, a sense of being here now arises; tension in the amygdala eases, and room for choice through the PFC widens.
The same holds in coaching. A client’s process of noticing their own response and recovering choice becomes possible as this collaboration inside the brain is encouraged. The coach’s presence and listening open the circuitry of safety and support the neural ground for change.
Integration Through Rolfing — Ordering the Brain by Way of the Body
What Rolfing is, at bottom, is structural integration — not simply an adjustment of fascia but a rebuilding of body and brain together, integrating nervous system, sensation, recognition and behaviour.
Rolfing places particular weight on how the body is arranged in space through its relation to gravity. This chimes with the flow of integration that IPNB describes: bottom-up, and right-to-left.
The neural changes that follow naturally from Rolfing:
- The feet find the ground: stability at the brain stem, recovery of a sense of safety
- Breathing deepens: activation of the ventral vagal system, repair of social relationship
- The axis comes into order: perceptual integration across the whole body, greater self-awareness and interoception
- Presence increases: activation of the prefrontal cortex, recovery of flexible choice and self-regulation
Rolfing, then, is an approach that supports the hierarchical and functional integration of the nervous system from the body, and it answers to attachment theory’s secure base and to the neural conditions for ease described by polyvagal theory.
It orders, from the body, the neural conditions for safety and for choice — and taken together with IPNB and with coaching, it becomes an integrative method capable of supporting real change.
Next Time: From Regulation to Empathy — What Maturity in the Social Brain Means
Part 7, the last, goes into the process by which regulation of feeling develops into empathy. Mirror neurons, the social brain, presence — and what it might mean to lead with the capacity to feel with others.