The neuroscience of coherence
therapy
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Below are titles and
abstracts of a series of three articles accepted for publication in the
Journal of Constructivist Psychology in 2007. Click each title for a
full-text .pdf file of the article.
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Article 1
OF NEURONS AND
KNOWINGS:
CONSTRUCTIVISM,
COHERENCE PSYCHOLOGY
AND
THEIR
NEURODYNAMIC SUBSTRATES
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Brian
Toomey and Bruce Ecker
This
first of three articles creates a framework for bringing the
phenomenology of psychotherapy into fruitful coordination with
neuroscientific knowledge. We suggest that constructivism is a
conceptual paradigm adequate to this task. An examination of the main
features of psychological constructivism and of neural constructivism
serves to demonstrate their strong convergence. Attention then turns to
a particular implementation of psychological constructivism, the
relatively recently developed psychotherapeutic system known as
coherence therapy or coherence psychology. We provide an account of the
extensive neuroscientific evidence supporting this system’s model of
clinical symptoms as being produced by coherent, unconscious knowledge
structures held in implicit, subcortical memory. Suggestions for
research that could test our analysis are the focus of our conclusion.
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Article 2
DEPOTENTIATION OF
SYMPTOM-PRODUCING
IMPLICIT
MEMORY IN COHERENCE THERAPY
Bruce
Ecker and Brian Toomey
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In this second of
three articles we suggest criteria defining the optimal use of
neuroplasticity (synaptic change) in psychotherapy and provide a
detailed examination of the use of neuroplasticity in coherence
therapy. We delineate a model of how coherence therapy engages native
mental processes that (a) efficiently reveal specific,
symptom-generating,
unconscious personal constructs in implicit emotional memory, and then
(b)
selectively depotentiate these constructs, ending symptom production.
Both the psychological and the neural operation of this methodology are
described, particularly how it defines and follows the built-in rules
of change of the brain-mind-body system. On neuroscientific grounds we
suggest a fundamental distinction between transformative change, which
permanently eliminates symptom-generating constructs and neural
circuits, and counteractive change, which creates new constructs and
circuits that compete against the symptom-generating ones and is
inherently susceptible to relapse. We propose that coherence therapy
achieves transformative change through the reconsolidation of memory, a
recently discovered form of neuroplasticity, and present evidence
consistent with this hypothesis. Subjective attention emerges as a
critical agent of change in both the phenomenological and neural
viewpoints, profoundly connecting these two domains.
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Article 3
COMPETING VISIONS OF
THE IMPLICATIONS
OF
NEUROSCIENCE FOR PSYCHOTHERAPY
Brian
Toomey and Bruce Ecker
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In this third and
final article of a series on the confluence of neurobiology and
psychotherapy, we consider three current, influential interpretations
of the implications of neuroscience for psychotherapy: pharmacological
treatment, reparative attachment therapy, and the cognitive regulation
of emotion and behavior. We critically examine these clinical
strategies, reviewing efficacy data, neuroscientific research, and the
model of symptom production by coherent implicit memory as articulated
in coherence psychology. We argue that according to current knowledge,
(a) each of the three clinical interpretations of neuroscience
implements only part of the brain’s known capabilities for change, (b)
those capabilities are more fully utilized and can yield greater
clinical effectiveness for the majority of psychotherapy clients
through a therapeutic strategy of selective depotentiation of implicit
memory, as epitomized by coherence therapy, and (c) counteracting an
implicit memory, whether cognitively or psychopharmacologically, is
only moderately effective, is inherently susceptible to relapse, and
entails a range of undesirable collateral effects.
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Copyright
© 2006 Bruce
Ecker
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