Handout of Slides

The Key to Therapeutic Breakthroughs: Unlocking the Emotional Brain Bruce Ecker, MA, LMFT & Sara K. Bridges, PhD

Two Kinds of Change

Counteractive, Transformational, incremental liberating, profound change change

 Partial symptom  Total elimination reduction of symptom  Effort to maintain  Effortless to maintain

 Relapses occur  Permanent, no relapses

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Memory Reconsolidation The Brain’s Built-In Process of Transformational Change

• Identified independently by clinicians and neuroscientists

• Brain’s process for erasing an existing piece of emotional learning

• Sheds light on diverse theories of therapy

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Overview of Workshop

MORNING • Main concepts • Steps of core process • Session video • Specific techniques AFTERNOON • Live session • Practice sessions

(small groups) COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

Psychotherapy Networker Symposium www.CoherenceInstitute.org March 23, 2013 © 2013 Coherence Psychology Institute, LLC The Key to Therapeutic Breakthroughs: Unlocking the Emotional Brain Bruce Ecker, MA, LMFT & Sara K. Bridges, PhD

Learning Objectives

• Discuss three techniques for ushering clients into direct, lucid experience of the implicit emotional learnings generating a majority of clinical symptoms.

• List the steps of therapeutic process that can dissolve an existing, symptom-generating emotional schema.

• Define the special type of experience that fulfills the brain’s requirements for memory reconsolidation. 

See handout slides marked: Learning COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY  ObjectiveINSTITUTE

Convergence of clinical observations and memory research

1995 2004 2012 Memory reconsolidation

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Emotional Learnings

♦ Anything learned in the presence of strong emotion

♦ Nonverbal, implicit knowing  verbal, explicit knowing

• If I show any vulnerability I'll be attacked. • The only way to get any attention is to do something really bad. • If I try for what I really want, the world will crush it, so I better not try for or even feel

what I really want. COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

SCHEMA SYMPTOMS GENERATED • If I show any vulnerability • No vulnerable emotion, I'll be attacked. lacks intimacy, loneliness

• The only way to get any • Provocative, aggressive or attention is to do something emotionally volatile really bad. behaviors • If I try for what I really want, • Passivity, underachieving, the world will crush it, so I emotional disconnection better not try for or even feel

what I really want. COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

Memory Reconsolidation

• Overturned the model of one-time consolidation and indelibility of emotional learning that was based on a century of extinction research

• 1997–2000: Conclusive detection

• Synapses unlock (de-consolidation) for about 5 hours before they re-lock (re-consolidation)

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Markers of Schema Erasure • Non-reactivation. A specific emotional meaning and bodily emotional activation is no longer triggered by cues.

• Symptom cessation. Behaviors, emotions, thoughts and somatics driven by that emotional activation disappear.

• Effortless permanence. Non-recurrence of symptoms and emotional activation continues without counteractive or preventative measures of any kind.

Therapy follows same process & yields same COHERENCE markers as in reconsolidation research PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

Memory Reconsolidation as a Framework for Psychotherapy Integration

Same core process is evident in AEDP, Coherence Therapy, EFT, EMDR, IPNB

…and maybe all other therapies of transformational change?

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Core Process for Schema Erasure

1. Reactivate the target emotional schema.

Guide a contradictory experience. This unlocks (de- 2. consolidates) the target schema’s memory circuits.

Repeat contradictory experience in juxtaposition with 3. target schema. This re-writes and erases target schema.

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Preparation for Core Process

Symptom identification. What / when: specific A. behaviors, emotions, thoughts, somatizations. B. Retrieve underlying emotional schema. B. Implicit  Explicit

C. Find contradictory experience.

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Therapeutic Reconsolidation Process

A. Symptom identification B. Schema retrieval C. Find contradictory experience

1. Reactivate target schema 2. Evoke contradictory experience in juxtaposition 3. Repetitions of step 2  V. Verification of erasure Learning COHERENCE  ObjectivePSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

Juxtaposition Experience Example

Symptom: Compulsive changing of jobs for 35 years

Target learning: Contradictory experience: Staying in one job These teachers stay in makes anyone utterly one job and love their miserable and dead, work and feel so alive just like Dad. in it.

 Learning COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY Objective  INSTITUTE

Many Therapies Congenial to TRP

Such as… AEDP Coherence Therapy EFT EMDR Focusing Gestalt Therapy Hakomi IFS IPNB NLP SE COHERENCE TIR PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

Coherence Therapy Methodology Explicitly guides the steps of the Therapeutic Reconsolidation Process

1. Retrieval into awareness of non-conscious emotional learning/schema generating the symptom (TRP steps A-B)

2. Transformation (disconfirmation & dissolution) of that learning/schema via juxtaposition experiences (TRP steps C-1-2-3-V) COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

Symptoms Dispelled by Coherence Therapy Aggressive behavior Food / eating / weight problems Agoraphobia Grief and bereavement problems Alcohol abuse Guilt Anger and rage Hallucinations Anxiety Inaction/indecision Attachment-pattern-based Low self-worth, self-devaluing behaviors & distress behaviors & distress Panic attacks Attention deficit problems Attention deficit problems Perfectionism Codependency Codependency Post-traumatic symptoms Complex trauma symptomology Procrastination / Inaction Compulsive behaviors Compulsive behaviors Psychogenic / psychosomatic pain Couples’ problems of conflict / communication / closeness Sexual problems Depression Shame Underachieving Family and child problems COHERENCE Voice / speaking problems PSYCHOLOGY Fidgeting INSTITUTE

www.CoherenceTherapy.org

• Free articles, case examples • Online short courses • Practice manual • Books • DVDs of sessions by Bruce Ecker, LMFT • Long-distance training & certification pgm

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Symptom Coherence Coherence Therapy’s model of symptom production / symptom cessation

 Symptom happens because it is emotionally necessary for avoiding suffering, according to at least one implicit learning or schema.

 Symptom stops happening as soon as the underlying learning or schema that makes the symptom necessary, no longer exists.

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Case Example: Compulsive Underachieving

VIDEO

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Case Example: Compulsive Underachieving

VIDEO

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Case Example: Compulsive Underachieving Her retrieved, symptom-necessitating schema: Mom goes into rage if I do something unfamiliar to her, and that rage terrifies me— there’s nothing worse than her rage— so I better not do anything unfamiliar, I better not apply to be a talk show host, so I won’t get that rage! The emotional truth of the symptom

Equivalent Phrases for the retrieved emotional learning

 The emotional truth of the symptom

 Symptom-requiring schema or “part”

 Pro-symptom position

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In Coherence Therapy, retrieval means…

Discovery experiences + Integration experiences of symptom-necessitating schema

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VIDEO

“I’m still your daughter, and that’s what’s most— ahm—well, see, it’s not most important to me.”

“Mom, it’s not most important to me to be your COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY daughter. It’s most important to me to be myself.” INSTITUTE

Case Example: Compulsive Underachieving Juxtaposition Experience

Staying familiar is Being myself is most important most important. because Mom’s rage Mom getting upset at me is unbearable. with me is workable.

• Both feel real • Both cannot possibly be true COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY  Learning Objective  INSTITUTE

Case Example: Compulsive Underachieving Verification of schema dissolution

VIDEO

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Coherence Therapy Methodology

• Symptom identification A

• Retrieval of schema that is symptom’s emotional necessity B

• Find contradictory knowledge C

• Transformation: Guide juxtaposition experience 1-2-3

• Verify dissolution of schema V COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

Case Example: Compulsive Underachieving Juxtaposition Experience

Staying familiar is Being myself is most important most important. because Mom’s rage Mom getting upset at me is unbearable. with me is workable.

Empathy for both sides equally

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Why Juxtaposition Is Non-Counteracting

 No attempt to build up desired condition or suppress the unwanted condition

 Therapist favors neither knowing, empathizes with both

 Client is guided to stay fully in touch with symptom-requiring schema

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Discovery Process in Coherence Therapy

• Goal: Symptom-requiring schema comes into client’s direct experience

• Starting point: Identify symptom in concrete specifics

• Work in scene of symptom’s occurrence

• Therapist’s compass: Listen for / head for how symptom is emotionally necessary

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Discovery Process in Coherence Therapy

• No counteracting— no attempts to get symptom to stop or get symptom-requiring schema to lose power

• No attempts to dispel distress

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Discovery Techniques in Coherence Therapy 

Learning • Symptom deprivation  Objective • Sentence completion • Overt statement • Imaginal interaction • First time Exceptions • COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

 DISCOVERY TECHNIQUES Learning  ObjectiveSymptom Deprivation

SYMPTOM: PROCRASTINATION

• “Imagine actually starting to do the task…”

• Client encounters some form of task distress previously avoided unconsciously

• Full unpacking of the task distress then reveals the original suffering and emotional COHERENCE learning making procrastination necessary PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE

 DISCOVERY TECHNIQUES Learning  Objective Overt Statement

SYMPTOM: PROCRASTINATION

• Declarative sentence expressing emerging emotional truth in gutsy phrasing

• “If I’m successful, Dad will tear me down, so I better not actually write my thesis.”

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 DISCOVERY TECHNIQUES Learning  ObjectiveSentence Completion

SYMPTOM: PROCRASTINATION

• Invite client to “try out saying this first half of a sentence, and just let it complete itself.”

• “The problem is, if I actually write my thesis and successfully complete my program—”

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