Update the Brain's Prediction

Rewriting Old Emotional Learning

For psychotherapist and author Brian DesRoches (Living a Trigger-Free Life), understanding human behaviour means understanding how the brain learns. For decades, psychology assumed that emotional memories (especially the ones formed in childhood) were essentially permanent. We could manage the symptoms they created, but the underlying triggers would always remain.

Modern neuroscience now tells a different story. Through a process called memory reconsolidation, the brain can actually update emotional learning when new experiences contradict what it previously predicted. That means many patterns we struggle with such as anxiety, avoidance, self-criticism, people-pleasing, may not be personality traits at all. They may simply be old predictions the brain is still running.

“The brain is always predicting. When new information contradicts what it expects, the brain recognises the mismatch and updates itself.”
— Brian DesRoches, ADHDifference

For ADHD adults who have internalised years of criticism, misunderstanding, or feeling “too much” or “not enough”, this idea can be powerful because if the brain learned those patterns… it can also learn something new.

Why It Works

Much of the brain’s emotional learning happens through implicit memory. Implicit memories are learnings we don’t consciously remember acquiring, but which still guide our behaviour.

Think about learning to use a fork. You probably can’t remember the moment someone taught you how to hold it or guide food to your mouth. Yet today you do it automatically. Your brain simply knows how.

Emotional patterns work the same way. If a child repeatedly experiences criticism, embarrassment, or rejection, the brain may quietly learn predictions like: speaking up leads to humiliation, attention leads to rejection, making mistakes leads to shame. Years later, when similar situations appear (a meeting, a relationship, a new opportunity) the brain activates anxiety to protect you.

Many ADHD adults experience this as having one foot on the gas and one on the brake. Part of you wants to act. Another part of the brain is predicting danger.

Trying harder rarely solves this because the behaviour is driven by old emotional learning, not lack of effort. When the brain encounters evidence that contradicts its prediction, however, something remarkable can happen: it begins to update the memory.

When to Use It

This strategy can be helpful when you notice yourself:

hesitating to speak up despite having ideas
avoiding opportunities you actually want
feeling like you’re “holding yourself back”
experiencing anxiety that doesn’t match the situation
repeating the same self-criticism or self-doubt

These moments often signal that the brain is running an old prediction about what might happen – yes, and old prediction that may no longer be true.

How to Practice It

Notice the Pattern
Pay attention to moments where you feel the internal gas-and-brake effect — wanting to move forward but feeling anxious or blocked. This is often the brain predicting a threat.
Identify the Prediction
Ask yourself: What does my brain think will happen here? Examples might include: “People will think I’m stupid.” “I’ll embarrass myself.” “I’ll be rejected.” Often these predictions formed years earlier.
Look for Contradictory Evidence
Memory reconsolidation happens when the brain encounters a mismatch between prediction and reality. Examples might include: You speak up and people listen. You accept a compliment and nothing bad happens. You share an idea and it’s welcomed. Each of these experiences gives the brain new information.
Let the Brain Update
When the brain recognises the mismatch between expectation and reality, it begins to revise the old learning. Over time the trigger weakens and the behaviour becomes easier, not because you forced it — but because your brain learned something new.
Repeat the Experience
The more the brain experiences safe contradictions to its old prediction, the stronger the update becomes. Gradually, the brake lifts. And, gradually the implicit memory is replaced by an updated truth.

The Science Behind It

Research over the past two decades shows that reactivated memories can temporarily become unstable and open to modification before being stored again — a process known as memory reconsolidation.¹

During this window, new information can be integrated into the original memory, allowing emotional responses to be updated rather than simply suppressed.²

Neuroscience studies suggest that when a memory is retrieved and a prediction error occurs (meaning reality contradicts what the brain expected) the brain can revise the stored learning and reconsolidate it with new meaning.³

This dynamic view of memory challenges the long-held belief that emotional memories are permanently fixed. Instead, the brain remains capable of updating its emotional learning throughout life.

💬 Final Thought

Many ADHD adults grow up believing their struggles are personal flaws but often what we’re seeing are simply old predictions the brain learned long ago. Predictions about rejection, failure, being “too much”.

The encouraging part? Predictions can change. Every time your brain experiences evidence that contradicts an old story, it has the opportunity to update the learning.

And sometimes the biggest shift isn’t forcing yourself to deal with the aftermath of an intrinsic memory, but to give your brain the chance to update that memory therefore reducing the trigger.

🎧 Listen to the full episode with Brian DesRoches (S2E47) here 🎧

REFERENCES

Nader, K. (2015). Reconsolidation and the Dynamic Nature of Memory
Osorio-Gomez, D., Miranda, M.I., Guzman-Ramos, K. & Bermudez-Rattoni. (2023). Transforming Experiences: Neurobiology of Memory Updating/Editing
Lane, R. D., Ryan, L., Nadel, L., & Greenberg, L. (2015). Memory Reconsolidation, Emotional Arousal, and the Process of Change in Psychotherapy: New Insights From Brain Science