From Reconstruction to Construction: The Power of Corrective Emotional Experiences in Memory Reconsolidation and Enduring Change

A paradigm shift in the treatment of emotional memory disorders: Lessons from basic science

Experiments demonstrating post-reactivation amnesia for learned fear in animals have generated a novel and influential hypothesis on the plasticity of memory, usually referred to as memory reconsolidation. The clinical potential of pharmacologically disrupting the process of memory reconsolidation has sparked a wave of interest into whether this phenomenon can also be demonstrated in humans, and ultimately harnessed for therapeutic purposes. In this essay we outline how the work of Karim Nader and colleagues has moved the field forward from a focus on extinction learning to the prospect of disrupting memory reconsolidation. We then review some promising findings on the necessary conditions, as well as potential boundary conditions, of pharmacologically disrupting the process of memory reconsolidation obtained in our laboratory. Even though laboratory experiments in animals and humans suggest that we may be at the brink of a breakthrough in fundamentally changing emotional memories, the necessary and sufficient conditions for targeting and disrupting memory reconsolidation in clinical practice are largely unknown. There is likely no universally effective reactivation procedure for triggering the reconsolidation of clinically significant emotional memories, and the impact of subtle boundary conditions observed in basic experiments compounds this issue. Notwithstanding these challenges, the discovery of changing emotional memory through disrupting the process of memory reconsolidation has unquestionably invigorated the field.

A Review of AI Cloud and Edge Sensors, Methods, and Applications for the Recognition of Emotional, Affective and Physiological States

Affective, emotional, and physiological states (AFFECT) detection and recognition by capturing human signals is a fast-growing area, which has been applied across numerous domains. The research aim is to review publications on how techniques that use brain and biometric sensors can be used for AFFECT recognition, consolidate the findings, provide a rationale for the current methods, compare the effectiveness of existing methods, and quantify how likely they are to address the issues/challenges in the field. In efforts to achieve the key goals of Society 5.0, Industry 5.0, and human-centered design better, the recognition of emotional, affective, and physiological states is progressively becoming an important matter and offers tremendous growth of knowledge and progress in these and other related fields. In this research, a review of AFFECT recognition brain and biometric sensors, methods, and applications was performed, based on Plutchik's wheel of emotions. Due to the immense variety of existing sensors and sensing systems, this study aimed to provide an analysis of the available sensors that can be used to define human AFFECT, and to classify them based on the type of sensing area and their efficiency in real implementations. Based on statistical and multiple criteria analysis across 169 nations, our outcomes introduce a connection between a nation's success, its number of Web of Science articles published, and its frequency of citation on AFFECT recognition. The principal conclusions present how this research contributes to the big picture in the field under analysis and explore forthcoming study trends.

The Power of Stories

Stories hold an important role in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. Their power derives in part from the fact that humans are biologically programmed for storytelling. Stories foster connection with others, socialization, and identity formation. They are integral to all psychoanalytic theories of therapeutic action, and their telling is therapeutic in itself. Psychoanalytic theoretical paradigms can be considered stories, as well. A positive outcome of analytic treatment has the individual emerging with an open-ended story that encompasses past, present, and future. Finally, an autobiographical example demonstrates how shared stories consolidate group identities, uphold and perpetuate a group's power over others, and perpetuate racial and ethnic stereotypes.

The Embodied-Enactive-Interactive Brain: Bridging Neuroscience and Creative Arts Therapies

The recognition and incorporation of evidence-based neuroscientific concepts into creative arts therapeutic knowledge and practice seem valuable and advantageous for the purpose of integration and professional development. Moreover, exhilarating insights from the field of neuroscience coincide with the nature, conceptualization, goals, and methods of Creative Arts Therapies (CATs), enabling comprehensive understandings of the clinical landscape, from a translational perspective. This paper contextualizes and discusses dynamic brain functions that have been suggested to lie at the heart of intra- and inter-personal processes. Touching upon fundamental aspects of the self and self-other interaction, the state-of-the-art neuroscientific-informed views will shed light on mechanisms of the embodied, predictive and relational brain. The conceptual analysis introduces and interweaves the following contemporary perspectives of brain function: firstly, the grounding of mental activity in the lived, bodily experience will be delineated; secondly, the enactive account of internal models, or generative predictive representations, shaped by experience, will be defined and extensively deliberated; and thirdly, the interpersonal simulation and synchronization mechanisms that support empathy and mentalization will be thoroughly considered. Throughout the paper, the cross-talks between the brain and the body, within the brain through functionally connected neural networks and in the context of agent-environment dynamics, will be addressed. These communicative patterns will be elaborated on to unfold psychophysiological linkage, as well as psychopathological shifts, concluding with the neuroplastic change associated with the formulation of CATs. The manuscript suggests an integrative view of the brain-body-mind in contexts relevant to the therapeutic potential of the expressive creative arts and the main avenues by which neuroscience may ground, enlighten and enrich the clinical psychotherapeutic practice.

The "Something More" Than Working Alliance: Authentic Relational Moments

The importance of relational processes during psychotherapy and psychoanalysis has long been emphasized. Theoretical and empirical investigations have focused mostly on episodes in which the therapeutic relationship is taken over by transference, leads to enactments, or suffers ruptures, and much less on understanding the role of positive relational episodes in the change process during psychotherapy. Episodes of the latter type, conceptualized as Authentic Relational Moments (ARMs), are core experiences in the patient's implicit relational learning in psychotherapy. ARMs are episodes in which the connection between patient and therapist is especially strong, deep, and genuine; their three main aspects are authenticity, understanding, and witnessing.

Digging Deeper: An Object Relations Couple Therapy Update

Over the past two decades, neurobiology research has added clarity to the process of emotional and behavioral change. In turn, this has led to endorsement of interventions that appear to be most helpful in individual and couple therapy. In addition to research on emotional dysregulation, contemporary studies have focused on the construction of meaning and its relevance to interpersonal relationships. According to Lisa Barrett, Richard Lane, and others, the brain references concepts to rapidly arrive at the most probable conclusions. Encoded experience and memory fragments guide this process and are vital in understanding partners' emotional responses. These findings support an object relations perspective that emphasizes the importance of past relational experiences that inform the present. This is particularly relevant in work with couples, as each individual's beliefs, expectations, and capacity for intimacy are invariably tied to earlier relationships. Research findings on memory reconstruction provide a basis for interventions that can add to the existing treatment approach, as it is suggested that working in a specific way with emotionally based memories has the potential to modify and reduce their predictive power and ability to unleash beliefs and behaviors that work against intimacy. The therapist who is informed by emerging neuroscience research can better uncover and actively work with memories that may be compromising a couple's relationship.