Here’s an interesting study in the Journal of Neuroscience. That link is to the highly technical abstract; physorg.com has a much more digestible version which tells you what the experiment actually was.
They got some rats addicted to cocaine, and got them to associate the turning on of a light with the drug. They also gave them tasks which they learned would turn on the light and give them cocaine.
What they then did was to give the rats a drug which interferes with a brain chemical involved in storing memories, and activate the “cocaine” memory by turning on the light (but without giving the rats any cocaine). Because when we retrieve a memory it then gets stored afresh – which is why our memories change over time, especially if we revisit them frequently – this reduced or even stopped the behaviours in the rats which they formerly used to get cocaine.
Why I find this interesting is that hypnosis can interfere with memory too. You need a reasonably deep state, but it is quite possible to do, for some people at least. I normally don’t do it, since there usually isn’t a good clinical reason to do so, but this certainly sounds like one.
How I might use this is to get someone to recall their “triggers” for an unwanted behaviour, thus activating the memory, and then suggest forgetting the behaviour. Because they’re sitting in a chair in my office, they won’t actually be eating or smoking or whatever it is, so this, in theory, should work the same way as the scientists’ drug did on the rats.
Nicotine, in particular, sinks its hooks into you partly by working with parts of the brain that are concerned with learning and memory. I have a couple of smokers coming tonight. If I can get them deep enough I might try this out.
(Update: They didn’t turn up, unfortunately, but I have now incorporated the technique into my revised Smokefree for Life recording. I use every technique I know on that recording, so it’s hard to know what specifically is helping people – but I have seen good results.)
Technorati Tags: addiction, memory, triggers, hypnosis, hypnotherapy
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