Marcelo Ceberio: “Increasing Neuroplasticity Through Therapy Is Possible “

Marcelo Ceberio is one of the most prominent figures in the field of psychology. He has authored numerous books, scholarly articles, and more than 25 books, including the English-translated Heaven Can Wait, Superheroes Also Go to Therapy, and Cinderella & The Ugly Ducklings.

This Argentinian Therapist is mainly known for being the most important representative of the systemic school. She studied this model at the Institute of Mental Health Research in Palo Alto, California, where she still works as a teacher and researcher. We had the pleasure of interviewing Marcelo Ceberio and talking to him on a very interesting topic: neuroplasticity and its relationship to psychotherapy. Is it possible to increase neuroplasticity through therapy?

Marcelo Ceberio: Increasing neuroplasticity through therapy

The human brain is still a mysterious organ. They weigh just over a pound and hold sophisticated neuronal connections. Some may not know that everything we do or think can change the brain this is called neuroplasticity. It refers to the ability of the brain to change both its physical structure and its functional organization based on our behavior.

This was not considered true until some time ago. Some actually believed that when a person reached a certain age, it was no longer possible for the brain to create new neural networks. Today, prominent individuals, such as Dr. Álvaro Pascual Leone, are trying to understand these mechanisms in order to bring about change in patients.

Marcelo Ceberio, for his part, shows how the therapeutic process itself, whatever its approach, can contribute to neuroplasticity in the brain. It is a hopeful tool that allows a person to rebuild meanings and create new patterns of thought that promote well-being. In this interesting interview, Marcelo Ceberio explains this to us how increasing neuroplasticity is possible through therapy.

Q. # 1: Marcelo Ceberio, what is neuroplasticity?

To think that until some time ago people believed that creating new neural networks was impossible! Today, instead, we know that until our last moment on Earth, we are creating new, new and new neural networks! Neuroplastic neural networks signify a chain of partner neurons that enhance each other.

It’s like a neuronal domino effect, where the neurons work in chains all together. If the environment changes, we need plasticity at the behavioral level to adapt to it, and with that, the organization of nerve cells that produce a reaction in the neural network comprising emotions, thoughts, and actions.

This plasticity is a property of biological systems that allows them to adapt to changes in the environment to cope. Thus, learning processes and memory are events that promote flexibility, and the more plastic the nervous system, the greater the organism’s ability to learn.

It must be remembered that Darwinian basic feelings (joy, sorrow, disgust, fear, amazement, and anger) have made it possible to adapt and survive in different contexts from the time of our ancestors to modern man.

Q. # 2: How to increase neuroplasticity?

Part of the human communication process is shaped by actions, feedback, and interactions that produce numerous constructs full of different meanings. These meanings also produce these neural networks, and this occurs recursively in an infinite system.

But as soon as the deeds (including speech) are seen in context, the listener encodes them in their own way. For this reason, the answer in the discussion arises from each person’s personal constructs.

Every single thing we go through ( subjects, situations, and objects in this term ) falls into a category. These categories are cognitive boxes that have some specific meaning. These categories group things into categories, and one category may at the same time belong to another category and comprise several categories: a chair may belong to a category of furniture, but at the same time a chair may be a category that combines seats with different styles and designs.

We differentiate things based on our perceptions, that is, we focus or pay attention to certain things that affect us. We include many of those things in categories that are related online to one or more meanings. In this sense, categorical networks have counterparts in neuroplastic networks.

Repeating actions that have evolved under the same structures of meaning, habits, way of repeating the same formulas, and failed solutions that an individual continues despite an unwanted outcome is about the same neural path. When this neural network is maintained, it systematizes and we drift into a situation where we do nothing, perceive, or feel anything differently, little like indifference. Basically, this is the path that is the opposite of creativity.

The purpose of this small preface is to show that increasing neuroplasticity through exercise is possible. It is hugely challenging to choose alternative pathways to traditional ones, but it is a way to expand our neuroplastic neural networks.

Speaking of trails, I am a marathoner and I often see people training in familiar places like parks, streets, running tracks, etc. Only a few runners dare to try alternative routes. Many usually run those pre-formed routes. One simple exercise to stimulate neuroplasticity would be, for example, to run avoiding traditional routes.

Brushing your teeth with a non-dominant hand, walking backwards, or considering alternative solutions are some of the tests that help build new pathways in our neural networks, both in terms of neurons and categories.

Q # 3: How does increasing neuroplasticity occur in therapy?

In therapy, neural networks are always worked on. When a patient talks about his problems, his speech describing the course of events is an indication of a neuroplastic chain.

Meanings, the way information is processed, the way emotions are expressed, they all structure the neural network. Remember how I pointed out that if we build a world full of meanings, this network of cognitive categories has neurobiological equivalents in neuronal chains.

I see therapy, or rather the therapy process in any psychological approach, as one of the great rebuilding of meaning, whatever path was used; both pragmatic (task instruction), emotional (psychodrama, body use), and cognitive (positive connotation).

The change in category and the rebuilding of meaning are the result of the assembly of a new neuroplastic network, a neuronal sequence that forms an alternative path to the one already developed. In other words, it disrupts the systematization of neurons, the neural network that caused anxiety, anger, and tension. The neural chain shapes data processing and vice versa.

Because we are neuroplastic, we can create opportunities for change through words and nonverbal language. Therapists are helping here strategically to facilitate the construction of new neural networks.

Q # 4: Can neuroplasty be worked with with all the problems and situations brought into therapy?

Of course. As I mentioned in a previous question, all human problems involve building neuroplastic chains. In therapy, we break them down by creating new categories and alternative networks to replace the traditional ones.

This may sound very simple, but it is actually a very complex process, a kind of mixture of art and science. I gave several lectures on systematic epistemology some time ago, and there is Einstein’s phrase: “ it is easier to decompose an atom than prejudice”.

Acts, ways of feeling and processing information cognitively, create networks automatically, that is, they are automatic networks. This is the reason why we always use the same mechanisms even when we get an unwanted result.

Prejudices and rituals are inflexible use of neural networks that make it difficult to build alternative networks. But the question is what therapists do…

Q. # 4.1: Can you give an example?

I am always reminded of a Jewish couple with four children. They came to ask me why their eldest daughter had converted to Christianity. The parents did not understand why their daughter did not let their two children meet their cousin.

I take a closer look at the lives of these four children. The eldest of them had married a religious Jew, and the whole family followed the most extreme rituals. The second child was a Jew who practiced religion just like his parents: he was flexible, followed the Sabbath every now and then, and went to the temple. The two youngest children were atheists with Catholic associates. One of them had a son, and because of religion, his religious cousins ​​could not communicate.

This haunted the parents as some couples chose not to attend family reunions. They could not understand the attitude of their daughter and son-in-law. How can piety and religious ties be stronger than their blood ties? They felt tremendous guilt about their upbringing and wondered what they had done wrong.

They had to learn a lot about religion to understand how powerful this commitment can be. But the main reason for the therapy was, above all, the reshaping of their guilt. Among other things, I explained to them that they were good parents; they were loving and cared about the well-being of their children, so much so that it brought them into therapy.

I emphatically assured them that they had raised their children, giving them freedom of choice at all levels: ideologically, socially, politically, and religiously. Parents never forced their children to follow one particular pattern. On the contrary, they all had complete freedom to choose what they themselves believed.

What happened to the family is a direct consequence of the children being raised, giving them so much freedom, and this risk must be taken into account. But if parents want nothing more than freedom for their children to choose, this risk is, of course, welcome. Therefore, I congratulated them because they had been loving and responsible parents.

They left the therapy session confused but without guilt. At the next session, they looked happier and planned to hold a family party. This reclassification caused a change of category in the same matters, as a result of which their other activities also changed. This is a neuroplastic change: a change in category signifies the realization of another synaptic chain.

Q # 5: So does this mean that the change that has taken place through therapy is related to neuroplasticity in some way? How?

Of course. When therapy is right for the patient, the ability to change meanings creates an alternative neural network to replace the automatic and systematized one.

The formula, style and manner in which therapy is given affects this. Detecting the pathways that the patient uses the most (whether they are related to the sense of sight, touch, sense of smell, hearing, etc.) allows the Therapist to speak the patient’s language and the therapy is most effective.

Q # 6: Does building reality, that is, working on a person’s cognitions, have anything to do with neuroplasticity?

When we talk about rebuilding meanings, we are referring to making the categories related to different things more flexible. For this reason, whenever a change occurs at the cognitive level, changes are expected at the level of emotions and actions. This is how an alternative reality is built to replace the old.

As we shape our neural networks, neuroplasticity increases further and we practice our creative or real hemisphere. In this way, we are able to come up with more alternative solutions to our problems and adapt better to understand other people’s perspectives, meaning basically we become more empathetic and learn to construct several different perspectives on things easily.

Q # 7: Is there a link between epigenetics and neuroplasticity?

Epigenetics is a branch of biology that studies causal interactions between genes and gene products that give rise to phenotypes. In this regard, it should be borne in mind that what we see is not a human genotype, but a phenotype that results from an equation between genotype and context.

Even today, there is no consensus on the extent to which the environment shapes us. Epigenetics emerged as a bridge between hereditary factors and environmental influences. The most common definition of the term “epigenetics” is the study of inherited changes in the function of genes that occur without changes in DNA sequences.

It must be borne in mind that stress affects the immune system and is a key factor in all diseases from the flu to cancer. Why do two people react so differently in the same situation; when one gets sick or symptomatic, the other might stay completely healthy?

The difference lies in each person’s DNA. Stress activates silent genes, which are thus activated only during chaotic situations. This is the case for twins that have a cancer gene in their DNA: one dies of terminal cancer at age 30, while the other dies naturally at age 90. What are the differences between them?

Lifestyles, negative emotions, environmental factors, habits, smoking, diet, stress, and very emotional situations can greatly affect genes. But the process by which elevated cortisol due to stress causes methylation or acetylation of histones that activate genes is still unknown.

It could be said that neuroplasticity is an anti-stress factor, as a more flexible attitude, empathy, and smoother construction of solutions make life easier.

As can be seen from this, increasing neuroplasticity is possible. Practicing new cognitive pathways and alternative paths is not the only way to do it; therapy is also one option. The conversation with Marcelo Ceberio was a great lesson.