Be on the Cutting Edge of Psychotherapeutic Neuroscience
Tholáge® is a system of protocols meant to rewire traumatic memories by destabilizing the memory being targeted, incorporating more positive associations, and then reconsolidating the memory in this new form. This takes the physiological sting of constant or intermittent fight-or-flight out of patients’ lived experiences. Tholáge® does this using novel, non-invasive, somatic techniques.
Tholáge® also helps patients access their suppressed emotions, because emotion suppression (ES) has been linked to numerous mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, trauma disorders, eating disorders and more. These newly accessed emotions include healthy regulated anger and even disgust, and Tholáge® techniques then further lead to feelings of strength, empowerment and confidence. Tholáge® also helps patients access suppressed and, in some case, repressed memories or details of memories.
Tholáge® Neuropsychotherapy Training trains mental health clinicians in its protocols, and it teaches you the neuroscience of the protocols in clear but detailed fashion. We also show you a simple way to share that information with your patients.
What is Tholáge®?
Tholáge® consists of multiple novel protocols, demonstrated to create the proper nervous system state to allow for memory destabilization and then for memory reconsolidation. Tholáge® is designed to help patients move into the Window of Tolerance (WoT), and to help them expand that window and stay there. But how does Tholáge® do this?
Tholáge® does this first by initiating a deeply parasympathetic state, believed to release the neurochemicals involved in memory destabilization, and also shown to increase feelings of safety, social connection, and well-being.
Then, in Tholáge®, patients use a technique that has been shown to create a sympathetic state, alongside re-narration of the traumatic event, allowing for two things: the accessing of suppressed emotions, including healthy anger and empowerment, and the long-known power of memory reconsolidation, closing up the memory in this new form.
To find the pilot study on Tholáge® in Google search engines, including Google Scholar, please search using the accent mark on Tholáge OR use the whole title of the article, “Eye Movements and Emotions: Efficacy of Novel Eye-Movement Protocol Tholage.” (Other search engines do not seem to require the use of the accent mark or the whole title to find the study.) The article on the second clinical trial and the neuroimaging study are in submission.
Tholáge® Conceptualization of Symptoms
Tholáge® helps patients access suppressed emotions two ways: directly and indirectly.
Tholáge® Neuropsychotherapy Training teaches you novel techniques—natural, non-invasive biological exercises, known as psychophysiological exercises, as well as the mental exercises that complement them. These exercises help patients access specific neurochemicals, covered in the Neuroscience page. There are two main groups of these exercises:
- Direct accessing of emotions—psychophysiological and mental exercises that access neurochemicals that are activating and stimulate the part of the amygdala that accesses emotions and memories
- Indirect accessing of emotions—psychophysiological and mental exercises that access neurochemicals that replicate the middle of the WoT and increase feelings of social connectedness and safety
Current research shows these chemicals are ideal for increasing access to emotions and emotional processing, and reducing symptoms. There are also impacts on the processing and storage of traumatic memories and on neuroplasticity.
Help Patients Rewire their Brains with the Tholáge® Approach
Tholáge® Approach
Tholáge® training also helps improve clinical understanding of traumatic memory at the neural level, and it teaches clinicians how to change the physiological impact of those memories in a deeper way than other treatments.
Further, Tholáge® allows for accessing of the neurochemicals involved in improving neuroplasticity. So, beyond immediate symptom reduction, Tholáge® helps patients rewire their brains.
