The idea that the left hemisphere is the brain’s logical side or that the right hemisphere is its creative side is false. Creativity and logic are not neatly split between the two hemispheres. However, some cognitive processes are specialized in either the right or left hemisphere of the brain. This is called lateralization.
If you want to learn more about lateralization, one of the world’s greatest authorities on left and right hemisphere specialization is Iain McGilchrist. His books The Master and His Emissary, as well as his more recent The Matter with Things, are excellent resources to learn more. In his The Matter with Things, McGilchrist writes that: “to sum up a vastly complex matter in a phrase, that the brain’s left hemisphere is designed to help us ap-prehend – and thus manipulate – the world; the right hemisphere to com-prehend it – see it all for what it is.”
Rather than seeing the two hemispheres in complete conflict, what is important is learning to integrate their gifts.
For most of us, the left hemisphere is dominant for seeing the world in parts. The left hemisphere specializes in speech, logic, numerical calculations, and analysis. The left hemisphere also functions more as an interpreter that helps us rationalize us toward the positive.
The right hemisphere is dominant for seeing the whole. It helps us build context to understand nuance, jokes, metaphors, and the challenges of paradox. The right hemisphere specializes in implicit, nonverbal, intuitive, and holistic processing of emotional information and social interactions. It is also more specialized toward painful or negative emotions. The right hemisphere is attuned to emotion partly because of the increased specialization of the right insula and right parietal lobe in feeling our embodied selves and our bodily organs. Our emotional states are embodied states that involve how we feel throughout our bodies and organs, such as a racing heart or a pit in our stomach.
McGilchrist shares an exchange with the renowned Blackfoot scholar Dr. Leroy Little Bear in his 2019 documentary The Divided Brain. In the film, they discuss how a right-hemisphere-dominant perspective aligns more with an indigenous worldview—where there is no hard separation between humans and the world.
Excessively attempting to control the world by prioritizing the abilities of the left hemisphere can give us a pathological and dehumanizing worldview. Reducing the world to predictability, disposability, and a passion to control results can be driven by overreliance on the left hemisphere. The world is not simply a problem to be solved, but a miracle to be experienced.
Especially since the 17th-century Age of Enlightenment, McGilchrist argues that Western culture has prioritized a left hemisphere approach to the world. With an overreliance on the left hemisphere, McGilchrist warns that we live no longer in the presence of the world, but rather in a re-presentation of it. Reducing the world to a machine where everything is determined denies hope, meaning, and ultimately love. We are not simply mechanical robots. Prioritizing the gifts of the right hemisphere allows a space for freedom, beauty, wonder, and a sense of the sacred.
We are far from fully understanding the brain or the entirety of the universe.
This video only provided a brief introduction and described what is known as the standard pattern of lateralization that applies to approximately 93% of us. For the other approximate 7% of us, the descriptions in this video might be reversed, such as left being right and right being left.
Neither did this video explain exceptional cases such as Christina Santhouse (who is now Christina Paravecchia). As an 8-year-old child, she had her right hemisphere completely removed to treat her severe seizures. Yet, she grew up, earned a master’s degree, got married, and then became a mother.
Lateralization can also teach us much about how we form relationships with others, ourselves, and ultimately a relationship with God. Elizabeth and Todd Hall’s Relational Spirituality is a great book to help you understand lateralization and attachment theory.