The transformation process consists of three steps:

1. Reactivation of memory (B)
2. Activation of disconfirming knowledge (C)
3. Repetition of (B)-(C) juxtapositions

Let’s go to the video!

Step 1, The Reactivation of the Memory, happens quite clearly and dramatically at 0:39 when Steve asks the demonstration subject, Laurie, to think of a bee. The clients non-verbal response says it all.

Step 2, Activating Disconfirming Knowledge, comes after Steve sets up the double-dissociation using the visual metaphor of a movie theater. The initial disconfirmation occurs at about 4:00 as Laurie is watching herself watch the movie of the bees swarming. As she is watching, due to the dissociation, she is presented with the stimulus but fails to have the phobic response, thus confounding the prediction.

Step 3, The Repetition of (B)-(C) Pairing, or Repeated Juxtapositions, occur at 4:10, 4:50 and then again at 5:10 and 6:00. The first set of juxtapositions are the same as in Step 2, watching the “movie” without having the expected emotional response. At 4:05, Laurie says, “it seems to go over and over again…” and as she does so, she is talking in a calm tone. If anything, she actually sounds curious about it, which is the opposite of fear. At 4:10, Steve suggests she speed it up as she watches it two more times for two more juxtapositions.

The last three juxtapositions are different. Steve directs Laurie to float back into the theater seat, then float up into the younger version of herself in the end of the memory, and then rewind the full color movie back to before anything happened. He asks her to rewind the movie several times. Each time providing an experience very different from the brain-predicted phobic response. Both before and after the rewind, Laurie seems pretty amused. A far cry from her response at 0:39!

And that completes the second phase of TRP, the transformation process. To be sure you don’t miss out, join my email list and get my e-course on helping clients manage stress in session.

References Ecker, B., Ticic, R., & Hulley, L. (2012). Unlocking the emotional brain: Eliminating symptoms at their roots using memory reconsolidation. New York, NY: Routledge.

How can this be? It is quite literally, the magic of memory reconsolidation. The Therapeutic Reconsolidation Process (TRP) was identified by Ecker and Hulley while they were reviewing video recordings of client sessions that were “transformational.” The final phase TRP is verification that reconsolidation has actually occurred. There are three criteria for verification.

The first is Emotional Non-Reaction. When presented with the trigger for the problematic symptom, the client does not demonstrate any of the previously expected emotional response or reactivity. That is clearly the case here. The second criterion is Symptom Cessation, meaning that over time the target symptom no longer occurs in the client’s life. Not only does it cease happening, here is a link to a twenty-five year follow up with Laurie talking about here experience and that she still is symptom free! The final criterion is Effortless Permanence. You know that memory reconsolidation has occurred if the change is automatic and does not need any additional effort from the client to maintain the improvement. Again, the follow up video says it all. Laurie never had to put any additional effort into this — her phobia has simply gone away.

In a future blog we will use this video to track the actual Transformation Sequence so you can begin to learn how to use reconsolidation in your own work. Stay tuned for more!

To be sure you don’t miss out, join my email list and get my e-course on helping clients manage stress in session.

For more information on memory reconsolidation in therapy see: Ecker, B., Ticic, R., & Hulley, L. (2012). Unlocking the emotional brain: Eliminating symptoms at their roots using memory reconsolidation. New York, NY: Routledge.

Like changing a limiting belief. Oftentimes, negative affect is like the glue that holds a limiting belief in place. And by using reconsolidation-informed techniques, that negative affect can be cleared off a memory and the limiting belief updated to something much more helpful.

By identifying and accessing the emotional memory that led the client to form the limiting belief and providing juxtaposition experiences, a clinician can assist the client in forming healthier beliefs that are more helpful.

For example, while traveling abroad in his 20’s, my 46-year-old client experienced a freak accident in which, due to no fault of his own, a local citizen died. Things got quite heated in this far away country and it looked like this individual was going to get scapegoated by the local officials. So heated, in fact, that the US government thought it best to remove the young man from the country against that other country’s wishes — and the young man’s. The belief he arrived at was this: “I always run away from trouble.” This was not the least bit true, but colored all of his experience.

Once we identified the memory and several examples from his life that ran contrary to his belief, we were ready to do some therapy! By activating the memory’s affect and then juxtaposing the contradictory memories against the limiting belief, the emotion on the memory melted away and so did his belief. And it was replaced with a more accurate belief about himself as someone who actually is quite heroic and regularly faces his fears.

Imagine how this will benefit your clients. Curious? Great. Stay tuned for more.

But now we know better. With an understanding of the therapeutic reconsolidation process clinicians can now guide clients through a clear, specific set of steps that can easily and effectively clear the negative affect off of memories and eliminate PTSD symptoms and change limiting beliefs formed earlier in life.

It turns out that the memories and learnings that we form throughout life are not frozen in place, but malleable and changeable. As an analogy, we used to think of memories as if they were videotape recordings, but it is more accurate to think of them like digital photos or videos on the hard drive of your computer that you can call up, edit, and save back to disk in helpful ways.