A neural network model for schemas based on pattern completion

A Theory of Everything: Overlapping Neurobiological Mechanisms of Psychotherapies of Fear and Anxiety Related Disorders

Similarities within the phenomenology, neurobiology, psychotherapeutic, and pharmacological treatments of distinctly categorized anxiety and fear related disorders suggest the involvement of common neurobiological mechanisms in their formation. This theory of integration is the focus of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach initiated by the NIH. The current article explores potential facets of overlap among mainstream methods of psychotherapy for anxiety, fear, and trauma related disorders. These overlaps include associative learning of safety, cognitive reappraisal and emotion regulation, therapist as a social safety cue, and contextualization. Temporal contextualization and placing memories in their time and place will be suggested as a potentially important, and less explored aspect of psychotherapy.

Emotions and cognitions: a critique of the dichotomous view of mental function

Many approaches to the psyche, models of therapy, and neuroscience tend to view emotional and cognitive brain functions as separate entities. Such a focus on one of these two aspects of mental function, at times comes at the expense of ignoring the other. In this paper emotions and cognitions, along with perceptions and other elements of the internal and external contexts, are viewed as relevant vectors in a matrix of information. Through the processes of pattern completion and noise reduction, information in each of these vectors may evoke memories in the same or other vectors that are used in the formation of a subjective understanding of each experience. The important roles of the external (physical, temporal, relevant events, etc.) and internal (emotional, affective, hormonal, medications, etc.) contexts in the formation of such subjective experiences will be discussed. The use of this view in broader and more comprehensive psychotherapeutic approaches and combined pharmacological and psychological treatment is explored.