Talking therapies on their own can exacerbate bad memories. Trauma and depression can deepen using traditional methods.

You can’t change the past but you can change its meaning in the present. I say this to my clients all the time. Awareness in itself is not enough to change the past for most people. I see many clients who have seen other more traditional therapists and have all the insight they need and yet still have the problem!

Why is this?

Our memories form an intrinsic part of our self-identity; that elusive entity that helps to give us a feeling of coherence as we navigate through time. But how reliable is this sense of our past? Is who we think we are based on a system of memory that is more fluid and unstable than we are comfortable admitting?

It has long been established that memories are easily manipulated. Multiple witnesses to a crime come up with widely disparate descriptions; embellishments can readily be made in response to leading questions or the desire to please – yet each witness will believe in the truth of their recall, and unaware of how their memory has been influenced.

Despite this knowledge it has been a presumption that the memory itself – whether accurate or not – is permanent, burned into the synapses of the brain. New research is suggesting that this is not so. Essentially it is suggesting that long-term memory is a myth, which could open exciting new possibilities within Hypnotherapy. It appears that recalling a memory renders it fluid and unstable – able to be changed before being re-fixed into the circuitry of the brain – and that change could include changing its meaning or even deleting it completely. This is something that is implicit in my practice.

Changing the meaning the client has of a past experience, or changing the way the client perceives that memory, will alter the way the client responds to stimuli in their life which are connected to that event . I had a client recently who had had a traumatic experience in her life and couldn’t even bear to think about it without sobbing. In one session, we were able to drain the emotion out of the experience so she could talk about it without any distress.

 Hypnosis involves the disruption of the way the client perceives a memory in order to change the way they feel about it.

Perhaps we need to change our view of the function of memory from it being a static database of facts that keeps getting added to as we age – like a photograph album – to a living network of understanding – a self – that is able to adjust its sense of itself in the light of new learning. By looking at the mind in this way in this way it would become a benefit to be able to upgrade old memories to fit new views of the world.

How should we use this information?

In brief, then, when memories are recalled they become vulnerable to change.

Therapists who investigate the memories of their clients should be aware that every time a memory is recalled it becomes unstable and capable of change. That change can be in one of several forms:
• The memory could be strengthened in its meaning – it becomes more of what it was.
• It can be weakened – it has less effect on the belief network it’s connected to.
• It can be transformed by having the meaning of it reframed – and by doing so transform the belief that derives from it
• It could be deleted altogether.

The first possibility could be why all the recent studies of counselling styles that rely on just going over past events, and talking about the feelings relating to them, tend to deepen the client’s experience of the problem. The logical conclusion to be drawn from this is that the purpose of talking about any aspect of a client’s past experience is to change either its meaning or its coding so that it creates a positive change in the belief system responsible for the client’s problem.

If our past is a story we tell ourselves that we create to confirm our beliefs, then therapy becomes a medium by which you can create whatever myth of the past forms the basis for their most productive future.

What’s your story and is it working for you in your life?

 

With thanks to Trevor Silvester who wrote the original article