Contributions of neurosciences to the understanding of the humanistic psychotherapeutic experience

Abstract

Neuroscience’s knowledge offers the possibility of understanding the proposals of the humanistic psychotherapy from the perspective of the brain activity. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the neuropsychological processes that are activated along a session of psychotherapy and its effects on welfare. On the basis of contributions from authors recognized as Cozolino (2006, 2010), Siegel (2010, 2015) and Grawe (2007), we have studied the main neural correlates promoted through five classic proposals of a humanistic psychotherapy session: to) the experience of therapeutic relationship following Rogers (1951/1981; 1961/2000); b) the indication of directing attention on the here and now; (c) the indication of not judging the experience or to one same; d) the proposal to experience in the here and now situations that need to be integrated, which implies a state of optimal stress; e) the process of puting words to the therapeutic experience, i.e. of verbalizing. Each one of these instructions promotes a brain activity that modifies the connections in and between various neural networks, mainly those located in the amygdala, insula, anterior cingulate cortex and orbitomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The study of the neural processes generated from psychotherapeutic interactions is a source of information of great interest for the development of psychotherapeutic knowledge.