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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 COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE 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 COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE 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 COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE 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 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 Emotional Learnings 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) COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE 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 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 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? COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE 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. COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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. COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE Case Example: Compulsive Underachieving VIDEO COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE Case Example: Compulsive Underachieving VIDEO 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 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 COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY INSTITUTE In Coherence Therapy, retrieval means… Discovery experiences + Integration experiences of symptom-necessitating schema 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 Case Example: Compulsive Underachieving 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
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