This chapter examines how the effectiveness and unification of psychotherapy are advanced by neuroscientists’ findings on memory reconsolidation, the brain’s innate mechanism for profound unlearning. Research relevant to psychotherapy is reviewed and mapped unambiguously into a clinical methodology of transformational change, the therapeutic reconsolidation process (TRP), applicable to all symptoms arising from memory contents. The TRP is defined as a set of experiences required by the brain, allowing implementation by any suitable experiential techniques, without dictating particular forms of therapy. Detection of TRP fulfillment in published case studies from diverse therapy systems suggests that the TRP provides psychotherapy unification and, functioning as both a specific and a common factor, may be responsible for transformational change occurring in any therapy sessions, which would confirm and advance the “corrective experience” paradigm. A coherence therapy case example serves to demonstrate TRP implementation, and research priorities are suggested.
Experiential techniques and therapeutic relationship in schema therapy
