The hypothesis dump

Opinion,

As I have previously discussed in a recent article, memories are highly dynamic and can be affected by external stimuli (Link).They can adapt to novel contexts and even be modified by others, to the extent that they become false, or inaccurate (Fandakova and Dennis, 2024). Sometimes, memories are formed that are associated to high emotional salience. These can be due to some traumatic event/events or unfortunate circumstances leading to emotional distress. This can lead the nervous system to develop some behavioural strategies to alleviate the distress and to avoid future misfortune. However, some of these strategies are counteractive and not beneficial, leading an individual down in a spiral of devastation. These initial emotionally loaded memories have now been fully incorporated in the individuals life as a primary stress cause and will become more intense, the more this individual reinforces them. The mind will add several triggers or reminders of whatever the initial cause(s) were, unless, they receive some help from professionals, that can retrain the mind to reduce the emotional load, triggers and counteractive behaviours, like avoidance and other defense mechanisms.

Psychotherapy is a highly effective treatment for some mental illnesses, combined with pharmacotherapy that could help manage symptoms (Voderholzer et al., 2024).

Several of the treatment techniques targets the emotional reactivity, behaviours and event processing. Take for instance CBT, it utilises techniques to ”rewire” the thinking or reduce the emotional reactivity to triggers. For example, by exposure for anxiety related illnesses. Are you anxious about social interactions and avoid them?

The therapist will make sure to expose you to such situations in controlled environments and eventually in the real world (Guo et al., 2025). The idea is habituation/extinction. Every time you are exposed to the trigger, your brain learns that it’s actually not a danger. It is something your brain learned through years of association, due to some unfortunate event/events that initiated this emotional reactivity, and through avoidance of the triggers increasing the belief of its realism.

However, exposure is not the only method, there are others in CBT that involve modifying the thought process and behaviours to match environmental actualities or to counteract the negative effects of learned behavioural strategies. These strategies however are aimed at modifying the emotional reactivity to triggers by reducing the reactivity. Sometimes its done through extinction, and sometimes by creating competing memories and behaviours to replace the ”problematic” ones.

Another strategy is to teach optional behaviours that help manage emotions during triggers so as to decrease the likelihood of the negative behaviours (Zhang et al., 2026).

Another method is through, which in simple terms is about increasing consciousness toward the event/events or environmental circumstances that initiated the emotional distress and counteractive behaviours (Tarzian et al., 2023). Even this method is in my opinion modifying the initial memories through recall in novel context. However, it is also another way of doing extinction, by allowing the person to bring forward memories that they have avoided due to distress and reducing the emotional reactivity. Thereby, removing the association between the emotional response to the core memory that formed the psychological distress and counteractive behaviours.

There are many other techniques focused at either again reducing the emotional load of memories with different behaviours, or acceptance of ones emotional and behavioural state, to increase the ability to change the behaviours and memory associations.

In conclusion, in my opinion, most psychotherapy interventions, are aimed at modifying memories to a degree, so as to reduce distress and harmful behaviours. There is high potential in integrating more of the knowledge in the scientific literature involving mnemonic modifications in interventions. Effective treatments of not only OCD and PTSD but other disorders might benefit aswell. However, we have to mentions here that there are certain mental illnesses that cannot be targeted in this manner, but, if behavioural and emotional modifications are required, perhaps it is worth a try.

Declaration of AI use: The author used Lumo AI for spelling, grammar-checking, and literature search assistance during the preparation of this article.

References

Fandakova, Y., Dennis, N.A., 2024. Introduction to the special issue: the neuroscience of false memory. Memory 32, 1267–1270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2024.2418768

Guo, S., Yadegar, M., Khaw, H., Chang, S., 2025. The Etiology, Assessment and Treatment of Compulsive Checking: A Review. PRBM Volume 18, 1253–1268. https://doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S431339

Tarzian, M., Ndrio, M., Fakoya, A.O., 2023. An Introduction and Brief Overview of Psychoanalysis. Cureus. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.45171

Voderholzer, U., Barton, B.B., Favreau, M., Zisler, E.M., Rief, W., Wilhelm, M., Schramm, E., 2024. Enduring effects of psychotherapy, antidepressants and their combination for depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Front. Psychiatry 15, 1415905. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1415905

Zhang, Y., Zhou, Y., Du, B., Hou, J., Hou, R., Zhang, B., He, S., Wang, C., Yan, F., 2026. Dialectical behavior therapy combined with parental support in adolescents with non-suicidal self-injury: a randomized controlled trial. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 20, 29. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-026-01036-1