Seven years on, when Bell catches the perfume that person used to wear, the day she was left crying alone in a café returns as clearly as if it were yesterday.

It is not merely an old image surfacing. It is the whole feeling — the shame, the hurt, the numbness, her face flushing hot of its own accord — although the event ended long ago and she has lived well since. That memory simply refuses to fade the way others do. The story of that day seems frozen with every emotion still attached, waiting for something to nudge it into playing again. Bell had concluded that this memory would be with her for life, because the past cannot be edited.

What lies behind pain returning like this when something triggers it involves memory reconsolidation — the process by which a memory that has been recalled is stabilized again. Memory reconsolidation is one of the most exciting subjects in the neuroscience of memory, with firm evidence in animal studies, but its application to human beings remains a developing area with mixed results. Importantly, it does not mean we can delete or overwrite a memory on demand.

In short: memory reconsolidation is the process by which a recalled memory may, under certain conditions, return temporarily to an unstable state before being stabilized again. During that period the memory, or the responses associated with it, may be modified. But the process does not occur every time we remember something, and it does not allow us to delete, overwrite or control the details of a memory at will.

What memory reconsolidation is

Scientists once believed that once a memory had been stored stably — having completed the process known as consolidation — it was relatively fixed and permanent in the brain. Animal research in the early 2000s reopened the question, finding that when a memory is retrieved or prompted into awareness, it may return temporarily to a state that is sensitive and open to change before being stored again.

Put simply, recalling a memory is not merely opening a still image that sits like a painting. It may be the moment that memory is taken out and has an opportunity to be adjusted before it is put back. This is why the idea is exciting: it proposes that memory may not be as fixed as we believed, and that under the right conditions there may be a period in which it can be modified.

But the point to emphasize is that the process does not mean we can edit or delete the content of an event whenever we choose. In psychological care, the more reasonable goal is to help an old memory stop summoning an emotional and physical response with quite the same force, or to help a person hold a more flexible meaning and response toward it — without claiming to change the facts of the past. Bell will not forget being left in that café. But the pain that surges each time she remembers may be the part that can gradually change.

How much can a memory genuinely be modified?

The firmest research on memory reconsolidation comes from animal experiments, where conditions are controlled in fine detail. In humans there is interesting work of two kinds: using new learning to modify an old memory during the period it has been activated, and using certain medications to reduce a memory’s emotional weight. But the human findings remain mixed — some studies replicate, others do not — and there is no conclusion clear enough to be applied as a formula.

Importantly, the process has several conditions that must align: the age and strength of the memory, the timing, and the need for something new or unexpected to occur at the moment of recall, which researchers often call prediction error. Simply remembering something does not necessarily open the door to modification. And although people speak of a reconsolidation window, it is not a window that opens simply because we want it to, nor one with a single fixed duration applying to every memory. To say “just think about the memory and you can reset it” is a shortcut the evidence does not support. The more careful truth is that memory is more flexible than we once believed — but not so pliable that it can be edited at will.

Reconsolidation is like a file that may open for editing

Think of a document saved on your computer. As long as the file remains closed, it sits there unchanged. When you open it under certain conditions, the system may permit editing before it is saved again. But often a file opens read-only, and nothing can be altered. Memory is similar in that retrieval does not place it in a changeable state every time. That happens only when several conditions align.

There are limits worth being clear about. First, we are not editing the facts of what happened, and we should not attempt to. What may be adjusted is more like the notes or highlights attached to the file — the emotional weight and the meaning we give the event, rather than the content of what occurred. Second, as noted, the file is not opened in an editable mode every time; often we simply read it and close it again, changing nothing.

A caution: memory is not a perfect recording

That memory can be modified does not have only an upside. It also means our memories are not a complete and wholly reliable record of events.

Each time we tell or recall an old story, we may add details, reinterpret, or blend in information acquired later without realizing it. This is why false memory genuinely occurs: people can remember events that never happened, or remember details incorrectly, with complete confidence. That said, not every change or error in memory need arise from reconsolidation alone, because retrieval, interpretation and later information can alter details through other processes too.

Understanding this matters, because it is a reminder that the goal of working with traumatic or painful memory should not be to “dig up” a forgotten truth or to establish the details of the past accurately — since the very act of looking back may distort. It should be to care for our relationship with that memory in the present.

How hypnotherapy relates to memory reconsolidation

Hypnotherapy can support a client in attending to inner experience, imagery, feeling and old patterns of response, while practicing a different experience or response. This resembles, in part, the framework researchers use when discussing the modification of memory after retrieval.

As for hypnosis and memory: hypnosis does not make a memory more accurate or more vivid, and research indicates it may increase confidence in what we believe we remember without any corresponding increase in accuracy — particularly where leading questions, guesswork, or pressure to find details are involved. Hypnosis may increase the risk of distorted memory, or of confidence in details that are not correct. For this reason, using hypnosis to “dig up” or “recover” forgotten memory (recovered memory) is something that should not be done and cannot be relied upon. Responsible work with memory is therefore not an attempt to find or confirm the facts of the past, but care for the emotional weight and the meaning that memory still carries into the present — resting on the client’s safety above all, and still relying on consistent repetition as any other change does.

At NBRH we work on the principle of Neuro-Behavioral Repatterning & Hypnotherapy: adjusting the nervous system’s patterns of response, and behavior, systematically. The broad picture of memory research supports one thing in particular: the relationship we have with a memory, and the responses triggered alongside it, need not remain the same forever. Our work does not aim to erase the past, to unearth hidden memories, or to change the facts of what happened. It helps a client gradually build new meaning and new patterns of response, so that the past holds less power over the present.

The same capacity for revision underlies memory itself — “What Neuroplasticity Is” explains it more fully.

What Memory Reconsolidation Is: Why an Old Memory Still Hurts, and How Much Can Genuinely Change