Memories represent a means through which we bring to bear past experience on current processing in order to respond adaptively and predict the future. One process that reflects this utility is reconsolidation. When memories are retrieved, they sometimes return into a labile state so that they can be updated and consolidated anew. This represents a potential therapeutic window for illnesses in which memory processing has gone awry; that is, it might be possible to render memories labile and excise the aberrant and maladaptive. In this chapter, we discuss this opportunity with regard to serious mental illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosis, and drug addiction. Although the preclinical data are promising, that preclinical potential has yet to be realized. We discuss some of the ethical implications of memory erasure as well as some of the practical impediments to this approach.