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Therapy matters because therapy changes the brain!
Advanced brain-scanning technology shows that psychotherapy literally changes the structure and operation of the brain, particularly at the neuronal and synaptic level. It changes us from the inside out.
What does this mean to you and me?
“Changing from the inside out” means modifying or overriding the unconscious programming that underlies your habitual responses to the stresses and challenges of life. These patterns, imprinted in the right brain during infancy, are in effect internal working models that unconsciously guide all our interpersonal behavior.
These behavioral patterns are crucially important because they basically determine your quality of life:
Changing your habitual feelings and behavior through brain-based psychotherapy is clearly the opposite of changing “from the outside in”.
You’ll respond to life differently because you are different:
Now, we’re all familiar with “outside in” action-oriented
self-talk:
“On Monday I’m going to start a fitness program.”
“I never leave enough time for myself. Starting tomorrow, I’m going to make time.”
“I’m going to tell my wife how much I care about her every day.”
Yes, we’ve all been there. In spite of intense effort and the best of
intentions, we inevitably run into frustration and disappointment. And even if
we’re initially successful, we just can’t seem to make the changes stick.
But what if there were a better way? What if new behaviors could be cultivated spontaneously and naturally, from the “inside out”?
It’s not about positive thinking, or being your own best friend, or
using “I” statements instead of “you” statements. It’s not about
counting to ten when you’re ticked off.
There are two general approaches to psychotherapeutic change. One is changing from the “outside in”, the other from the “inside out”.
During the “Decade of the Brain” (i.e. the 1990’s) there was a proliferation of research across a multitude of disciplines as diverse as child development, psychology, and neuroscience. This led to a significant advance in our knowledge of how the brain works. The “inside out” approach outlined in MyShrink synthesizes much of this research.
This brain-based “inside out” approach is based on the discovery that behavioural and emotional change occurs as a result of modifying patterns of neural firing and in turn creating an internal shift to a new physical state of being.
The brain is restored to a healthier, more natural way of functioning,
unhindered by chronic fears and compulsions, unburdened by anxieties.
It’s not about the “doing”; it’s about the “be-ing”.
We are, after all, human beings!
In therapy the notions “outside in” versus “inside out” is based on the two different ways that the brain learns: explicitly and implicitly.
Explicit learning is the kind we’re all familiar with. Simply put, it’s learning that is acquired externally, using thought or language. For example it’s what we learn by reading a book or from hearing a lecture. This kind of learning can be explicitly recalled from memory.
Implicit learning on the other hand is acquired by experience. It’s not stored in the brain using words and cannot be recalled verbally. For example, you learn a new dance step by actually doing it, not by reading a book about it. But you can’t verbalize how you know the steps – your body just implicitly knows how to move.
Let’s take a brief example from psychotherapy.
You might recognize this person. John doesn’t like the guy he works with.
He’s had a few verbal conflicts with him. When he talks about this co-worker
with his therapist he feels tense and anxious.
His therapist suggests some communication strategies for handling
disagreements. She helps him to understand, based on her knowledge of his personal history, why he prefers to avoid uncomfortable emotions.
These are explicit or cognitive strategies. They enlist the thinking left brain in an attempt to soothe the nervous system, to lower the intensity of activation.
As a result of his work in therapy John comes to understand his propensity to avoid conflict. As well, he recognizes that avoiding potential diagreements is an ordinary human tendency. Understanding this makes him feel better.
Yet during his next confrontation with the co-worker, the knot in his stomach
is still there even though the left, explicit-memory-based brain now knows why he is anxious and how his history got him there. He even knows some strategies he can use to resolve conflict but this doesn’t help either.
You see, the knot in John’s stomach is the result of implicit behavioral procedures that are imprinted in his right brain, where our knowledge of interpersonal relationships is located. These procedures amount to a working model in John’s mind of how the social world operates, and where he ranks in that world. That model, which was imprinted during the first few years of his upbringing, unconsciously guides him in all his interactions with others.
So, despite understanding his behavior and learning some steps on “conflict management”, John still feels anxious and uncomfortable when the disagreements reoccur. He can’t just tell himself not to feel this way; even when the left brain understands what’s going on psychologically, the right brain is still calling the shots.
In order to get relief from these anxieties John needs to change the right brain’s implicit “instructions” on how he relates to others. This is what “changing from the inside out” means.
Briefly stated, changing your unconscious implicit memory changes how you habitually experience yourself in relation to others. It can also deeply influence how you experience and regulate your emotions with respect to “being with others”.
The primary goal of The Therapy Connection is to show you how Brain-Wise Therapy can be used to make the lasting personal changes you want…by changing from the “inside out”.
In this program, I want show you how brain-wise therapy really works, and how you can make it work for you. But to do that, you need to understand why changing those implicit right brain learning patterns is the key to effective therapy.
Notes
Brain-based therapy is characterized by client-therapist interactions that are right-brain based. They include what are known as mind-body psychotherapy, body psychotherapy and mindfulness psychotherapies.
At MyShrink I also highlight the moment-to-moment interactions between client and therapist, since research suggests that this is when the brain is most open for change.
Through interactive, right brain experiences with a therapist attuned to your moment-to-moment internal states, you can: restore your capacity for emotional self-regulation, enjoy greater freedom and flexibility in your relationships, and develop a coherent, resilient and unified sense of self.
More Notes
Dr. Eric Kandel won the Nobel Prize in Neuroscience for the Year 2000.
“There is no longer any doubt that psychotherapy can result in detectable changes in the brain”.
From: Etkin A., Pittenger C., Polan H.J., & Kandel E.R., “Toward a neurobiology of psychotherapy: basic science and clinical applications.” Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 17: 145-158, May 2005. American Psychiatric Press.
Access above article here: Toward a Neurobiology of Psychotherapy
“…insofar as psychotherapy is successful in bringing about substantive changes in behavior, it does so by producing alterations in gene expression that produce new structural changes in the brain.”
From: Kandel E.R. “A new intellectual framework for psychiatry.” American Journal of Psychiatry, 155:4, April 1998.
Access the above article here: A New Intellectual Framework for Psychiatry
Jim Rosack of Psychiatric News interviewed Dr. Kandel for the May 4, 2001 issue (Volume 36 Number 9 p.16). In response to the controversy of his article in 1998:
So, does Kandel think that the analyst’s couch is obsolete?
“No, absolutely not,” he said. “Therapy has the potential, just as
learning and memory do, to alter the brain’s functions at the gene
level. And I think that the methods of evaluating the outcomes, such as
new imaging techniques, will provide indications of just that.”
Access the above article here: Nobel Prize Winner to Speak at Annual Meeting
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Hi, Suzanne,
Fantastic section. Here’s what I’m struggling with – We need to link old neural networks, that were established in our early development, with new feeling experiences that we have with our therapist. We then practice these new patterns in the ‘real world.’ Then we’ll have a new pattern in our neural network.
How many links does it take to perceive an actual change in the brain? In infancy through early childhood we developed a flood of these networks – incalculable. Even if we just extract the patterns that caused distress or activation, we’d still have an overwhelming number. How do we make progress on changing the brain in weekly sessions with a therapist? I have been in therapy doing this type of emotional work, yet I’m unclear about how much ‘practice’ it takes to really set a new pattern. I am healing and changing but I would like to understand the science of this process. Help!
Alyce