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In “Problems Applying Neuroscientific Research to the Clinical Setting,” Richard Tuch challenges the idea that neuroscientific findings on memory reconsolidation, the process by which memories can become fragile upon retrieval (Alberini 2011; Nader and Einarsson 2010), might be useful or even correctly interpreted in psychoanalysis and, in general, in the context of psychotherapeutic applications. He expresses “concern about a tendency to accept neuroscientific findings without rigorously studying the methods used to arrive at the conclusions reached and to rush to find ways of applying such findings to the clinical setting. There are clear tendencies on the part of some to uncritically rely on neuroscientific studies to explain more than they reasonably can” (p. 314). Regarding memory reconsolidation as a target method for disrupting recalled memories, Tuch then raises two specific and important critiques: (1) he questions whether research conducted for the most part using a single learning exposure to a threatening condition in an animal model (or even in humans) is relevant to complex individual human experience resulting from cumulative trauma; (2) he notes that in some cases reconsolidation shows temporal limits, with recent but not remote memories being changeable.
He notes also that “analysts typically treat patients suffering from older, well-consolidated memories that have been laid down and reinforced over time—not at all the sort of experiences these researchers were dealing with in the laboratory. It is possible that reconsolidation may end up playing an important role in the treatment of patients presenting posttraumatic conditions, but it seems unlikely that reconsolidation has much to do with the sorts of long-term emotional memories that plague our patients’ lives” (p. 313).