Talk therapy changes your mind — and brain
It seems obvious that physiological (physical) changes to the brain can cause psychological (mental) changes to how we feel, think, or behave. For example, medications can adjust the brain’s chemical imbalances to help people overcome symptoms of depression. It also seems obvious, then, that our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are linked to the way the brain’s physical structure works. For example, mood and behavior changes are common in people who have a traumatic brain injury.
What isn’t obvious, though, is that the brain’s physical structure can change at any time — and we can use this to our advantage. When it takes in new information, the brain has the ability to naturally reorganize the physical connections between brain cells called neurons. This ability is known as neuroplasticity, and it’s how you learned everything you’ve ever learned.
So if we know:
- Neuroplasticity changes physical structures in the brain
- The way the mind works is linked to those structures
... then we should be able to use neuroplasticity to intentionally change our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Let’s go over how this process works in talk therapy.
You are what you learn
As you experience new things, neuroplasticity allows new connections to form between specific neurons. The more you experience something, the more those neurons are used and the stronger their connections become. The stronger the connections, the easier it is to remember information about an experience. A group of strongly connected neurons, called a neural circuit, is responsible for carrying out a specific function when activated. Neural circuits even connect with each other to form large-scale brain networks capable of performing complex functions — like remembering how it feels to hug your mom.
Before we get into why this is relevant to therapy, stop and think for a second. When you read “how it feels to hug your mom,” what happens in your head? No matter what your relationship with your mother is like, your brain almost certainly responded in one of the following ways:
- Triggering a certain memory of hugging your mom
- Starting a thought process about your relationship with your mom
- Going through the emotions you have when you hug your mom
- Making you miss your mom
This automatic response is an example of your brain’s neural connections in action. There is at this very moment a physical structure in your brain made of neurons devoted to the idea of hugging your mom. In fact, there’s a physical structure in your brain (or a relation between multiple structures) for everything you know.
While it’s a bit more complex in reality, we can think of the neural structures in your brain as places to store the lessons you’ve learned. Each structure was wired up as you experienced new things and learned new information from those experiences. Whenever you encounter a similar experience, the structures with relevant information activate to tell you what to feel, think, or do.
Now, if these structures can cause you to have a thought or emotional response simply by reading about hugging your mom, imagine what else they can do. Imagine what obvious and subtle things they’re doing in everyday life as you’re hit with the stress of work, family, health, and finances. And imagine how these automatic responses could affect not just your thoughts and feelings, but your behaviors, your relationships and, ultimately, your mental health.