Traumatic Memory Recovery

Another limitation that can appear when examining the memory of trauma is that trauma victims do not elicit the same response to trauma. Individuals who experience psychological trauma, physical trauma or both all remember the abuse differently. Many trauma victims may have repressed those memories or simply forget the explicit details about their traumatic experiences. Toth and Cicchetti (1998) argue that victims will elicit different responses of they are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and experience trauma on a single or multiple occurrence. Multiple experiences of trauma may give individuals a general memory of the abuse, however, it often overlooks and forget about the unique features of their traumatic experience.

Popular press and peer-reviewed articles differ in writing style, formatting, and content, given their different readerships. That is, popular press articles generally cater to the general public while peer-reviewed articles cater to academic scholars. This essay compares popular press and peer-reviewed articles to assess their differences, similarities, and potential uses. In pursuit of this assessment, this essay explores how the topic of trauma and memory is addressed in "Why Rape and Trauma Survivors Have Fragmented and Incomplete Memories," a popular press article from Time magazine and ""I Remember", "I Thought", I Know I Didn't Say": Silence and Memory in Trauma Narratives," a peer-reviewed journal from the academic journal Memory.

Prolonged exposure requires that the client repeatedly, in a systematic manner, relive the memories of the traumatic event over an extended period of time (Foa, Dancu, Hembree, Jaycox, Meadows, & Street, 1999; Foa & Rauch, 2004; Harvey, Bryant, & Tarrier, 2003). In prolonged exposure, the client is expected to (a) vividly call to mind the traumatic event, with as much detail as possible, (b) recount the memory of the traumatic event to the therapist in the present tense, and (c) have constant exposure to the memory until the distress decreases (McDonagh, McHugo, Sengupta, Demment, Schnurr, Friendman, Ford, Mueser, Fournier, & Descamps, 2005). The therapist’s role, in prolonged exposure, is to help the client identify “hot spots” or the most distressing aspect of the memory. The therapist and the client then develop a hierarchy of memories to address, from least to most distressing. These memories are addressed one at a time until habituation of anxiety to the memory occurs, which is determined by

Moreover, in the text, The Recovered Memory controversy- The New Perspective, by Gorman Graham, a hypothesis made by Graham, trauma is related with “self-preservation”. Meaning, that the term instinct. In 1920, it was believed that humans didn’t have instinct, only animals could. But five years late, it was found that humans have this characteristic too. The term is referred as “reptilian brain”. The reptilian brain warns organism of incoming events and information and help handle the body’s function necessary for survival. This means, it is possible that humans create repressed memories, to protect themselves of mental and possibly, physical harms. He also mentions that in modern psychology, the terms is highlight question. In his text, Graham (and other psychologists) questions the of appearance of the repress

Individuals can develop emotional, psychological and physical distress and injuries that result from experiencing a traumatic event. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can afflict individuals that have undergone severe traumatic stressors. PTSD is a disorder in which the memory of the traumatic event comes to dominate the victims’ consciousness, diminishing their lives of true meaning and pleasure (Van der Kolk, 2000). Trauma not only impacts an individual’s mind, but it can also significantly modify the way the brain processes future information (Swenson, 2012). For those with PTSD do not have a clear memory of the traumatic event they experienced. The traumatic memories lack the ability to recall the traumatic memory verbally. These memoirs can be displayed in flash back, bodily sensations, feelings, behaviors, and physiological reactions. PTSD symptoms include instructive recollections, avoidance of reminders or triggers, and a higher level of being in an aroused state.

According to the author “Therapist tend to believe their clients that they experienced childhood sexual abuse if they presented “symptomatology (low self-esteem, sexual dysfunction, self-destructive behavior), or body memories (voice frozen at young age, rash on body matching inflicted injury)” (Loftus, 1993). In the video, Divided Memories the author states that “Jane was under therapy for 6 years because she had grew up as a troubled young woman; after her mother confirmed the sexual abuse, Jane felt that everything make sense of all the things it didn’t make sense before” (Divided Memories).Researchers have created several experiments in order to determine the degree of memory construction. According to the author “the creation of a fake story among college students during childhood proved that only 75% of the students refused to remember the event (Matlin & Farmer, 2016, p. 184). In addition, clinical therapist claim that individuals who had recovered memories claim that always or in the majority of the times to feel uncomfortable (during adolescence or adulthood) around the individual who inflicted the sexual abuse.

The person may display efforts to avoid things or places that remind them of the event (APA, 2013).

It seems to be a very controversial topic with no accurate answer. After reading some materials online I believe that recovered memories of psychological trauma are valid and I concluded this by reading an article “How Traumatic Memories Hide in the Brain, And How to Retrieve Them” written by Marla Paul. The problem with a validity of the repressed memories arose many times and made some people think that the memories were false because they were not easy to access this is why they considered not being true. The Northwestern Medicine scientists explain that “in response to traumatic stress, some individuals, instead of activating the glutamate system to store memories, activate the extra-synaptic GABA system and form inaccessible traumatic

The fascination that exists with the human psyche and the effects of trauma can be observed in popular culture today. Show’s like NCIS and other crime shows satisfy our desire for that kind of information. Personally, I am not very a big fan of those shows because they tend to contain erroneous information. Sometimes it teaches people to look for some sort of cue which triggers a certain reaction, like they had seen in the show. Similarly, Sheri Storm’s psychiatrist Kenneth Olson, acting like the crime shows, planted false memories in her mind and misdiagnosed her with multiple personality disorder. I am appalled by many different things in this article. The widespread use of recovered-memory therapy that negatively impacted the lives of many women in particular is still used in practice today! Granted that it seems as if some psychotherapists took the liberty to use their powers to literally hurt their patients and maybe not all of them were like that. Kenneth Olson in particular did evils that no one should ever have to go through. Planting false memories of infanticide, abuse, and satanic rituals among other things in a person in a state of high suggestibility is not and could never be a way to improve someone’s condition.

To Erdelyi, the key point to observe is that cognition is a constructive feat, wherein small bits of information are committed from and elaborated upon in order to form our subjective reality. This process allows us to make sense of our experiences, intellectually and emotionally, by adding to and subtracting from the objective framework (Erdelyi, 2006). From the defensive strategy described by Freud, to the process of forgetting due to thoughtful avoidance proposed by Ebbinghaus, to the clinical accounts increasingly reported by experienced psychotherapists, Erdelyi surveys the arguments in defense of recovered memories and obtains a fairly comprehensive theory. Although I find Erdelyi’s definition of repression, which includes the conscious suppression of unpleasant memories, too broad, his theory incorporating scientific explanations and clinical evidence will provide a useful structure for this

The objective here is to use anchoring to reduce or change the impact of a memory. A typical choice of memory would be a traumatic memory that has left an upsetting emotional memory and imprint.

If we had an option to wipe out our memory, would we choose to forget about the events that involved actual or threatened death, serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of ourselves or others? For soldiers, it may be losing a close comrade in a war. For me or any other ordinary individuals, they may be natural or human-made disasters, violent personal attack, torture or even sexually abuse(Parekh). The truth is, we don’t want to be reminded of any of these terrible events that took away a small portion of our lives.

The focus is on rupturing the mythologies of memory, so that the patient can reorder and thereby renegotiate the trauma. This process allows the traumatised individual to move through the trauma with purpose, considering all aspects of the situation.’ (Beckett, 1000; 11)

Sexual abuse is one of the most traumatic events in the life female victims. However, some female victims posttraumatic growth zinc the underlying factors in their posttraumatic growth have never been examined. The aim of this study to conduct a systematic review of the relationship between the big five personality traits and the post-trauma growth (PTG).

The article I found most intriguing was titled “Prospective Memory Functioning in people with and Without Brain Injury.” In this experiment, experimenters conducted a group study and wanted to compare how effective prospective memory was with participants with brain injuries and without brain injuries. There were 36 participants, (26 male and 10 female) with brain injuries and 28 without. The 28 participants were the controlled group and the 36 participants were the experimental group. Some of the conditions that the participants that had brain injuries were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries, CVA, Korsakoff's syndrome, cerebral tumor and meningitis. To assess prospective memory researchers used an expanded form of CBPMT (Cambridge Behavior