Saturday, June 08, 2024

The Therapeutic Reconsolidation Process / Memory Reconsolidation

I’m introducing to past and existing clients something new in my practice of psychotherapy, with the potential for transformational memory shift, impactful emotional new feelings and activating emotional healing. 


Kindly 🌿 be sure to make it to the three specific, total of 18 minute videos shared below. (With yet more shared, too).  I labeled that area with three (3) ðŸŒ¿ðŸŒ¿ðŸŒ¿ below


Earlier in my career, I completed training in several trauma informed perspectives, for aiding *any* psychological hurt that remains with you to the present moment.  These have included EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing - with Francine Shapiro, The Flash Technique (with Philip Manfield), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with Sue Johnson and the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT - tapping).  I also earned certification in Oregon to be among the first Oregon Health Authority Licensed Psilocybin Facilitators in America.



Happy with these approaches overall, but dis-satisfied with them, too, I’ve been looking for better ways to guide people in their healing process & transformational life journey.


I have recently completed numerous training sessions and came to the work of Bruce Ecker’s summary, in Unlocking the Emotional Brain.  Ecker and others have built on the work of the best neuroscience and pointed out that the reason many “techniques” in healing for any psychological injury are effective is that *sometimes* these other methods follow the Therapeutic Reconsolidation Process (TRP), also known as Memory Reconsolidation - known also as the ECPE for Empirically Confirmed Process of Erasure - allows persons to re-experience difficult, distressing events of and hold onto the memory, while erasing the *emotion* of the past hurt from the memory.  In other words, the memory still “exists” AND YET, the emotional pain tied to the memory is “unlocked” and can be neutralized. 


I like to offer an analogy for thinking about this:  When you update an app that is running on your mobile device, the updated app still runs more or not in the same way and yet differently after the update has been run. Through the Memory Reconsolidation process, a person still holds on to a memory from the past, but the updated version of it is drained from a significant amount, if not all, of the emotional aspects of the old version of that story. In the update.


The process can be “completed” as a “technique” in one of several ways - that is why different “techniques” in trauma & psychological injury healing have worked in the past 20 years of psychotherapy!  And yet, the “techniques” are not what heals, it is the brain’s emotional processing that operates within each technique that brings about lasting emotional change from past psychological injury.


My headlong quest into finding help to shift persons from their psychological injury toward wellness has included numerous more recent completed studies and trainings to include:


  1. Rapid Resolution Therapy (RRT) with Jon Connelly

  2. Accelerated Resolution Therapy (A.R.T.) with  Laney Rosenzweig.

  3. Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP) with Diana Fosha, PhD.  

  4. Internal Family Systems (IFS) with Richard Schwartz, Ph.D. and the IFS Institute.

  5. Four Blinks with Thomas Zimmerman

  6. The RECON method for trauma reconsolidation with Courtney Armstrong

  7. Rapid Trauma Processing with Dave Ebaugh, LCSW

  8. Integral Eye Movement Therapy (IEMT)

  9. Somatic Experiencing Training International with Peter Levine


Integrating these “techniques” - I am now working to aid people in Memory Reconsolidation based on Bruce Ecker's synthesis of the brains process within the Therapeutic Reconsolidation Process.


What does this mean “in a real appointment”? 


  • The process I’m engaging in to get persons through the TRP / MR (Memory Reconsolidation) only needs you to want to “unlock your emotional” past hurts and to show up in a calm, quiet, and thoughtful setting.

  • The appointment requires you to think back to any difficulty distressing memory in the past - and yet you don't have to stay there and won't stay there.  You don't even need to describe the details of the past hurt to me - you only be able to label it or title it for me to remind you to "go back there" for brief moments.

  • Having a full-screen monitor (computer, tv is most simple) but it can be done without a monitor.  I prefer eye movement for the process over body movement as some clients get exhausted with the body movement.)  Currently, I’m using a link I’ll send from this bilateral eye movement website: https://www.bilateralstimulation.io/  Without a monitor, we use body based bilateral tapping, cross body tapping, or butterfly tapping. And, blinking.

  • The engaging work runs 20-40 minutes using most, but not all of an appointment on most occasions.  If a person is processing a more difficult distressing memory, it might be good to alert me so we can plan for you to have an extra 10-20 minutes into “the next hour” for ensuring we come to a calm, neutral end, if not an optimistic neutral end.

  • Most of the session's time is rooted in a grounding, positive emotionally focused event of some positive emotion, good feeling.

  • The process does require you to experience the emotional distress of the past difficult memory, in order to fire and wire your brain’s neural memory in order to unlearn and retrain that neural pathway in your brain.  The process does invite a person to think new thoughts and think imaginatively, while being grounded in real experience that "feels right" for each client.

  • A client only needs to briefly experience the distress, and we do *not* want to stay there, nor get stuck there, nor remain there long - most of the session works toward grounded good feelings and new ways to think about the old past emotional event as new neural pathways are consolidated with better ways of thinking and emoting.

  • A good portion of the session's time is also "imaginal" where you "create a new memory experience" in a way that shows up unique to your life's story.


If you’re interested in more, there are tons of ways I can share more, lots that you can read.  Though, you can also just “trust me” to guide YOUR emotion through the process of remembering your past pain, in order to UNLEARN that emotional event from it’s emotional pain, to a different and less distressing, and more neutral experience.  On the basis of the neutral experience, you can then be postured for new transformational experiences in your emotional well-being, and poised for new growth.


🌿🌿🌿 Below are the three select videos,for a total of 18 minutes of the resources that I believe most simply point to what this is and how it works. ðŸŒ¿ðŸŒ¿ðŸŒ¿


Three (3) minute introduction to memory consolidation and reconsolidation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKiV3FNpXhk


Five (5) minute introduction to Transformation Change, MR (Memory Reconsolidation)  & Bruce Ecker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJrfsjT35UE


Ten (10) minute narrative of Bruce Ecker (Coherence Institute) with whom I received certified training and who inspires me as a practitioner, and for the promise and potential of Memory Reconsolidation, an unlocked emotional brain and a transformation potential to move into a new future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Ur5aag0Ow


MANY more links:


PDF Research Paper: memory reconsolidation understood and misunderstood Bruce Ecker Coherence Psychology Institute

https://coherencetherapy.org/files/Ecker_2015_MR-Understood-&-Misunderstood.pdf


PDF Research Paper: Clinical Translation of Memory Reconsolidation Research: Therapeutic Methodology for Transformational Change by Erasing Implicit Emotional Learnings Driving Symptom Production by Bruce Ecker

https://www.coherencetherapy.org/files/Ecker_2018_Clinical_Translation_of_Memory_Reconsolidation_Research.pdf


18 Page Summer: A Primer on Memory Reconsolidation and its psychotherapeutic use as a

core process of profound change by Bruce Ecker, Robin Ticic and Laurel Hulley

https://coherencetherapy.org/files/Ecker-etal-NPT2013April-Primer.pdf


APA Psychology Paper: How the science of memory reconsolidation advances the effectiveness and unification of psychotherapy.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-29037-001


Research Gate Paper: UNDERSTANDING MEMORY RECONSOLIDATION - January 2015 -- The Neuropsychotherapist

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281571640_UNDERSTANDING_MEMORY_RECONSOLIDATON


BOOK ABSTRACT:  Unlocking the Emotional Brain Memory Reconsolidation and the Psychotherapy of Transformational Change

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781003231431/unlocking-emotional-brain-bruce-ecker-robin-ticic-laurel-hulley


1st Edition Book Link: Unlocking the Emotional Brain (Routledge Mental Health Classic Editions) 1st Edition by Bruce Ecker (Author), Robin Ticic (Author), Laurel Hulley (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Emotional-Brain-Eliminating-Reconsolidation-ebook/dp/B09RND933D?


BOOK:  Newest Edition:  Unlocking the Emotional Brain Paperback – April 22, 2024 by Bruce Ecker (Author), Robin Ticic (Author), Laurel Hulley (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Emotional-Brain-Bruce-Ecker/dp/1032139129/


VIDEO: Memory Reconsolidation and Metaprocessing Emotions | AEDP with Dr. Tori Olds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOuZdLAq_YU


VIDEO: Memory Reconsolidation: How to Rewire Our Brain with Dr. Tori Olds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWfpLtgxDi4


VIDEO:  The 5 steps of memory reconsolidation with Courtney Armstrong

https://youtu.be/yG_t_1jfLQA?si=0cTGV1EjHOyqEDbN


Understanding Memory Reconsolidation in this Version of Flash with Thomas Zimmerman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao_1cyUIDII


VIDEO: The Brain's Process of Profound Change: A Primer on Memory Reconsolidation for Therapists with Bruce Ecker

https://youtu.be/_a2uxTQpqAM?si=ULH6dijK4lydkyms


The Crucial Role Of Repetition When Removing Trauma Using Memory Reconsolidation with Alun Parry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al_QBSaYz_I


BOOK: Rethinking Trauma Treatment: Attachment, Memory Reconsolidation, and Resilience by Courtney Armstrong

https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Trauma-Treatment-Attachment-Reconsolidation/dp/0393712559


VIDEO: Numerous Videos Bruce Ecker on Memory Reconsolidation

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bruce+ecker+memory+reconsolidation


VIDEO: A chat with Alun Parry about remove trauma response

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG8WLIR0NTc


VIDEO: The Art and Neuroscience of Transformational Change: Dr Tori Olds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cZZu_yUhS0&t=0s


VIDEO: The Psychology of Schemas: Why Our Childhood Can Mess Us Up with Dr. Tori Olds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d629qUO-qkQ


VIDEO: Using Rapid Resolution Therapy for Treating Trauma with Dr. Jon Connelly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW99j_Olyo8


VIDEO: MEMORY RECONSOLIDATION: Key To Transformational Change in Psychotherapy -- Bruce Ecker, LMFT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V_rI2N6Fco&t=0s


VIDEO: What is the Role of Emotion in Memory?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLzFa-aiDmc


VIDEO: What is Memory Consolidation and Reconsolidation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKiV3FNpXhk


VIDEO: Memory Reconsolidation in a Nutshell 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJrfsjT35UE


VIDEO: Memory reconsolidation may be the long-sought mechanism of change in psychotherapy with Bruce Ecker and the Coherence Institute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHnn2Wf4NFI