Effects Of Trauma On Our Memory Essay

Recalling painful memories makes us mentally stronger in a way. If one could go through such terrible hardships, then it would be easier to endure other obstacles. Take Elie Wiesel for example, a survivor of one of the most devastating period of history, the Holocaust. During the World War ll, the Jewish population were prosecuted by the Nazis because of their beliefs.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, exactly at 9:22 a.m., I woke up to start my day and turned my television on. Instantly, Fox News had reported that a commercial plane had smashed into the Twin Towers of New York City, just minutes earlier. While the story was certainly shocking, I wanted to know more and watched the horrific aftermath unfold, as it continued to happen. I remember an incredible feeling of sadness that I could do nothing to help the people in these buildings, as well as a great concern that more attempts could be made to create further tragedy elsewhere.

Memory is defined as “The faculty of the mind by which it retains the knowledge of previous thoughts, impressions, or events.” Memories are units of information that have impacted one’s life and are stored in the brain for years. In some cases, dramatic events may not let the brain register every single detail about a situation. This is much like Anton’s case of the winter of 1945 of the novel The Assault by Harry Mulisch. The events of that winter affected him like no other would. The loss of his mother, father and brother and the burning of his house left an impact on him but the events were so grave his brain did not allow him to remember the smaller

A child who is under the age of puberty is lacking the chemicals in the brain to see the whole picture and make decisions so the wounds that happen in childhood, a time during which the child does not have the capacity to understand, trigger responses not based on the whole picture of the event just happened, it is based on the adrenaline of the events and the relationship of the current event to previous events and trauma stored in the brain. Once a child is traumatized, the child will be more vulnerable to perceiving future events as trauma. In the bible Paul says, “We are not to cast down arguments or strongholds and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring every thought into captivity and to the obedience

Memory is a set of cognitive processes that allow us to remember past information (retrospective memory) and future obligations (prospective memory) so we can navigate our lives. The strength of our memory can be influenced by the connections we make through different cognitive faculties as well as by the amount of time we spend devoting to learning specific material across different points in time. New memories are created every time we remember specific event, which results in retrospective memories changing over time. Memory recall can be affected retrospectively such as seeing increased recall in the presence of contextual cues or false recall of information following leading questions. Memory also includes the process

The need for understanding the phenomenon of repressed memories is also very important from a legal standpoint. In recent years there has been numerous cases of people suing their parents or other authority figures for abuse that has been recalled many years after the abuse was said to have occurred. The rulings in these cases have often been controversial considering there is often not enough concrete or collaborative evidence to prove the accused to be guilty or innocent. The judge and jury are often forced to make a ruling that relies heavily on the testimonial of the accuser. This is very contentious considering there is not an accurate and reliable test to determine the validity of the accuser.

Childhood is a time for playdates and learning, a time for big dreams and imaginary adventures. Safety and security should not be questions that linger in uncertainty. However, this is not the case for many children across the globe. Thousands of children from all walks of life each day are faced with unspeakable horror and must deal with the resulting trauma from then on. However, in children, managing this trauma takes a different toll on the mind and heart than it does in adults. While the type of trauma may vary in pervasiveness across countries, trauma occurring in childhood has the ability to cause long term damage to the growing neurological functioning in the brain and negatively influence children’s spiritual development, wounding

Do you think an experience can be so traumatizing that the brain pushes it into an inaccessible corner of the unconscious to later recall it years later? This concept on the mind is expressed as repressed memories. These are types of memories that are blocked unconsciously due to the high levels of stress experienced during the event. This theory on memories are based on the idea that even though the memory is repressed it is still affecting the individual in their conscious aspects of life. Repressed memories are often associated with childhood sexual abuse. This relies on the idea that these memories of sexual abuse can be brought up either in therapy or by the victim themselves years after the abuse. The concept of repressed memories has been a huge controversy in psychology from the beginning of time. Many people believe that repressed memories in regards to childhood sexual abuse are possible while others believe they can’t be as accurate as some people believe.

PTSD is not easily treated. Sometimes people can not only suffer mentally but have physical impairments from the event as well. This can make it hard for them to obtain the treatment they need. A combination of medications and psychotherapy is usually recommended and is the most effect form of treatment for PTSD. The earlier a person seeks treatment for this disorder the better the outcome will be. The medications are used to help people cope with their emotions while the psychotherapy will help

In everyone’s life there is a moment that is so dreadful and horrific that it is best to try to push it further and further back into your mind. When traumatized by death for example it is very natural to shut off the memory in order to self-defense suppresses the awful emotional experience. Very often it is thoughtful that this neglecting and abandoning is the best way to forget. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, memory is depicted as a dangerous and deliberating faculty of human consciousness. In this novel Sethe endures the oppression of self imposed prison of memory by revising the past and death of her daughter Beloved, her mother and Baby Suggs. In Louise Erdrich’s

The Possible Effects of Post Traumatic Stress Post traumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder associated with serious traumatic events and characterized by such symptoms as survivor guilt, reliving the trauma in dreams, numbness and lack of involvement with reality, or recurrent thoughts and images. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can develop at any age, including in childhood. Symptoms typically begin within 3 months of a traumatic event, although occasionally they do not begin until years later. Once PTSD occurs, the severity and duration of the illness varies. Some people recover within 6 months, while others suffer much longer.

A fundamental aspect of human memory is that the more time elapsed since an event, the fainter the memory becomes. This has been shown to be true on a relatively linear scale with the exception of our first three to four years of life (Fitzgerald, 1991). It is even common for adults not to have any memory before the age of six or seven. The absence of memory in these first years has sparked much interest as to how and why it happens. Ever since Freud (1916/1963) first popularized the phenomenon there have been many questions and few robust empirical studies. Childhood amnesia is defined as the period of life from which no events are remembered (Usher & Neisser, 1993) beginning at birth and ending at the onset of your

Trauma occurs when a child has experienced an event that threatens or causes harm to her emotional and physical well-being. Events can include war, terrorism, natural disasters, but the most common and harmful to a child’s psychosocial well-being are those such as domestic violence, neglect, physical and sexual abuse, maltreatment, and witnessing a traumatic event. While some children may experience a traumatic event and go on to develop normally, many children have long lasting implications into adulthood.

Regardless of how a child acts towards their parents, all that matters in the end is their unconditional love for them. However, the time it takes for them to express their gratitude will depend on each child. In the novel The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri demonstrates this, describing the life of a young boy named Gogol and his continually progressing relationship with his mother. It demonstrates that a child is unable to view his or her parents as a human being until the parent figure experiences a traumatic event that allows the child to empathize with their parents.

The two main emotional factors that influence memory and forgetting are flashbulb and repression. A flashbulb memory is a memory that has a high emotional significance they are accurate and long lasting. It is almost a photographic memory of a particularly emotional event that is imprinted on your mind. For example an event such as September the 11th, people can remember things such as how they heard it happened, what clothes they were wearing and who they were with very clearly. This is because it was such a sudden emotional impact when they heard it that it got imprinted in their memory. Repression is an emotional factor in forgetting. It is that we forget because we have great anxiety about certain memories. This is because certain