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2. Psychological Approaches- Cognitive Remapping, Cognitive Behavioral Strategies, Behaviorism
The Biological Support:
• For years the concepts of brain plasticity and neurogenisis have emphasized the amazing changes in the brain of infants and children. In instances of lesions and significant injury, amazingly the brain activity associated with a given brain function moves to a different location.
• Yet in the past decades researchers are discovering adult brains have this capacity to generate new neural cells when repeatedly exposed to new thoughts, ideas, physical activity, and changes in the environment.
The Evidence:
• Neural regeneration occurs in the hippocampus, the area of the brain wired for memory. However rather than long term storage, neural regeneration in adults has shown an enhancement in short term memory capacity, allowing us to broaden our concentration and processing of new complex information.
• The Reticular Activating System (RAS) the area of the brain that lets us become aroused and motivated, and allows us to selectively absorb these new and complex ideas into our unconscious. According to the theory of neuroplasticity, thinking, learning, and acting, actually changes both the brain's functional anatomy from top to bottom, and its physical anatomy. Thus the RAS adjusts and easily identifies that single neuron which is strategically introduced to a network, over time, is thought to significantly increase complexity of information that that can be processed by the brains network.
The Psychological Support:
• Within the psychological sciences there are decades of support for retraining ones cognitions, that is thoughts and ideas, to learning new behaviors, and strategies for feeling better and stronger, mentally and physically, overriding previous thought processes, achieving goals, and ultimately living a better life!
The Evidence:
• As early as 1948, Tolman coined the term Cognitive Mapping. Cognitive refers to the mental models, or belief systems, that people use to perceive, contextualize, simplify, and make sense of otherwise complex problems.
• Cognitive maps allows us to use to structure and store spatial knowledge, allowing the "mind's eye" to visualize images in order to reduce cognitive load, enhance recall, and the learning of new information to change negative habits and reach desired goals.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (CBT) is the idea that our thoughts cause our positive or negative feelings (vibrations if you will), and behaviors, not external factors, like people, situations, and events. The benefit of this fact is that we can change the way we tend to think, feel and act even if the situation does not change. We learn to push through discomfort to makes positive changes. CBT is brief and time limited and thus one of the most rapid in terms of results obtained.
• Behaviorism is the learning is the acquisition of new behavior through conditioning. There are two types of possible conditioning:
1. Classical conditioning, where the behavior becomes a reflex response to stimulus. Such as when I see others happy and smiling I do so too.
2. Operant conditioning where there is reinforcement of the behavior by a reward or a punishment. Such as, I smile, others will return the smile and I feel happy and positive all day. It is important to note that in behaviorism framework measurable differences of desire behaviors are often the goal.
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