Unlocking the Emotional Brain: Eliminating Symptoms at Their Roots Using Memory Reconsolidation

by Bruce Ecker

Juxtaposition experiences in Coherence Therapy differ fundamentally from the techniques of cognitive restructuring (a major component of cognitive-behavioral therapy; see, e.g., Frojan-Parga, Calero-Elvira, & Montano-Fidalgo, 2009) and cognitive defusion (used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or ACT; see, e.g., Deacon, Fawzy, Lickel, & Wolitzky-Taylor, 2011). In both cognitive restructuring and cognitive defusion, the therapist typically describes the client’s symptom-producing beliefs as “irrational,” “maladaptive,” or “pathogenic” and communicates to the client the counteractive intention to oppose and undermine either the content of the beliefs (cognitive restructuring) or their function (cognitive defusion). In contrast and as emphasized above, juxtaposition experiences are guided with no counteractive, invalidating notes whatsoever because such notes foreclose the emotional and neural processes necessary for bringing about transformational change (actual dissolution of symptom-generating constructs, not mere suppression of them). Cognitive restructuring, like cognitive reappraisal techniques, also tends to be carried out through a challenge of existing beliefs in a largely cognitive manner, in contrast to the fully experiential quality of process needed and used in juxtaposition experiences for achieving transformational change of emotional learnings.