Before exploring the clinical implications of brain systems and processes described in previous chapters it is worthwhile to summarize the ideas that have been presented thus far and organize these ideas within a framework that can guide conceptualization and intuition. Such an organizational framework can support a concrete and somewhat simplified view of brain functioning that can facilitate the application of neuroscience knowledge to psychotherapy intervention.

Information can be viewed as entering the brain through any of a number of sensory avenues to be integrated in multiple parallel centers, recombined in novel ways, and expressed through a variety of output pathways. Paths of influence within the brain flow from lower arousal mechanisms, up to mid-brain affect and integration systems, then to the higher cortex, and back again, in a continuous reciprocal flow. Connections can be direct as well as mediated by intervening connections as information flows up and down the brain. Each thought, experience, or action can be conceived as based on an underlying neural network composed of neurons from disparate parts of the brain, and each network can be understood to have connections with other networks through the sharing of neurons that compose each network. Implicit, procedural memory processes support emotional and non-emotional learning within and outside the awareness of the individual, while explicit, declarative memory systems relying on the hippocampus and associated frontal cortex systems support complex integration and rapid analysis of information in the brain.