I have been teaching grad students at the USC School of Social Work and truth be told- I am learning as much as the students to whom I am lecturing. We cover a lot of area is in this class and even though I have a lot of preparation to do, I am having a great time with it. One of the subject areas I have been learning about and teaching is the neuroscience of psychotherapy. It is a fascinating subject.
We basically have 3 brains- the lower or reptilian brain which is responsible for many of our autonomic responses such as heartbeat and respiration, the limbic brain which is called the home of the emotions (a part of the limbic system, the hippocampus, is associated with long-term memory) and the neocortex, which is used for higher level thinking. Also, we have the left hemisphere and right hemisphere of the brain. The left hemisphere processes information from part to whole. It takes pieces, lines them up, and arranges them in a logical order; then it draws conclusions. The right hemisphere processes from whole to parts, holistically. It starts with the answer. It sees the big picture first, not the details. The brain is far more complicated than this because different parts of each of the brains are responsible for different functions.
We are born with one hundred billions neurons and they form connections with each other to form a seemingly infinite number of possible connections. Some neurons fire with each other; some don’t. If there is some trauma that a person experiences, it disrupts the connections. People that have defense mechanisms such as denial or repression have some disrupted connections in their neural network as a coping mechanism. A simplified example is that with trauma, some of the connections from the cortex to the hippocampus (which as I mentioned is responsible for long-term memory) can stop firing which may lead to repression of the memories of the painful event. The neural connections actually work with each other in a way to protect you from trauma and pain!
Now, here is the great news! You have the capacity to increase and enhance your neural connections; ultimately changing your brain. Successful therapy does exactly this. Good parenting does this. When you’re in relationship with someone who is emotionally attuned to you, you have the optimal environment for increased neural connections. If you leave your comfort zone and experiment with new healthy behaviors, you can change your brain. (For example, the person who is sexually inhibited who allows herself to “pretend to be more sexual” could actually establish more neural connections and incorporate her sexuality into her self concept). Thus what seemed fake can begin to feel real and genuine.
I was excited to discover that new research is substantiating that change does happen and that successful therapy can actually have physiological effects. New brain testing has opened the door to demonstrate the correlation between psychological and brain changes. When a client in therapy suddenly remembers a previously repressed memory that leads to increased psychological health, we now understand that the safe relationship between therapist and client allowed new neural connections (such as between the cortex and the hippocampus) to develop.
So there you have it- you are dynamic, ever-changing and with the right environment, have the ability to increase your psychological wellbeing. There is truly a close relationship between nature and nurture. The brain, one of the major organs of the human body is a physical structure, but is truly shaped by early relationships. Through one’s lifespan, a person can overcome at least some of his early conditioning because of this wonderful plasticity of the brain.
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