Bruce Ecker, the creator of a tool for therapy called Juxtaposition, is a therapist. But he wasn’t always. From a desire to understand how the Universe works, he became a physicist.After decades of that, he realized it wasn’t answering his questions, so he turned to therapy.
The good thing about his background is that he is data-driven, looks for the cleanest explanation of findings, and didn’t have any leanings towards a particular therapy model.
Also, because of his background in physical science, it’s understandable that he was drawn to neuroscience. He was on a quest to answer one basic question: How is it possible for a person to undergo instant, transformative change in therapy?
Pretty tall order, eh?
But in his work, he had experienced it himself. He just didn’t know what made it happen, so that was what he wanted to find out.
Eventually, he got his answer. It came from a field that was just blossoming in neuroscience: memory reconsolidation.
Apparently, if you remember something with full focus on the experience, you can negate the feelings in that memory if you add in to it a contradiction that makes the original impossible.
The neuroscience researchers started with mice. They shocked the mice in the experimental box so the mice wanted to avoid the box. But now, the researchers made a change that would negate the original memory: They caused a blue light to go on in the box. Since that had never happened before, the mice were no longer afraid to enter the box.In other words, the fear part of the memory was gone.
Ecker’s classic story is of a woman who was avoiding sex with her husband and the marriage was going south because of it. It took many sessions before the woman uncovered a key memory: As a young woman, she became pregnant. Her mother was furious and upset with her. “You’ll never get married,” she exploded, “You’ll never have children!”
“Could you repeat that?” Dr. Ecker asked her. Slowly she repeated it until it dawned on her that she was married and already had a child! The memory turned funny for her and the symptom promptly disappeared, never to return.
Any time you have parts of you that vie with each other to be “right,” you can apply this technique. So, for example, suppose there’s a part of you that is scared to speak to your boss about his treatment of you.
And another part that is very annoyed at your boss and wants you to speak up.
Which one is coming from the real “you”? When we juxtapose the two statements from a place of Self energy, the one that best represents how You, yourself feel, will “win” and the other will fade.
This is where there is a beautiful combining of IFS with Ecker’s Juxtaposition to both end confusion and honor who you really are.
