PROCESOS DE REACTIVACIÓN Y RECONSOLIDACIÓN DE LAS MEMORIAS IMPLÍCITAS: INTERACCIÓN ENTRE NEUROCIENCIAS Y PSICOTERAPIAS

In the last two decades, the interaction between neurosciences and psychotherapies has contributed to the advancement of both The objective and empirical vision of neurosciences and the interpersonal and subjective vision of psychotherapies complement each other. Of primary significance is the study of implicit and affective–relational processes. Implicit memories reflect unconscious learning patterns located in subcortical regions inaccessible to consciousness. Research shows that when a long-term memory is evoked and reactivated, its locked and encoded synapses enter an unstable state, where they can be modified through different molecular processes. For reconsolidation to occur, a mismatch experience needs to be juxtaposed to the destabilized memory. In this way, it is permanently modified in the same neural network. These processes are at the base of interventions of various psychotherapies. In them, the implicit memory that underlies the production of the symptom is reactivated and the encounter with a discrepant experience is generated. The more conscious and explicit the reactivation of implicit memory, the greater the ability to modify it through reconsolidation. In this process, the underlying deep sense and emotional truth of the symptom is directly experienced. In the context of the secure attachment with the therapist, subjective emotional reactivation and neurological correlates are shaped to promote new and more adaptive experiences.