Memory Reconsolidation: A Unified Framework for Experiential Therapy | Coherence Therapy - Part 5/5

foreign I'm once again sitting down with Bruce Ecker Who develops coherence therapy this is part of a series on coherence therapy by five part series um and you know in the other videos we've you know described coherence therapy and the last one I gave an example of what the clinical work looks like and I've touched on memory reconsolidation in fact I I offered for people to go watch my video on memory reconsolidation and Bruce Ecker is the person that really brought my awareness toward memory reconsolidation as being giving us a lens and insight into how

to more reliably produce transformational change in therapy and in fact he not only served that role for me but for our field he was one of the Forefront people to really delve into the the science of memory or consolidation and begin thinking about what it can teach us in terms of how to produce more reliable results with our clients and deeper results so I asked him if he'd sit down with us for 20 minutes or so to talk about using memory consolidation in therapy which he calls the therapeutic reconsolidation process I'll let Bruce describe that

DRP um not only for uh in terms of how it um explains why coherence therapy is so effective but also for another mission I've seen Bruce Beyond which is giving us all of us therapies all therapists from various um modalities and theoretical backgrounds some common understanding um of what is happening so that we can integrate more seamlessly understand each other from various camps so I'm setting Bruce up for that I promise I'll stop talking um and let Bruce do most of the talking but that is hopefully the topic we'll be exploring together today um so

Bruce I'll let you take it from there and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic yeah thanks thanks Dory well let's see it was it was uh 2005. when I arrived at uh thinking that this this process of transformational change that we arrived at through studying our own clients when they when they had major breakthroughs as I described in our previous uh interview in this series we studied uh our own cases until we saw the the well-defined sequence of experiences or a set of experiences that always are there just before a major breakthrough

a transformation will change occurs where their clients major long-standing problem or symptom pattern disappears and also in the underlying distressed schema or version of reality or core beliefs also are fully de-potentiated no longer feel real at all so we had identified that set of experiences the the basically the creation of the juxtaposition experience uh for the client in which the client is experiencing the underlying uh schema or core beliefs bodily effectively as well as cognitively and is also experiencing their own unmistakable knowing or perception or experience that contradicts the reality and and disconfirms the reality

of that schema or those core beliefs that juxtaposition both at once is the key and by 2005 we had gotten The Knack of organizing therapy toward heading for that from the first session um and so we were getting transformational change pretty reliably and and and that you know what's more fulfilling for a therapist than to create that level of change for clients it's it's wonderful and so we were happy with our work um and and wanting to you know share the good news about how how uh there's a well-defined way to to do that uh

well uh thanks to a a young Protege who was very interested in neuroscience uh I began to wonder whether the Neuroscience world had discovered something that corresponds to this process because it's such a well-defined process and it creates such a distinct remarkable effect that this must exist in the brain this isn't a made-up thing where we've learned to use a process of change that the brain possesses that was clear but no idea and what that was what the Neuroscience was but maybe the neuroscientists have found something that corresponds to this so we began a a

a a search an ongoing search through the Neuroscience research literature and uh really went through hundreds of different studies and articles and nothing matched you know nothing matched this process that we understood until a wonderful night in November of 2005 when Laurel Holly and I uh were on vacation together where also a married couple uh uh so we were uh on vacation uh in a motel down in San Luis Obispo California and I just couldn't stop looking at the computer to fuss and to search for the the Neuroscience for this thing so we had come

home from a long day at Hearst Castle which is amazing amazing um with an amazing history um and uh late at night I was again looking through the computer and didn't find it and got in bed and falling asleep and something in me said wait a minute wait a minute go back to the computer go back to the computer really it would just woke me up pulled me out of bed went back to the computer looked through the articles I had lived through a couple hours earlier in the hotel room and there it was i

i i unmistakable found it an article that was published just a year earlier the title of which was mismatched between what is expected and what is experienced uh triggers either memory reconsolidation or Extinction mismatch that you can see the juxtaposition is a mismatch I started reading the article and absolutely this was it this was the same thing and this article was the first article in the memory reconsolidation research field to identify the behavioral process the experiential process that triggers the memory reconsolidation process in the brain well so okay then I began studying memory reconsolidation research

of which there was not much at that point because the initial discovery of the mechanism happened in the two in 2000 was the article that really made neuroscientists take this seriously there were several articles from 1997 to 2000. uh and so it was still very recent you know just maybe a dozen different research studies on it at that point but this one was the Breakthrough on the behavioral or experiential process that gets the brain to do this and at this point and at the present with what is this 2023 there are thousands and thousands of

memory reconsolidation research and studies it's a huge field see memory reconsolidation is a very broad versatile mechanism it's an analogy is to say imagine uh understanding electricity when electricity was first discovered and it's what is this strange thing right well if you said electricity is something that that lets you heat up a room well that's not what electricity is that's one of its thousands of possible applications or forms of instantiation the memory reconsolidation is like that memory reconsolidation is the brain's mechanism for making a locked stable piece of learning of any kind open up get

unlocked and get modified modified in any way it could be strengthened weakened details changed some other piece of learning you know grafted onto it uh and so it's a very broad mechanism there's one particular process that creates transformational change of emotional learnings and it's the process of creating that juxtaposition where you activate the target emotional learning and co-activate a contradictory knowledge not just some tweak of some kind but a contradictory knowing and at this point uh in the present as we talk there are uh over 20 successful Studies by neuroscientists showing the full depotentiation the

full unlearning the potent unlearning of an emotional response an acquired emotional response in human subjects so this is now very well established empirically and in every one of those 20 plus studies even though the details of procedure vary widely the concrete details um the same set of experiences is present in everyone and I have a a 2021 review article that I've put online that reviews all those studies in detail to show that the same set of experiences you might wonder how can it be the same experiences if the procedures vary well think of it this

way imagine the range of different procedures that could create the experience of laughing right in a human subject right same distinct experience unmistakable when it happens you could you could arrange for that to happen in dozens of different ways but let me count the ways and so the the memory reconsolidation research is is the same these 20 plus successful studies you can see the same series of experiences and point for point they are the same experiences we defined and began to use and defined coherence therapy to consist of what's beautiful now that we have the

rigorous empirical neuroscience showing that those are the experiences that do this now it's not about coherence therapy now it's about a unifying framework therapists who use any methods any systems if they understand that this set of experiences is what creates the Breakthrough the transformation will change to happen then therapists can uh shape their use of their preferred methods or systems to create this set of experiences and it also gives therapists who use very different systems a a common map a shared map uh they can understand each other's systems uh as an alternate way to create

these experiences and and it's also very integrative for one therapist I mean I used to feel very uh disoriented when in mid-session I would change from one system to another right like for example I wanna you know I start to realize with a certain client because of their material or their processing style gee I think I want to try doing something in an aedt manner right or a somatic experiencing manner or an NLP neuro-linguistic programming manner because see that'll fit this material and this processing style better but to make that switch would feel jarring and

discontinuous disorienting For Me Maybe upsetting to the client but now I'm based in this core process of memory reconsolidation and when I switch to a different from that point of view from that position the different modalities or systems of therapy that I'm familiar with look to me like just different alternative options for facilitating the same experience so there's uh continuity for me it's seamless when I switch to a different type of method from a different system in order to optimally carry out that one process we named the process the therapeutic reconsolidation process when we talk

about it as an application of Neuroscience it turns out coherence therapies methodology is exactly that but to talk about it in this unified manner for the therapy field it's the therapeutic reconsolidation process well that's a long-winded answer to your question Tori how are we well you know I I I'm so appreciating what you're saying and I resonate with it as someone who's you know trained in in a number of different experiential modalities that when I'm sitting with someone um if let's say they had a trauma where there was more physical um a car accident or

an attack or something then it's it's pretty seamless for me to move into my somatic experiencing training but it's still within the overarching aim or mission of activating some kind of implicit knowing and with physical traumas that might be unstuck I'm frozen I can't fight back you know um and then just using some of the somatic experiencing techniques like we're gonna push do you want to push against this pillow and feel your activation and get you help you become less Frozen so you can feel your fight response that is a disconfirmation so I'm still thinking

I haven't stopped doing a coherence therapy session you just looked at that um uh or whatever you want to call the therapy session if it's just therapy but if you if you looked at that moment it would look like I'm doing somatic experiencing and I I am using those techniques um but you're using the somatic experience techniques to bring about this specific set of experiences exactly yeah and I think you're right that gives a a grounding an orientation so that then the different techniques that I've picked up from different therapies can it's more like a

menu of options you know that it's like oh which ones fit and for this particular like with it like I'm also an a ADP therapist so well with an attachment piece can I use myself right here to be this confirmation it fits the moment it fits with this client it fits our relationship and maybe in some other moment it doesn't fit so well because maybe there's a behavioral piece and they're wondering why do I procrasti you know there's a specific thing and okay I'm gonna put my coherence on and do something that looks more like

traditional coherence therapy but again it's all with trp trans therapeutic reconsolidation sort of in mind and um so I I'm just echoing what you're saying in terms of my own experience learning your work and how to how to I do just want to add um I hope everyone does read your book The the latest book of you and your colleagues wrote um unlocking the emotional brain in chapter six well can you can you speak to chapter six yes chapter six is where we closely study previously published case examples um not published by us published by

the therapist of an aedp case example an emotion focused therapy case example um Leslie Greenberg uh EMDR case example and an interpersonal neurobiology case example and we uh and we didn't cherry pick these case examples we simply look for the first one that definitely shows transformational change resulting long term that holds and is a fine-grained account of the sessions that's all you look for as soon as we've got that that's the case example it's not Cherry Picked to have the key experiences in it ahead of time I I hope you can take my word for

that uh but we show where in each therapeutic process this specific set of experiences happens and it's right there it's right there now right there so uh it's not a theoretical assertion that this same core process is carried out whenever transformational change shows up we actually show it very concretely and because the experiences are distinctive it's it's rather unambiguous that uh in any therapy session whatever methods or systems were used if transformational change began to happen in other words the client is starting to report that a major symptom or reactivation pattern just isn't happening anymore

in the circumstances where it used to happen that shortly before the client begins reporting that you can find that the crucial set of experiences actually happened in the therapy sessions so we showed that for those four systems and we're now working and and actually that has already expanded in other places than in the book chapter six in other Publications we have colleagues who have expanded the set of systems that we've shown this for significantly and on our website is a page where it lists all of them now I think there are 10 or 11 now

and there's more coming trust me you'll be hearing about that um we're going to add we're going to add semantic experiencing we're going to add internal family systems oh what else come on brain think child with working with children in therapy I know you had an example of that yes yes absolutely so a lot of a lot of this is expanding strongly soon so um well there it is yeah it's a very unifying framework well again I'm noticing the time and noticing that I could talk with you about this for another half hour or longer

um but I think we've captured it and I just want to say how inspired I am you know often when the the lead trainer of a model um is teaching there can be a feeling of this is the correct model or this is the best model or you know um and what I really appreciate about what you're providing here with these thoughts and Reflections and really continuing to ground yourself in the science is um while coherence therapy certainly follows along with that science uh perhaps most clearly and intentionally in some sense um that really what

I the passion I always see from you isn't just isn't this therapy I helped create so wonderful but also isn't this understanding of how the human mind has an innate process of change and we've it is amazing and and can't we now all talk with each other and come to around the fire in a way and say well this is how I've learned to do it this is how I've learned to do it I've really understood the somatic aspect of this I've understood the relationship with the therapist aspect of this I've I've looked at this

through Parts work and I really love the um invitation that you give for us yes thank you thank you yes the therapy field has fragmented so severely and the competition between uh different systems is such a symptom of that fragmentation we need unification uh but but rigorous unification uh so badly and I think this could be it that's why I'm so excited about it well thank you so much I really appreciate your time I hope everyone's enjoyed um the chances to learn and to also be with with Bruce so Bruce I appreciate you taking the

time thank you Tori thank you pleasure [Music] so much for watching if you're enjoying my content and would like to support my efforts to make videos on a more regular basis I'm excited to announce that I just created a patreon page which I will link to below I'm always learning more than I have time to make polished videos about so by becoming a patron you will have access to more informal content including deep dives into specific topics as well as more personal reflections patrons will also have the chance to join smaller study groups where we

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