#3 About Patterns of Avoidance

This Episode homes in the emotions that trigger maladaptive patterns. Key Points Avoidance patterns are shaped more by psychological development at the time they are “invented” than by the nature of the affect being avoided. Strategies for distancing affects are products of the nonconscious problem solver function of the mind. Only recently has it become clear how memories are encoded in the brain as neural networks defined by enhanced synaptic connections linking groups of neurons. Long-term potentiation is an important mechanism of memory formation in which synapses are enhanced when upstream and downstream neurons happen to fire simultaneously. Procedural memory, where many EDPs are stored permanently, is learned and recalled without effort and is held diffusely in the brain. The catalog of EDPs includes broad categories of (1) potentially voluntary avoidant thought and behavior, (2) helpers that support acting on avoidant behaviors, and (3) involuntary and unpleasant symptoms that also serve to distance from affects.