summary: New research suggests that reflecting on a parent during therapy can subtly change the way a person recalls childhood emotions, even if the questions are neutral. This process, known as reappraisal, can lead individuals to adjust their feelings and perceptions of their parents and can have long-term effects on family relationships. In one experiment, participants were asked to recall positive or negative traits of their mother, which significantly influenced their current and past emotions.
This finding highlights the malleability of emotional memory and emphasizes the need for awareness in therapeutic practice. Being informed about the effects of reappraisal may help individuals maintain accuracy in recalling childhood emotions. This study highlights the power of self-reflection in therapy and its potential impact on relationships.
Important facts:
- Reflecting on your parents during therapy can change your childhood memories and emotions.
- Neutral questions about parental characteristics had a significant impact on participants’ emotions.
- Being mindful of reappraisal in therapy may help maintain memory accuracy.
sauce: University of Portsmouth
A new study suggests that being asked to rate a parent during talk therapy can significantly change a person’s feelings about their parent, even when the questions aren’t thought-provoking.
Therapists often ask clients to reflect on their relationships with family members as a way to release past memories and emotions. A new study led by the University of Portsmouth investigated whether this series of questions could change people’s feelings and memories of their parents, a process known as reappraisal.
The current paper investigates the effects of reappraisal on participants’ mothers, focusing on emotions such as happiness, interest, sadness, and anger. They also looked at how this reflection influenced how they felt about their parents during childhood.
Lead author Dr Lawrence Patichs of the university’s School of Psychology, Sport and Health Sciences specializes in memory reliability. He explained why he wanted to investigate this phenomenon: “We all develop amnesia in early childhood because we are constantly generating new neurons. This makes it difficult to understand what we think we remember and what we actually do. What happened becomes complicated.
“For example, a person may experience positive feelings toward their father for the first 11 years of their life, but that changes when they divorce their mother at age 16. What they don’t realize is that this negativity toward their father This means that this re-evaluation will subtly change their memories of their relationship with their father when they were young.
“Existing research shows that memory is variable, but we wanted to test whether the same was true for memories of emotions toward parents during childhood.”
In the first experiment, some participants were asked to name a recent example in which their mother showed evidence of a positive attribution, while others were asked to name an example in which their mother had a negative attribution. It was done.
The results showed that their current emotions changed significantly with reappraisal, and their emotional memories from childhood also changed.
“Therapists and clients need to be aware that prompts like this during sessions can unintentionally lead to parental reappraisal, which can have knock-on effects on emotions and memories,” Dr. Patichs explains. I did.
“Some childhood-focused therapies assume that current relationship problems are the result of childhood trauma, leading to a negative reappraisal of parents.
“However, our study supports existing evidence that this process can sometimes manipulate the truth of what people actually felt in the past. What is concerning is that as a result, now family This means that there is a possibility that they may become estranged from each other.
“This is not to say that people who have had really negative experiences shouldn’t trust their emotions. Everyone should be more aware that their emotions and memories are changeable.”
Increasing positive reappraisal also comes with risks. Dr Patichs added: “While it’s true that thinking more positively about your parents can improve your overall relationship, remembering exactly how you felt sad or angry in childhood can help you remember those exact memories.” You can use it to choose a different way to raise your child.”
“If we let people know before we start a session that their memories can be moved through therapy, that knowledge can help them keep their childhood memories accurate. I have insisted that it should be part of it.”
About this psychology and memory research news
author: robin montagu
sauce: University of Portsmouth
contact: Robin Montagu – University of Portsmouth
image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access.
“Parental reappraisal occurs with non-provocative questions: Changing emotions and emotional memories.Written by Lawrence Patich et al. psychological report
abstract
Parental reappraisal occurs with non-provocative questions: Changing emotions and emotional memories.
Whether it is possible to reevaluate parents using non-suggestive questions and whether this affects emotions and memory is of great interest both in life and in psychotherapy.
Previous research has shown that reappraisal of past situations is associated with changes in emotional memory. Previous research showed that memories of love can be affected by reappraisal, but did not analyze that dataset for memories of other emotions.
The current paper examines the effects of participants’ reappraisal of their mothers on emotions such as happiness, interest, sadness, and anger (and their memories of those emotions in childhood).
The results show that emotions appear to change significantly with reappraisal. In experiment 1, (N = 301; Myear = 36) found that emotional memories, especially memories of childhood happiness, were affected, but to a lesser extent than current emotions. This provided some support for the cognitive appraisal view of emotional memory.
Experiment 2 (N = 202; Myear = 36) Pretest and posttest measurements showed some similar patterns, but the effects were slightly weaker. Therapists and clients should be aware that non-suggestive prompts can lead to parental reappraisal and have knock-on effects on emotions and memories.
Whether this should be part of informed consent for treatment is debatable.
