Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories, or RTM, challenges conventional views on trauma therapy. It suggests that revisiting and modifying painful recollections can heal emotional wounds. This is due to neuroplasticity. The implications of RTM on therapy, executive coaching, and personal and spiritual growth are profound.
Close your eyes and think about your most vivid memory. Perhaps it’s that heart-pounding moment when everything fell apart. Maybe that gut-wrenching relational exchange still haunts your dreams and intrudes into your thoughts. Now imagine taking control of that memory, like a director edits a movie scene, reshaping it in a way that no longer induces fear or pain. Sounds like something straight out of science fiction, right? With Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories (RTM), it’s close to reality.
Understanding Traumatic Memories and Their Impact
Traumatic memories cause emotional distress and impact mental well-being.
When a traumatic event or relational experience occurs, the brain uniquely stores the memory. This often leads to intense emotions and vivid recollections. These memories can become intrusive, causing distressing symptoms such as flashbacks, nightmares, or avoidance behaviors.
Watch an excerpt from Disney’s The Kid with Bruce Willis as an adult and his 8-year-old self. We see how a traumatic memory caused him to believe something untrue about himself (that he caused his mother‘s death). This led to symptoms like Bruce Willis’s eye twitching and his strong drive to be successful.
Getting to the Root Cause: Core Emotional Learnings (CELs)
In their book Unlocking the Emotional Brain, Bruce Ecker, Robin Ticic, and Laurel Hulley argue that the root cause of many symptoms lies in Core Emotional Learnings (CELs). These are our most profound and foundational emotions about ourselves, others, and the world. They usually form through early relational experiences in our lives and become drivers of behaviors, feelings, and thoughts in our everyday experiences. CELs can also develop through traumatic experiences and result in symptoms associated with PTSD.
More than a memory of the raw experience, CELs become a model or framework through which we view and interpret ourselves, others, and the world. CELs are located in the unconscious, lodged in the limbic system—the emotional part of the brain. This process is called memory consolidation.
Watch this clip from the movie Inside Out that, entertainingly, shows how Core Emotional Learnings (what they call Core Memories) form.
When CELs form from traumatic events or harmful relational experiences, they can result in significant emotional distress and have lasting effects on a person’s mental well-being. They can lead to maladaptive behaviors or negative interpersonal coping styles.
An Example of the Effects of Trauma
John is a military veteran who served in a combat zone for several years. During his time in service, he experienced traumatic events that have left him with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As a result, John struggles with recurring nightmares and flashbacks, reliving the intense fear and danger he faced during combat. This makes it difficult for him to sleep at night and causes severe anxiety during the day.
His PTSD symptoms have also affected his relationships with loved ones. He frequently withdraws from social activities and experiences anger outbursts. Additionally, John’s PTSD has made it challenging for him to maintain steady employment. He constantly feels on edge, making it difficult for him to concentrate or stay focused.
The impact of PTSD on John’s life is profound, affecting his mental health, personal relationships, and overall well-being. His therapist has tried to help him learn relaxation techniques and practice mindfulness, but his symptoms persist.
Recently, John’s therapist read about the Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories, or RTM. This therapy strategy aims to re-form traumatic memories to alleviate the emotional distress they cause. She wants to learn how to facilitate this type of therapy so John and others she sees can experience transformation. She would much rather help fix the core problem than merely manage symptoms.
What is Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories?
Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories, or RTM, is a groundbreaking concept in neuroscience that psychology is finally integrating. It offers hope to those suffering from the painful effects of trauma. Unlike traditional approaches that focus on suppressing traumatic memories or managing symptoms, RTM reactivates and modifies these memories at their core.
You can think of Memory Reconsolidation as restoring an old house with serious foundation issues Instead of merely redecorating or demolishing the entire structure, RTM focuses on repairing the foundation—addressing the core traumas causing distress.
When you recall a memory and can feel its deep emotion, your brain and the original memories become moldable and subject to change. We call this memory reconsolidation. As you experience the original emotions in a safe relationship that provides a different or novel relational experience, the emotions connected to the original memory update. This essentially deletes the neural pathway. In other words, it reconsolidates the memory and changes your experience of this memory. It also changes the Core Emotional Learnings (the frameworks or blueprints that shape how we perceive and interpret information in our everyday lives and influence every aspect of our cognitive processes, from memory to decision-making).
So, new neural pathways form and replace the old memories, driving new present feelings about yourself, others, God, and the world. This is what Ecker et al. call transformational change. These new neural pathways lodge in the limbic part of your brain (and eventually move up the neo-cortex part). Maladaptive behaviors and interpersonal coping styles are no longer needed, so they change into healthier ways of relating.
How Does RTM Therapy Work?
Therapy using Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories, or RTM, targets a person’s core memory to get to the root cause of trauma and help individuals find relief and healing. Traditional therapy often focuses on managing symptoms or providing coping mechanisms, but RTM therapy takes a different approach by directly addressing traumatic memories. This unique method involves reactivating the traumatic memory and introducing new relational experiences to dismantle its negative emotional charge.
During an RTM therapy session, the therapist attunes to where the individual has the most pain. This provides safety, and the person continues to share more deeply and eventually accesses their specific traumatic memory.
The Makin Institute’s NeuroChange Pathway to Transformation utilizes Corrective Emotional Experiences in the context of safe relationships as a primary strategy for memory reconsolidation. The therapist, counselor, coach, or spiritual director leads the individual toward the heightened emotional experience through attunement — understanding and connecting with how the individual feels. The therapist avoids probing questions because they keep the individual in the logical center of the brain. This process needs to target the limbic system, where emotions live.
As it becomes safe for the individual, following the emotions will lead to the root cause of what needs changing. As they feel the intense emotion from the memory and—simultaneously—the safety and warmth of the relational experience while sharing it with the counselor, coach, or spiritual director, the traumatic memory’s stranglehold in the person’s mind disintegrates. The new experience replaces it all the way down to the synapses.
Is Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories, or RTM, Effective?
Numerous examples showcase the potential for healing and transformation through the reconsolidation of traumatic memories, or RTM. In one noteworthy instance, researchers at Walter Reed National Medical Center are comparing the effectiveness of RTM with Prolonged Exposure (PE). U.S. Army Col. (Dr.) Michael J. Roy, research team leader and his team are convinced that RTM will accelerate the resolution of PTSD characteristics.
Another study by David Tylee, et al, also looked at RTM as a positive treatment for PTSD. The results of this study were impressive. The preliminary study found that 96% of subjects treated with RTM therapy no longer met the criteria for PTSD. Furthermore, 75% of the patients who completed treatment reported that “those gains were maintained at six months post.”
Controlled studies and anecdotal evidence from clinical experience show that RTM effectively alleviates PTSD symptoms for survivors of natural disasters, combat trauma, assault, and childhood abuse or neglect. Patients who have received RTM therapies show a significant reduction of flashbacks and intrusive thoughts, as well as improved sleep, concentration, and emotional well-being.
Why Traditional Therapies for Traumatic Memories fall short
Returning to our house analogy, traditional therapies address what is seen. They conceal foundation problems with a rug or wallpaper, while the underlying cracks persist. Redecorating can temporarily distract from the problem, but symptoms will return until the foundation issues are fixed.
Traditional therapies attempt to manage or decrease symptoms incrementally using counteracting strategies (Ecker et al., 2012, 9). The psychotherapy field heavily relies on implementing counteracting strategies, which aim to thwart symptoms by fostering alternative states. These strategies use various approaches such as instructing individuals in relaxation techniques as a means to counteract anxiety, encouraging the development of positive thoughts and resources for countering depression, or utilizing oxytocin to enhance feelings of emotional connection and empathy (Ecker et al., 2012, 17).
During counteractive change (as opposed to transformative change from RTM), new knowledge forms distinct neural pathways and memories that are separate from the existing pathways associated with unwanted old knowledge. These fresh learnings compete with the old ones. If they triumph, the new pathways suppress and overwrite the old ones, resulting in desired responses instead of undesired ones. But, both old and new learnings remain stored in memory, allowing for the possibility of old responses to occur still. Continuous efforts are needed to make the new responses prevail, but this isn’t always achieved. (Ecker et al., 2012, 33).
The transformational approach is the best way to deal with trauma so that the memories become less intense as they are erased. It is built on the correct model of how the brain changes, unlike traditional therapies that operate on an outdated model of the brain.
Next Steps to Learn More about Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories, or RTM
Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories, or RTM, offers hope to people suffering the debilitating symptoms of past trauma. The quickest way to experience memory reconsolidation is to join one of our NeuroChange Process Groups, use one of our NeuroChange coaches, or get a counseling referral. These certified NeuroChange Professionals know how to facilitate memory reconsolidation, leading to trauma healing.
If you are a counselor, therapist, coach, or pastor frustrated that traditional therapies don’t provide the lasting transformation your clients seek, you can become a certified NeuroChange Professional through Immersive Training Groups or certification courses.