A new way to work with emotional trauma based on contextual therapy is the philosophical current of functional contextualism. This method helps to release emotional blocks and emphasizes the patient’s verbal behavior and the values ​​he possesses. That is, what the patient says to himself and others directly affects his behavior and daily activities. Contextual Memory is the ability to remember and separate a real source of information from a specific memory. This memory can include time, place, people, emotions, as well as any other context associated with it. For the revocation of contextual memory, recall in a context similar to that of coding and storage seems very useful.

The typical function of contextual memory is precisely that of providing mnemic material for a recollection which can also take place long after the recording of the event, and not through direct recollection of the same, but through exposure to the circumstantial peculiarities that occurred. The retrieval of contextual memory, at the brain level, occurs through the interaction of a process in which the hippocampus, the pre-frontal cortex, and the amygdala are involved, the most important activity would be performed by the ventral-anterior hippocampus. A protein has been identified that seems able to help the brain in the formation of memories intended to last over time and which are formed after having lived a particular experience, its name is Npas4. Very recent neuroimaging studies have validated the existence of a specific part of the brain which, rather than being identified with the more generic mnemonic function linked to the functioning of the hippocampus, seems more closely related to the recall of specific contextual episodes.