Marcelo Ceberio is one of the most outstanding figures of current psychology, author of several books, scientific articles and more than 25 books, this Argentine therapist is one of the best representatives of the systemic school, we had the pleasure of interviewing him. to talk about a very interesting topic: neuroplasticity and its relationship to therapy.
“An exercise to stimulate neuroplasticity would be as simple as running down new paths, avoiding traditional ones. Brush your teeth with your opposite hand, walk backwards?Marcelo Ceberio-
- Our brain is always wrapped in a certain aura of mystery.
- This organ.
- Which weighs just over a kilo and a half and is equipped with sophisticated neural connections.
- Is able to change with everything we do or think.
We call this neuroplasticity, or what is the same, the brain’s ability to change both its physical structure and its functional organization according to our behavior.
This is a dimension that until recently was not considered valid, and it was even thought that at a certain age it was impossible to create new neural networks.
Marcelo Ceberius reveals how the therapeutic process itself, in any kind of psychological approach, also promotes neuroplasticity, so we are faced with a hopeful tool that would allow us to reconstruct meanings, create new styles of thought to promote the well-being of people.
Marcelo Ceberio himself explains this in this interesting interview
Until recently it was thought that it was impossible to create new neural networks, today we know that networks and networks and networks of networks of networks are built until the last moment of life!Neuroplastic networks involve a chain of partner neurons that strengthen each other.
It is a neural domino effect in which nerve cells work in synergy with each other, if the environment is a changing environment, in search of adaptation, behavioral plasticity is necessary and, with it, a neural association that produces a networked reaction involving emotions, reflections and actions.
This plasticity is a property of biological systems that allows them to adapt to changes in the environment to survive, so learning and memory are events that promote flexibility, and the more plastic the nervous system, the greater the learning capacity of organisms.
At this point, do we have to remember the basic Darwinian emotions?Joy, sadness, aversion, fear, surprise and anger, which have made adaptation and survival possible in different contexts from our hominid ancestors until we are today like sapiens.
Part of the choreography of human communication consists of a correlation of actions, feedback and interactions that generate countless constructions populated with meanings, but these meanings are also the generators of these circuits and, therefore, recursively in an endless system.
However, the actions – and I must include speeches here – immediately when contextualized produce coding of the interlocutor, so the response in the interlocution appears as a product of constructions at personal powers.
Each of the things (in which I include subjects, situations and objects) in which we must live is included in categories. Categories are cognitive boxes that carry a particular semantics.
Categories group things into classes and, at the same time, a category can be a member of a category and integrate several categories: the chair can integrate the furniture category, but at the same time the chair can be the category that brings together different shapes and styles of chairs.
In our perception we make distinctions, that is, we focus or pay attention to certain things that impact us, and many of these things are included in categories that are enclosed in a network with one or more meanings. have their equivalents in neuroplastic networks.
Perseverance in actions developed under the same constructions of meanings, habits, the habit of performing actions in the same patterns, failed attempts to solve, but which continue to apply despite obtaining the opposite result of what we want, show the same . groove, the same path as neural networks.
Once the network is perpetuated, it is systematized and falls into an inertia that goes against the realization of different actions, perceptions or emotions: it is the opposite path to creativity.
This little prologue serves to understand that we can gain in neuroplasticity by exercising. It is a challenge to adopt alternative pathways to traditional pathways, but it is a way to expand our neuroplastic networks.
Speaking of trails, for example, I am a marathon runner and I see how many people train on family trails, paths in parks, streets, trails, etc. Few dare to take new paths by running or charting alternative routes; in general, everyone travels on preconceived roads.
An exercise to stimulate neuroplasticity would be as simple as running avoiding traditional pathways.
Brushing your teeth with the opposite hand, walking backwards or looking for alternatives to what we would normally do are some of the tests that help build different paths in our networks, both categories and neural.
Neural networks always work in therapy, because when a patient tells what happens to him, the word of his speech in the event sequence description shows a neuroplastic chain.
The meanings, the way you process information, the way you get excited, every structure a neural network. Remember I said that while the world is built through categories involving semantics, this network of cognitive categories has its neurobiological counterpart in the neural chain.
I understand therapy, or rather, the therapeutic process in any approach model as a major restructuring of meaning, whether the path used to intervene pragmatically (prescription of tasks) is emotional (psychodrama, body use) or cognitive (recomposition, positive connotation).
When we reschedule, I relapse, so the category change in which the problem is recorded involves a restructuring of meanings, so the problem is redefined and no longer a problem.
Category change and sense restructuring are the product of building a new neuroplastic network, a neural sequence that builds an alternative path to what was developing.
That is, it breaks with neural systematization, with the network that carries the production of anxiety, anger and tension. The way information is processed is what makes it up and is shaped by the neural chain.
Because we are neuroplastic, we can generate opportunities for change through words and nonverbal language, therapists strategically intervene to facilitate the construction of another network.
Yes, of course, as I mentioned in the previous question, all human problems involve the construction of neuroplastic chains, in therapy we deconstruct them by creating new categories and alternative networks to traditional ones.
So it sounds very simple, but it’s a very complex process, a kind of conjunction between art and science I recently gave several courses of systemic epistemology and there’s an Einstein phrase that says: it’s easier to break an atom than a prejudice. .
Actions, how information data is moved or cognitively processed, automatically create networks, that is, they are inertial networks, this is what leads us to more of the same and always use the same formula, even if we get the opposite result.
Prejudice, mandates, rituals are the ingredients of the rigid weaponry of neural networks that make it difficult to build alternative networks, but the question is what do therapists do?
I still remember a Jewish couple with four children who came to ask me why their eldest daughter became an Orthodox religious. These parents didn’t understand why the daughter wouldn’t let her two sons see her cousin.
When I explored the four children, the eldest had married a religious Jew and the whole family professed the most extreme rituals; the next was a Jew who professed religion as his parents, flexibly, practicing Shabbat from time to time and attending the temple. The two minors were atheists and had Catholic partners, one of them had a son and, by religion, his religious cousins could not have any contact with him.
The parents were anxious because at no party some of them did not participate, they did not understand the attitude of their daughter and son-in-law.
How is it possible that devotion and religious bond are stronger than the blood bond?They felt guilty about their upbringing and wondered what they had done wrong, where they had made a mistake.
They had to learn a lot about religion to understand how strong this adherence can be, but most importantly, the main intervention was a restructuring of their feelings of guilt. I reminded them, among other things, of the good parents they were: loving and loving. worried to this day about the well-being of their children, so much so that this concern led them to therapy?
I vehemently asserted that they had raised these children with freedom of choice at all levels: ideological, social, political and religious; that they were not obliged to follow a certain pattern, but were free to choose.
Raising children with this freedom results in what has happened to them, and that is a risk that must be taken, but the risk is welcome if it is the result of freedom of choice, so I congratulated them on being loving and responsible parents.
They left the session confused, but guiltless. In the next session, happier, we planned to hold parties and family gatherings, the re-categorization caused a change of class at the same events, with which other actions were developed accordingly.
This is a neuroplastic change, the category change involves the creation of another synaptic chain.
The possibility of Sûr. La of changing meanings creates, provided that the intervention is appropriate for the patient, an alternative network to inertia and systematized.
The way, style, the way the intervention is performed, far beyond the content, cause the impact that allows to build a new category, detecting the channel most used by the patient (if it is visual, tactile, olfactory, auditory, etc. ), speaking the language itself allows the most effective introduction of interventions.
The subtle copy of dictations, phrases, cadence and rites, body postures, movements and gestures facilitates the introduction of new meanings.
When we talk about restructuring meanings, we are talking about making the categories that apply to the facts more flexible, so when cognitive change occurs, different emotions and actions are expected, so an alternative reality is being proposed to the previous one. Built.
In addition, by practicing the modification of our neural networks, we achieve greater neuroplasticity and exercise more of our right hemisphere, the creator par excellence.
Thus, we propose more alternatives to solve problems, we adapt better to understand the point of view of others, that is, we are more empathetic and we are able to easily build various points of view on things.
Epigenetics is the branch of biology that studies causal interactions between genes and their products that give rise to the phenotype, it should be noted that what is observed is not the genotype of every human being, but the phenotype, which is the result. of the genotype-context equation.
Today, there is still no universal consensus on the extent to which we are preprogrammed or modeled by the environment. The field of epigenetics has emerged as a bridge between genetic and environmental influences.
The most common definition of the term epigenetics is the study of hereditary changes in genetic function that occur without altering the DNA sequence.
Keep in mind that stress leaves sequelae in the immune system and is the leading cause of all diseases, from colds to cancer. Why does one person facing the same situation get sick or have symptoms while another stays healthy?
This is the difference between each DNA: the active stress of silent genes, which would not activate if chaotic situations did not occur, this is the case for twins who have a cancer gene in their genetic registry: one dies of terminal cancer at age 30. years old and the other dies of old age at 90, what sets them apart?
Lifestyle, negative emotions, environmental factors, customs and habits, tobacco use, diet, stress, high emotional stress situations can have an impact on genes, the translation of high-stress cortisol into methylation or acetylation of histones that activate genes is still unknown.
I could say that neuroplasticity is an anti-stress factor, because the possibility of having greater flexibility of visions, empathy and acceleration of the construction of solutions facilitates life and, therefore, there is greater relaxation in the pace of life.
For these reasons, it is possible to break the epigenetic activation circuits and improve the quality of life.
As we see, it is possible to acquire neuroplasticity not only by exercising new cognitive pathways and alternative pathways, but working in therapy is also an option, no doubt talking to Marcelo Ceberius is an opportunity to continue learning.