What is Memory Reconsolidation?

Memory reconsolidation theory may be the most important breakthrough for psychotherapy since Freud. What it makes clear is that people no longer need to be prisoners of their past nor their trauma. Prior to our understanding of memory through reconsolidation, it was thought that emotional learnings and memories could never be changed and individuals diagnosed with PTSD would forever have to be satisfied with band-aids and coping skills.

But now we know better. With an understanding of the therapeutic reconsolidation process clinicians can now guide clients through a clear, specific set of steps that can easily and effectively clear the negative affect off of memories and eliminate PTSD symptoms and change limiting beliefs formed earlier in life.

It turns out that the memories and learnings that we form throughout life are not frozen in place, but malleable and changeable. As an analogy, we used to think of memories as if they were videotape recordings, but it is more accurate to think of them like digital photos or videos on the hard drive of your computer that you can call up, edit, and save back to disk in helpful ways.