**2.2 The role of memories and emotions in generating anxiety**

In the 1890s Sigmund Freud observed that memories of negative experiences or events could be changed over time having a new meaning. In conducting his analysis of patients both during and after treatment, he found that subjective memory of events could be re-transcribed years after they had occurred. To be changed however, he argued that memories had to be consciously perceived and those memories in the unconscious mind should be relived rather than just remembered [17].

Research into the phenomenology of memory found that when meaningful material is encoded, associated information such as thoughts and feelings are also encoded; this allows activation of the recollection process which leads to a 'remember' response. This triggers an interaction of latent patterns of negative thoughts, emotions and behaviours, causing both psychological and physiological symptoms [18]. Further research has shown that new experiences are assimilated into existing memory networks, and that pathology results when unprocessed experiences are stored in their own neural network, unable to link up with anything more adaptive. Recall invokes content and affect, and the implicit thoughts and feelings, although no longer in conscious awareness, will impact on present day experiences [19]. In fact it is argued that cognitive disorders can be thought of as mal-connections between the various synaptic regions of the brain, and that maladaptive experiences or memories disassemble the connections; however these can be reassembled by positive experiences that bring about change [20].

Implicit processes, sometimes referred to as automated processes, produce an automatic response [21]. This has important implications for the recall of implicit memory and emotions and for the effectiveness of CH and EMDR. Both therapies focus on these processes and are specifically designed to desensitise and reprocess dysfunctional cognitions and memories, giving the individual the opportunity to revisit and change the maladaptive memory from a safe environment [5].
