Tag Archives: Research

Unrelated Memories Connected by Trauma?

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Sometimes stress can bring disparate memories together.

Sometimes stress can bring disparate memories together.

A study conducted by researchers at the Czech Republic’s Academy of Sciences, the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center, and Rockefeller University reported:

“Our results show that stress can activate memory, even if that memory is unrelated to the stressful experience,” explained André Fenton, the study’s lead author and a professor at New York University’s Center for Neural Science.

“Additional investigations into the effects of stress on memories could shed light on PTSD and other stress-related mood disorders,” added Fenton.

These results show that stress can reactivate unrelated memories, leading the authors to hypothesize that, in humans, traumatic stress might reactivate non-traumatic memories and link them to the traumatic memory, thereby facilitating the pathological effects seen in post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions.

I sometimes wondered when working with some clients why memories they insisted were related to a traumatic event didn’t seem to me to be related. This study confirms what I experienced then – that some unrelated memories sometimes get joined or connected to memories of traumatic events through stress. The connected memory confusion can be a source of tension and emotional energy for the client – and mystery for the clinician. Fortunately, using hypnosis and Rapid Eye Technology, the connected memories could be relieved of their emotional energy and the client would see fairly quick results – a significant decrease in emotional energy and increase in personal power.

Note to RET Technicians – just do the RET process and don’t worry about the memories (stories). No matter what story the client wants to put with their experience, it’s okay and correct for them. Releasing the emotional energy no matter what its source is the goal.

The study’s other authors are: Karel Ježek of the Czech Republic’s Academy of Sciences; Benjamin Lee and Eduard Kelemen of SUNY Downstate; and Katharine McCarthy and Bruce McEwen of Rockefeller University.

Echinacea for Colds? Maybe!

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Every year, I catch at least one cold. Usually it's not serious – but it can deprive me of a day or two of activity and leave me feeling weak and vulnerable. I prefer to feel strong and capable so when a study comes out that shows me how I can increase my chances of staying healthy through cold season, I'm all over it. Here's what they're saying:

"Taking the herbal product echinacea could reduce the chances of catching a cold by 58%, conclude authors of a Review published Online and in the July edition of The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The Review also states echinacea could reduce the duration of colds by an average of 1·4 days. It was authored by Dr Craig Coleman, University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy, Hartford Hospital, Connecticut, USA, and colleagues. They conducted a meta-analysis (a study which combines the results of previous trials) of 14 studies into the use of echinacea to relieve/protect against catching a cold.

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Does Color Make an Emotional Difference?

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Color may affect emotion

Does color affect emotion?


Blue light not only increased responses to emotional stimuli in the “voice area” of the brain and in the hippocampus, which is important for memory processes, but also led to a tighter interaction between the voice area, the amygdala, which is a key area in emotion regulation, and the hypothalamus, which is essential for biological rhythms regulation by light (see figure). This demonstrates that the functional organisation of the brain was affected by blue light.

Rapid Eye Technicians have known for some time the value of color in sessions where emotional issues were addressed. It seems that now there is some science to back up that observation. Many years ago (1990-1995) I was involved with many other RET technicians in an experiment with color in which we used color gels over lamp lights to produce specific color ambiance in our session rooms. Color did make a difference in our sessions. However, since everyone processes color differently and each person had his/her own issues to deal with, we could not say which color to use with which issue or which client – we could not make up a matrix one could count on. Instead, we determined that simply suggesting a color was enough to engender the desired effect – and thus was born the colored cabochon currently affixed to the end of the RET “wand”. I’ll bet some of you were wondering… ;-)

Resource: “The spectral quality of light modulates emotional brain responses in humans”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA

Fear – It’s in the Eyes!

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“There are reasons to believe that the brain has evolved mechanisms to detect things in the environment that signal threat. One of those signals is a look of fear,” David Zald, associate professor of psychology and a co-author of the new study, said. “We believe that the brain can detect certain cues even before we are aware of them, so that we can direct our attention to potentially threatening situations in our environment.”

amygdala2.jpgResearchers set out to determine if we become aware of fearful, neutral or happy expressions at the same speed, or if one of these expressions reaches our awareness faster than the others.

The team found that subjects became aware of faces that had fearful expressions before neutral or happy faces. They believe a brain area called the amygdala, part of the emotions-processing limbic system, shortcuts the normal brain pathway for processing visual images.

“The amygdala receives information before it goes to the cortex, which is where most visual information goes first. We think the amygdala has some crude ability to process stimuli and that it can cue some other visual areas to what they need to focus on,” Zald said.

Zald and his colleagues believe the eyes of the fearful face play a key role.

“Fearful eyes are a particular shape, where you get more of the whites of the eye showing,” he said.”That may be the sort of simple feature that the amygdala can pick up on, because it’s only getting a fairly crude representation. That fearful eye may be something that’s relatively hardwired in there.”

“We are interested in now exploring what this means for behavior,” Yang said. “Since these expressions are being processed without our awareness, do they affect our behavior and our decision making? If so, how?”

The research was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health. Blake and Zald are Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development investigators. Randolph Blake, Centennial Professor of Psychology, and Eunice Yang, doctoral student, were co-authors of the study, which appeared in the November 2007 issue of Emotion.

RET and Entwined Senses

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"Hearing and sight are deeply intertwined."

A study shows that the senses of "hearing and sight are deeply intertwined" - as they are in Rapid Eye Technology.

The process of Rapid Eye Technology marries visual perception of rapid motion with rapid emotion-laden auditory input to affect an emotional release. The technique has proven successful for many clients seeking relief from emotional troubles and for those seeking to improve themselves in a number of areas.

Another study on the relationship between visual and auditory channels used in RET has emerged from UCLA.

“Most of us understand that smell affects taste. But people tend to think that what they see is what they see and what they hear is what they hear.”

The findings of a study at UCLA, published by the American Psychological Assn, concludes,

“…that, even at a non-conscious level, visual and auditory processes are not so straightforward,” says cognitive neuroscientist and study co-author Robyn Kim. “Perception is actually a very complex thing affected by many factors.”

 

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