Psychotherapy: «flashing» the brain

People come to psychotherapy to feel better, but often don’t know exactly how it works. Some doubt that talking to a specialist can help. Many discuss their problems with friends to find practical solutions.

And although problem solving is also not uncommon in psychotherapy, most often the changes occur at a much deeper, unconscious level. This process is related to the structure of the brain, and it is not easy to reproduce it outside of a relationship with a professional in this field.

The brain is constantly evolving. Those who had painful social experiences as children learn to expect pain in the future. And then a new type of relationship is required — for example, therapeutic — in order to «retrain» the brain.

Why can’t the therapist just tell me what to do?

To understand why the therapeutic relationship is so valuable and cannot be replaced by advice from a self-help book, it is necessary to talk a little more about the development of the human brain.

Roughly speaking, it consists of three parts, representing different phases of development.

• The reptilian brain is the first to develop and is responsible for the automatic control of vital functions such as breathing.
• The limbic brain develops next and is responsible for regulating emotions and behavior.
• The youngest part of the brain, the neocortex, is responsible for higher order functions — symbolic thinking, language, logic.

When a person asks a therapist or friend to tell them what to do, they are looking for a neocortical solution—something rational and consciously realizable.

However, often people’s problems are the result of painful experiences in early relationships that have changed the limbic brain, and only a new type of relationship can affect the limbic brain in such a way that a person experiences less negative emotions and more positive ones.

When Emotional Problems Occur

Emotions are needed to help us survive in a world where we depend on other people. Over time, the limbic brain has evolved to automatically create emotions such as anger and sadness that help us navigate society.

When someone does something bad to us, we are evolutionarily programmed to get angry in order to try to change that person’s behavior. When we are rejected, we feel sad, experiencing the loss of what we wanted from another, and move on.

However, in childhood, when our survival is especially dependent on others, their reactions (in particular, parental ones) to our emotions either help us to adapt normally in society in the future, or develop painful reactions.

For example, if a child is angry at being treated unfairly and is punished for it, over time he will unconsciously associate the expression of anger with pain. And when something unfair happens, instead of anger, such a person will feel anxiety because of his anger, because he has learned from his environment that anger brings pain, and does not help protect himself.

The limbic system tries to prevent even more emotional pain from punishment, but the person pays for this with constant anxiety. This becomes especially problematic when people enter new relationships (friendships, romantic relationships) in which open expression of anger is possible, but the early experience causes the person to hold back anger and experience anxiety.

How psychotherapy rewires the brain

Psychotherapeutic relationships give a person the opportunity to retrain the limbic system — to break the connection between the expectation of a negative reaction and the expression of certain emotions, to reduce anxiety and the unconscious suppression of emotions programmed by early experience.

The therapeutic relationship works this way in part because it recreates the type of relationship in which a person was first forced to repress their emotions, one in which the satisfaction of one person’s needs depends on another.

The psychotherapist, like the parent, faces the difficult task of meeting the needs of another person. This task is made more difficult by the fact that many people come to therapy expecting a rational solution to their problem, when such a solution often does not exist.

Therapy provides a unique opportunity to gain new experience through the way the therapist responds to the feelings that arise in the course of therapy — disappointment, anger, sadness.

Instead of punishing the person for these emotions, as they were punished in childhood, the therapist normalizes them and invites them to be explored. This helps teach the limbic system to stop associating the expression of these emotions with punishment. When this happens on an unconscious level, it becomes easier for a person to endure and express experiences.

Well-being in adulthood

A change in attitude towards one’s emotions leads to a decrease in anxiety, as a person ceases to suppress his natural emotional impulses.

But therapy does more than just relieve symptoms. The natural ability to constructively use one’s emotions for their original purpose is restored — for orientation in society.

It’s hard to be happy if you can’t tell your partner that they hurt you or that you need something. Communication with him may be very different from your early relationship, but due to past experiences, you may still feel that expressing feelings and voicing needs is not safe.

Successful therapy helps restore emotional flexibility and expand the range of responses in contact with other people. Studies show that those who have undergone therapy have less activity in the areas of the brain responsible for the appearance of negative emotions.

It turns out that the conversation can still help if you are talking with a professional psychotherapist who is capable of compassion.