TOPIC - A new way to treat, or even eliminate, phobias and the effects of emotional trauma
In 2017 Lana Wilson, documentary maker for National Geographic, among others, wanted to visualize a new trauma treatment method because of the spectacular effects.
She has filmed various treatments, and the documentary is now complete. Thanks to producer Topic, the documentary can be viewed online for free. The documentary consists of 4 parts of about fifteen minutes each.
Mw. prof. dr. M. (Merel) Kindt is a clinical psychologist at UVA (University of Amsterdam) with a new way to treat, or even eliminate, phobias and the effects of emotional trauma. Amazingly, it seems to work.
In this four-part documentary series, we follow the doctor as she cares for patients terrified of everything from butterflies to needles, and begins to question just how fundamental fear really is to human nature.
PTSD is one of the most difficult anxiety disorders to treat, and Dr. Kindt must rely on her intuition to help a traumatized veteran.
In 2017 Lana Wilson, documentary maker for National Geographic, among others, wanted to visualize the new treatment method because of the spectacular effects.
She has filmed various treatments, and the documentary is now complete. Thanks to producer Topic, the documentary can be viewed online for free. The documentary consists of 4 parts of about fifteen minutes each.
About Merel:
My research is concerned with the understanding of neurobiological and psychological processes of fear and anxiety with the main focus on the mechanisms of change in the treatment of anxiety and related disorders. Although cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is effective in reducing fear for most anxiety disorders, a high percentage of patients experience a relapse even after apparently successful treatment. The prevailing view on the return of fear is that CBT can eliminate all fearful responding , but does not erase the original fear memory.
Partial or full reappearance of fear may be explained by intact fear memories that resurface. Once a fear memory has been established, it is held to be forever. Insights from neuroscience suggest that it is unnecessarily defeatist to regard fear memory as irreversible. Fear conditioning research in animals and humans shows that reactivation of a consolidated fear memory can turn it to a labile, sensitive state in which the memory trace can be changed.
Disruption of fear memory reconsolidation may prevent the return of fear and is thereby a promising therapeutic strategy for patients with anxiety and related disorders. We utilise the fear-conditioning paradigm to achieve a better understanding of the optimal and boundary conditions of changing fear memory. I believe that basic research is required for a step-change improvement of treatment for psychiatric disorders.
Selected Publications
- Kindt, M. , Soeter, M., & Vervliet, B. (2009). Beyond extinction: Erasing human fear responses and preventing the return of fear. Nature Neuroscience, 12, 256-258.
- Sevenster, D., Beckers, T. & Kindt, M. (2013). Prediction error governs pharmacologically induced amnesia for learned fear. Science, 339, 830-833.
- Visser, R.M., Scholte, H.S., Beemsterboer, T., & Kindt, M. (2013). Neural pattern similarity predicts long-term fear memory. Nature Neuroscience, 16, 388-390.
- Soeter, M., & Kindt, M. (2015). An abrupt transformation of phobic behavior following a post-retrieval amnesic agent. Biological Psychiatry, 78, 880-886.
- Elsey, J.W.B., van Ast, A., & Kindt, M. (2018). Human memory reconsolidation: A guiding framework and critical review of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 144, 797-848.
- Kindt, M. (2018). The surprising subtleties of changing fear memory: a challenge for translational science. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 373(1742), 20170033.
- Kindt, M., & Soeter, M. (2018). Pharmacologically induced amnesia for learned fear is time and sleep dependent. Nature Communications, 9:1316.
Sources:
https://www.uva.nl/profiel/k/i/m.kindt/m.kindt.html
https://kindtclinics.com/a-cure-for-fear/
https://www.topic.com/lana-wilson
