Integrating Neuroscience into Counselling

Geraldine Marsh, PG Dip, MBACP Counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Hypnotherapy in Hither Green September 11, 2015

As a trained Doctor, it was important to Sigmund Freud to establish the newly emerging study of the mind - psychoanalysis - as a ‘Science’. That somehow psychoanalytical experiences could be mapped, and the causes of neurosis traced to their effects. Of course the neatness of the ‘cause and effect’ science never appeared in the treatment of his clients, then – or now. It is perfectly possible for two clients to experience the same event yet cause vastly different effects in their lives. Our complex human minds it appears, are so variable, that the ‘science’ or any predictability factor feels impossible to embrace as a science in any way.

150 years on, and the ‘Science of the Mind’ appears even more of an ‘Art’, with a plethora of styles (modalities):- psychodynamic, humanistic, integrative, person-centred, existential, gestalt, REBT, CBT, EMDR – the list goes on. One could say that this umbrella of ‘Talking Therapies’, practitioners expect not to be working with a ‘flow chart’ of facts and figures about their clients, but rather work subjectively with their client’s perceptions, explanations and experiences. Based on this highly individual picture of their client, they may then be suggesting the practice of a multitude of plastic, adaptable multi-modality approaches to the client, designed to alleviate their symptoms. The therapeutic work can feel for the client, appropriately focused on their individual life and circumstances. Indeed this work often happens in comfy chairs with leafy views. So very far from Freud’s desired scientific model perhaps?

However, over the last 15 years in particular, with the advent of neuroimaging technology, there has been a growth of neuroscientific knowledge regarding how the brain works. Our Minds are, of course, a product of our brains, and it would be logical to assume that new neuroscientific research would be reviewed to ascertain its relevance to how we as counsellors work now. That somehow relevant information could be smoothly assimilated into a counselling community, which already supports so many different ways of working.

There are so many positive implications for counselling due to neuroscientific research, it is difficult to know where to start listing them all, though the starting point is to look at the research being undertaken. For example, neuroimaging can now show us which parts of the brain we use when we meditate, or what happens when an experienced yogi ‘balances’. It can explain the traffic between different parts of the brain when we multi-task ergo why we find multi-tasking quite so exhausting, and indeed why as Daniel Levitin states in ‘An Organised Mind’ ‘attentional focus’ – concentrating on one thing only for a period of time, can be so effective for us. For counsellors working with client’s whose minds feel so busy, they are unable to know even how to start to meditate, this new neuroscientific knowledge is a gold mine of tools. If your client has difficulty ‘letting go’ of thoughts, get them to start with a focusing exercise. Listening to music for example. Your client likes the gym but works out whilst exacerbating their anxiety inducing thoughts (such as compare and despair to someone fitter in the gym, perfectionism and punitive thoughts towards themselves). So diverting them to: body balancing, yoga, or tai chi, with the therapeutic/scientific evidence to back up why the change could be a positive one – strengthens the choices.

Or take Stress Management. In 1989 Steven Covey wrote ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, an influential book which didn’t simply have the effect of focusing on effectiveness – but also how when we are able to sort and order information, we reduce our stress levels (we have externalised our thinking into ordering work into piles e.g. important and urgent, important/not urgent, not important and not urgent, not important/urgent, creating more space and processing power for our brains). How helpful then, that neuroscientific research can now show us what is happening when we are stressed, and what a calming effect externalising information can have.

However, instead of information sharing between neuroscience and counselling/psychotherapeutic practices, there appears to be a continuation of distinctly different spheres. As if the mind does not manifest itself in the brain at all. Kenneth J Gergen’s article for July’s Therapy Today warned “the neuroscientific lens reveals only a partial image that does not capture the complex causes of mental distress, and it is an image that reinforces the biomedical model”. No, perhaps a lens cannot capture the complexity of mental distress – yet. But there is a distinction between Science and Medicine. Counsellors taking and using new neuroscientific evidence to increase their understanding of the brain – and the mind - does not mean having to accept a biomedical model. They are merely accepting the scientific evidence. In the examples given above, regarding meditation, mindfulness, effects of balance and exercise, it would help to strengthen natural lifestyle choices a client may see as scientifically beneficial. By throwing out neurological advances as ‘dangerous, invasive medicalisation’ in an ‘us and them’ fashion, counselling could end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Perhaps there is an intimation within the counselling community, that a scientific explanation for mental distress, cannot encompass or invite compassion. Let’s take a hypothetical situation. A client explains to their Counsellor how sad and angry she feels about the behaviour of her mother, who struggles with schizophrenia. If, using appropriate timing, they were to explore at some point scientifically what was happening to her mother, and the structural brain changes occurring, the knowledge that her mother is unable to control something physical, may promote compassion from the client towards her mother, as she may realise it is something she cannot control, e.g. the scientific explanation, helps promote compassion.

Besides, in the spirit of Freud’s ‘Science of the Mind’, I think he would heartily approve of this fresh new area of research. If, however, this ‘scientification’ of counselling is still making you feel uncomfortable, perhaps we can embrace the ambiguity between the Science - and the Art of the Mind, in considering another of Freud’s quotes. “Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.”