Without a doubt, the Integrative Memory Model (IMM) offered by Lane et al. constitutes a parsimonious and elegant framework in which to understand the affective and cognitive processes underlying therapeutic success. Moreover, if we consider the therapeutic session a suitable context for reactivating injurious memory traces and modifying them into healthier ones after reconsolidation, then we have a strong foundation on which to build successful strategies for therapeutic intervention. The next task for researchers and therapists is to identify the cognitive processes that are more likely to generate successful and beneficial modifications of reactivated memories during therapy. In this commentary we want to put forth the hypothesis that exercising emotional regulation during episodic counterfactual thinking is likely to be a successful therapeutic strategy to bring about beneficial memory modifications.

Episodic counterfactual thinking (ECT) refers to our psychological tendency to mentally simulate alternative ways in which past personal events could have occurred but did not (De Brigard & Giovanello Reference De Brigard and Giovanello2012; De Brigard et al. Reference De Brigard, Addis, Ford, Schacter and Giovanello2013a). As such, ECT is a subclass of our more general capacity to entertain thoughts about ways in which both personal and nonpersonal events could have been (Roese Reference Roese1997). ECT is ubiquitous, and the past two decades have seen an explosion of research on its psychological mechanisms and effects on emotion and behavior. One consistent result is that engaging in counterfactual simulation amplifies emotions, which can be either negative, like the regret we feel when the counterfactual involves a better outcome than the one obtained (i.e., upward counterfactual), or positive, like the relief we feel when the counterfactual involves a worse outcome than the one obtained (i.e., downward counterfactual; Kahneman & Miller Reference Kahneman and Miller1986). Accordingly, it has been suggested that counterfactual thinking serves two different functions, depending on the direction of the mutation. Upward counterfactuals are said to serve a preparative function in anticipation to similar events that may occur in the future, whereas downward counterfactuals are said to serve an affective function that helps agents feel better about their experienced outcomes (Roese Reference Roese1994; Roese and Olson Reference Roese and Olson1995).

That view fails to account for the fact that sometimes we entertain upward counterfactuals about events that we know will not ever be repeated, however, as well as the fact that some downward counterfactuals elicit regret rather than relief. As a result, it was recently suggested that the function of counterfactual thoughts may differ depending on whether one focuses on comparing the simulated alternative against the actual event (evaluative mode) or simply on reflecting about the simulated alternative alone (reflective mode; Markman & McMullen Reference Markman and McMullen2003). Indeed, in an updated modified version of the functional view, Epstude and Roese (Reference Epstude and Roese2008) suggest that the content and the emotion associated with the simulation are two different routes by means of which counterfactual thoughts can affect subsequent behavior. If so, it is worth wondering how one's affective response to a mental simulation interacts with the representational content of the counterfactual thought – or, to put it in terms of IMM, how is it possible that the emotion associated with ECT can affect one's subsequent reappraisal of the experienced event?

Our hypothesis – which is entirely consistent with Lane et al.'s IMM – is that, ordinarily, one of the reasons we engage in ECT is to “edit” the episodic autobiographical memories from which counterfactual simulations are construed. As Lane et al. point out, many studies have shown that, upon reactivation, memories are labile and prone to modification during reconsolidation (Nadel et al. Reference Nadel, Hupbach, Gomez and Newman-Smith2012; Nader & Einarsson Reference Nader and Einarsson2010; Schiller & Phelps Reference Schiller and Phelps2011). Thus, because ECT requires the reactivation of a specific episodic autobiographical memory, we think it is likely that the experienced affect during reactivation, in addition to the direction of the mutation during counterfactual simulation, may alter the affective content of autobiographical memories upon subsequent reconsolidation.

Initial support for this hypothesis comes from a recent study showing that repeated reactivation of episodic counterfactuals of autobiographical memories decreases the subjective estimates of their perceived plausibility while increasing positive emotional valence (De Brigard et al. Reference De Brigard, Szpunar and Schacter2013b). In other words, the more we think about how a past event could have occurred, the less plausible it seems that such an event could have occurred as imagined, and the more positive our emotion is during the simulation. De Brigard et al. (Reference De Brigard, Szpunar and Schacter2013b) hypothesized that this reduction in perceived plausibility as a result of repeated simulation is an adaptive feature of counterfactual thinking, as it helps to disregard events that did not occur to reduce our need to keep pondering about them. It seems as though ECT help us to come to grips with the past.

Now, when considered against the IMM, this result may actually be a manifestation of a more general effect. Ordinary instances of episodic counterfactual thoughts propitiate the healthy and often unassisted modification of an autobiographical memory trace by altering the original content and emotion associated with the past experience. The original content and emotion become new and better ones, elicited during the counterfactual simulation, a process that, for lack of a better pun, could be dubbed “memory mollification.” Sadly, though, individuals suffering from anxiety and depression do not experience such relief (Nolen-Hoeksema Reference Nolen-Hoeksema2000). In fact, their propensity to ruminate on negative thoughts associated with past events and to repetitively fixate on regret-provoking counterfactuals is not only a critical predictor (Roese et al. Reference Roese, Epstude, Fessel, Morrison, Smallman and Summerville2009), but also a debilitating component of both anxiety (Harrington & Blankenship Reference Harrington and Blankenship2002) and depression (Spasojevic & Alloy Reference Spasojevic and Alloy2001; Thomsen Reference Thomsen2006). This suggests that, at least in individuals suffering from these conditions, ECT fails to mollify their reactivated memories.

Given that ECT is theoretically well-situated to enact therapeutic change, further research is needed to fully understand how the affective attitude, as well as the direction of the mutation during counterfactual simulations, can affect the phenomenological characteristics of the autobiographical memory from which they are derived. Nonetheless, we hope to have offered good reason to believe that episodic counterfactual simulations may be particularly effective in bringing about the kinds of memory modifications (and mollifications) suggested by the IMM.