Fear and Anxiety
Underlying much of our fear and anxiety are unconscious emotional memories. Until recently, it was believed you were stuck with damaging emotional memories for life. It was believed that it were not possible to extinguish fear and anxiety. This may not be so. Contrary to what many psychiatrists and neurologists believe, the unconscious emotive content of a memory may be permanently deactivated. It can be changed with new learning and emotion. Studies show that it is possible to extinguish anxiety associated with the memory.
Where It All Began
In 1953 after Henry Molaison, aka H.M., recovered from brain surgery to alleviate epileptic symptoms, he could not make new memories. New memories are consolidated –made stable- in the hippocampus, a slender, curved, sea-horse shaped structure deep inside the mid brain. The surgical procedure removed the area of the hippocampus where memories are consolidated. New memories could not be stabilized. After brief moments, a memory was extinguished. H.M. might meet and talk with you and minutes later you were a stranger.
Memory Consolidation and Reconsolidation
About a week after a new memory is consolidated –stabilized– by the hippocampus, it transfers to the neocortex for long-term storage. The neocortex is the thin outer covering of the brain. Once stored in the neocortex, the memory can be recalled and again consolidated or stabilized. This memory reconsolidation renders the memory changeable.
Reconsolidation With a Pill
In between recall and reconsolidation, neural connections of the memory are reactivated. During this brief window reconsolidation can be blocked and the memory altered with new learning and emotion. When the memory is recalled and the emotive component re-experienced, anxiety and fear can be extinguished. With just one pill. Propanolol is a beta-blocker prescribed to treat high blood pressure and anxiety.
In the Department of Clinical Psychology at University of Amsterdam, Merel Kindt, PhD, administers a greenish oral tablet to disrupt reconsolidation of memories. Propanolol disrupts reconsolidation of memories by targeting the protein synthesis required for reconsolidation.
Kindt has shown that disrupting the reconsolidation of memories can dampen the expression of fear and anxiety. But most of her research has been carried out in her lab. She admits that the results of laboratory findings, though done with human subjects, do not easily translate into clinical practice. She says that the lab work should only be considered as a starting point for the development of reconsolidation-based clinical treatments.
Clinical Hope
She now treats clinical patients from all over the world with results reflecting her successful lab work. One patient wanted to overcome his fear of snakes.
Ophidiophobia – Fear of Snakes
After reconsolidating the emotional memory he was given one 40 gram Propranolol pill. The next day he was able to handle a snake, first with gloves, then without them. Next he tested his recovery by visiting a reptile center. Surrounded by snakes, he felt no fear or panic. He hiked in forests. He looked forwarded to visiting all the countries with snakes he had avoided.
Tarantula
A 2015 study by Kindt dealt with a group of subjects with arachnophobia –a fear of spiders. First she exposed them to a tarantula in a jar for two minutes to activate an emotional fear response. They then took the propranolol. They were able to touch the tarantula within days. By three months many felt comfortable holding the spider with their bare hands – unthinkable before. Their fear did not return even at the end of one year.
Kindt hopes with further research it may be shown that interrupting reconsolidation will play a huge role in the future of psychotherapy. She wants to ease the pain of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and debilitating anxiety. Her goal is to restore control to peoples’ lives that have been ruled by fear.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5790831/
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
