Winning the emotional war on terror.

• Author: Mellin, Laurel
• Position: Paris Massacres

In the aftermath of the shock and horror of the collapse of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. declared a "war on terror" by launching a military offensive and increasing security at home. In response to the carnage in Paris, French Pres. Francois Hollande vowed a "ruthless response" and followed with warplanes pounding ISIS targets in Syria. The point of barbaric, surprise attacks on innocent civilians, however, is not just to kill people; it is to terrify the living. The most effective weapons impact the mind, as terror can spread quickly from one brain to the next, creating a collective resonance of fear that corrupts good judgment, erodes health, and steals our sense of security. As of now, we are losing the emotional war on terror.

The odds of being killed by a terrorist is one in 20,000,000, yet a Pew Research Center Report shows that this concern remains a top priority among Americans.

In times of great stress, the thinking, neocortical bran--our "smartest self"--relinquishes its authority to the extremes of the primitive, reptilian brain. When our brain perceives a threat to our survival, be it real or imagined, we simply fight, flee, or freeze.

Psychotherapy, medications, and self-help strategies no longer seem to be enough. The American Psychological Association's recommendations of talking about feelings, maintaining usual routines, thinking positive thoughts, and limiting exposure to media coverage can help us cope to a degree, but terror is an internal problem that needs an internal solution.

What if we wiped the slate clean, and applied a neuroscience perspective to the war on terror? That question is what informed and inspired Emotional Brain Training (EBT). The stimulus that your brain received by the image of people scattering out of the Bataclan Theatre and lying dead on the pavement is encoded in the most primitive area of your emotional brain, the one tucked underneath your thinking mind. It is a string of neurons that linked together and were overremembered by the brain-locked in and protected from erasure because the brain believes that, since you did not die in the attack, this memory is valuable to your survival.

Once encoded, even normal daily events, emotions, thoughts, sensations, and behaviors can reactivate that memory, and we can feel terror for no conscious reason. With each activation, that circuit becomes stronger and more easily reactivated in response to a new stimulus. Moreover, terror circuits...