Got a stubborn psychological problem? You can probably blame your amygdala.

This blog is the first of a series. Here we focus upon a simple understanding of the neurobiology that appears to underlie most common psychological problems--the amygdala region of the brain takes center stage. The next of these blogs will focus on how a perfectly well-functioning brain can create significant psychological problems for us. After that, there will be blogs that show how neuroscience provides insights that can help us master these problems.

>> Some part of Mark's mind knew that he was going down a familiar and destructive path but he still found himself telling his wife, "You are such an idiot! Now we all look like fools!" And this oytburst was because she had been asked by the school to fix some mistakes she had made on their boy's kindergarten application.

>> Mary was well aware that she shouldn't do it. She paid for the dress anyway. She thought it might help her feel more confident at the staff party that night. And any way, this wasn't going to make much difference to her already burgeoning credit card balance.

If we were able to monitor an MRI of Mark's brain as he yelled at his wife; and Mary's brain as she felt anxiety and misgivings about the upcoming party, we would see a pattern of increased activity in the amygdala regions of their brains, and also an inhibition of those prefrontal cortex areas that promote reality-testing, judgment and conscious awareness. If we could backtrack to watch their childhood amygdalas, we would likely see almost the exact same pattern of activity: when five-year old Mark was being told by his father that he was an idiot, or eight year-old Mary was being rejected by by her older sister.
The amygdala plays a central role in the storage of ‘emotion memories'-unconscious memories of past hurts: times, especially in childhood, when we were painfully rejected, physically harmed, humiliated, helplessly frustrated, and so on. One of the things that makes these memories so problematic is that the hormones created by an activated emotion memory, inhibit the reality-testing function of the prefrontal cortex.
What science has discovered about emotion memories closely parallels what we know about psychological problems:
• An emotion memory is recalled unconsciously-- a person who is experiencing such a memory usually doesn't know that what they are feeling is a memory. Mark and Mary were clueless that what they were feeling was a reactivation of feelings they had learned a long time ago.
• Like psychological problems these memories are very durable-without intervention they are prone to last even a lifetime.
• An emotion memory creates feelings that are not appropriate to our immediate situation.
• An emotion memory also includes what scientists refer to as an "implicit" memory, so that while an emotion memory is active we make distorted, implicit assumptions about our circumstances: Mark and his wife were not truly in danger of looking like fools because of her mistakes, and Mary didn't really need to go to expensive lengths in order to be appreciated at the party.

When an emotion memory is active, hormones inhibit the reality-testing part of our brain, leading us to believe and even defend a distorted view of what is going on. Mary and Mark, like most others who are under the influence of an emotion memory, were only vaguely aware that they were over-reacting to their situations. Under the influence of an active emotion memory, it ‘feels like' our emotions, assumptions and ultimately our behavior is appropriate to our situation even though we may later find ourselves thinking, "I hate it when I over-react like that."
Here are some more examples of how emotion memories work. As a child, Jim felt anxious and awful when his older brother criticized and humiliated him. Now as an adult, when confronted with his mistakes, he feels the same emotions and self-negation that he once experienced with his brother. Jane who was raped as a teenager, now finds herself uncomfortable and suspicious whenever a man shows interest in her. Bill, whose father repeatedly told him he would "never amount to anything", now as an adult feels anxious and incompetent at work. Marta whoas a child was repeatedly rejected and ridiculed by the kids at her new middle school, tends to be isolated and withdrawn, mistrusting the intentions of those around her.
The list of ways in which emotion memories cause later painful psychological problems is long and it encompasses most of the common problems that bring a person into psychotherapy. It may seem odd when we realize that these problems can be generated by brains that are doing exactly what evolution designed them to do. More about that in my next blog. And, in future blogs I will cover how this understanding of psychological problems can be put to very good use in learning to master such problems.