It is
obvious that some people repeat over and over very unpleasant memories that
continue to upset them for years. They become preoccupied with a bad
experience. All kinds of distressing events are remembered--how they were
abused, mistreated or unloved as a child; how someone insulted, assaulted,
criticized or dumped them; how they themselves did something very wrong; how
meaningless, useless and shameful they are; how life has screwed them over; how
they hate someone, some event, or some group, and so on. For a few unfortunate
people, the tenor of their entire life is determined by a seemingly
uncontrollable obsession with these awful memories or thoughts. Yet, other
people have had equally horrible experiences--war, abuse, deaths, sins--and put
the memories behind them; the bad memories are not forgotten but they are
avoided or seldom remembered and apparently can remain harmless.
The
belief-system that underlies the thinking of most psychotherapists and lay
persons since Freud, is that highly disturbing memories need to be expressed,
even if it means digging them out of the unconscious, usually in great and
excruciating detail. If unexpressed, according to this theory, these toxic,
partly repressed memories will seep out in the form of anxiety, various
psychological symptoms (OCD, panic reactions, addictions, depression...),
physiological disorders (impaired immune system, asthma, fatigue, pain...),
and/or in personality disorders (suspiciousness, passive-aggressiveness,
dependency, Borderline impulsiveness, social withdrawal...). The idea that bad
thoughts and feelings need to be expressed is certainly not a new idea.
On the
basis of this express-your-feelings theory, treatment is often directed towards
improving our memories of unpleasant events, e.g. using
psychoanalysis, insight therapy, non-directive therapy, TIR, journals,
autobiographies, hypnosis, and many other methods. These are not quick methods
but one can understand the rationale for uncovering the festering sore, detail
by detail, thus, aiding healing presumably by sharing with someone,
understanding, and thinking though life's trauma.
There
are many life histories taken during therapy that support the notion that fully
or partly repressed memories, often terrible abuse, are indeed associated with
a wide variety of long-term psychiatric disorders and difficulties relating
with others and with one's self. Actually, the data is very clear that abused
children, regardless of whether they forget or have crystal clear memories of
the trauma 22222k106w tic events, suffer a wide variety of psychiatric disorders as adults.
It is not always true that bad memories per se lead to psychiatric problems.
Just because a bad memory is correlated with adult problems doesn't prove the
cause. But if the psychological turmoil as an adult isn't caused by remembered
or repressed experiences, then what are the causes? We don't really have other
explanations that quickly come to mind but there are certainly possible
additional explanations. For example, there is compelling evidence that
childhood abuse results in significant physiological changes in the brain and
nervous system (Teicher, 2000). It is possible that these trauma-induced
"brain alterations" could be responsible for many of the life
difficulties during adulthood--and, in that case, memories would only be the
initial causal factors. Another possible theory is that an individual's genetic
or physiological make up, such as a quick temper or depressive tendencies,
cause both the personality traits that contribute to childhood stress or
trauma and result in assorted psychiatric disorders as an adult, i.e. it isn't
the memories of a bad childhood that directly cause the adult problems, both
just arise from the same genetic causes.
So, in
summary, it seems that some people suffer miserably because they have repressed
and can't remember horrible life experiences and some other people
have miserable lives because they can't forget their awful
experiences--they are upset by constantly remembering bad memories. Misery can
certainly be caused in many ways. However, there are many people who cope with
life pretty well even though they can, when they want to, remember well their
terrible life experiences. And, there are probably happy, well-adjusted people
who have partly or totally repressed awful occurrences. Clearly, we
psychologists and psychiatrists know relatively little about these
happy-in-spite-of-bad-experiences phenomenon because these well adjusted people
are unlikely to seek treatment. So, how can we stop bad memories?
Relevant
to all this is some recent research about "Suppressing Unwanted Memories
by Executive Control." in Nature (March 15, 2001) by an
Isn't
it likely that many people have had... and remember... a bad experience, but
they just don't think much about it or it becomes an available memory that
seldom comes to mind?
Of
course, forgetting paired words, as in
There
is more discussion of the role of thoughts in determining our feelings in Faulty Perceptions.
As mentioned there, research has shown that persons who continued to suffer
intense prolonged stress following a serious trauma had many more intrusive
disturbing thoughts about their experiences than persons with the same
traumatic history but experienced less stress. So, is it good to try to forget
bad experiences--just put them out of your mind? Well, other well-known
research psychologists, e.g. Wegner (1989) and Pennebaker (1991), have reported
results different from the
A
recent 2002 news report by Dr. Judith Hosie (j.hosie@abdn.ac.uk) and Dr.Alan
Milne at the
Many
cognitive-behavioral researchers, seeing things more as
Dr.
Peretz Lavie, a sleep and trauma researcher at the Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology, doesn't believe in treating trauma survivors (Holocaust and war) by
having them recount or relive the trauma over and over. He advocates "leaving
the memories behind." He cites some evidence for his approach: better
adjusted survivors remember fewer of their dreams than poorly adjusted
survivors and control subjects do, suggesting repression of traumatic
experiences is healthy. Also, students in
There
are things about memory you should know. There is ample evidence, as mentioned
later, that memories are often inaccurate...parts are forgotten, parts are
added, memory segments from different times are all mixed up, memories are
simply distorted to meet our own emotional needs, parts are often changed to
make us look good and innocent, and so on. In short, memories can't be entirely
trusted, at least not to the extent that we should allow them, without
questioning and/or confirmation, to be used to make our lives miserable.
Memories may not reflect what actually happened... and certainly our
assumptions about other people's motives and intentions in our memories are
often wrong. Someone else being there and experiencing our "bad
experience" would perhaps have an entirely different reaction to it.
Given
the fallibility of our memories, if you are frequently bothered by thoughts and
memories of a bad time in your past (which makes you sad, mad, self-critical,
hopeless, guilty...), what should you do? We can't give a simple clear answer.
Therapists will provide, for a fee, their favorite method and confidently give
you an explanation of why it should work. Here is my advice (worth what you are
paying for it (:-). I suspect that all approaches are effective sometimes--with
certain people, with certain problems, and at certain times. Since researchers
haven't yet discovered the best method for specific conditions, I'd start
self-helping with the quickest, easiest approach, which is probably a simple
behavioral method. Check out Disrupt the Unwanted
Behavior, Method #10 in chapter 11. If this quick thought-stopping approach
doesn't seem appropriate or if it doesn't work for you, then move on to other
methods as needed:
(1)
I'd then try to "put the bad memory... scary experience, horrendous
injustice, deeply regretful, terrible loss, infuriating incident, embarrassing
moment... behind you." Try using
Note:
I am not implying that your should forgive the person
who has hurt you. I am not even suggesting here that you try to understand the
harmful situation through determinism. Those
may be good ideas, but here I'm simply suggesting trying to avoid the
unpleasant thoughts so you can possibly feel better and use your time more
profitably. Maybe you can gradually put the incident behind you. That's all.
Note
also: This bit of advice about "forgetting" assumes you no longer
need the energy aroused by vividly remembering the wrongs in the past in order
to build up the drive necessary to correct any still existing wrongs. As a
source of determination to change some situation, the upsetting thoughts may be
serving a good purpose (for a while, not forever).
(2) If
forgetting hasn't worked in a couple of weeks, then I'd try some other
cognitive methods to reduce the harmfulness of the repetitive or upsetting
thoughts. Rather than repeat myself, please refer to chapter 14 for many cognitive
methods. Also, much of chapter 6, while focusing on depression, discusses many
cognitive approaches to reducing sadness by increasing rationality--the basic
ideas underlying the change methods are the same, regardless of what emotions
are upsetting you.
Simply
learning more about the nature of memories can be a cognitive approach. For a
person suffering a serious wound based on memories he/she believes to be
totally accurate, just developing some doubt about the validity or completeness
of those memories might radically change their emotional impact. Contrary to
our usual assumption that our memories are accurate, scientific
studies have consistently found that memories are almost always inaccurate,
often in minor ways but sometimes in major, completely untrue ways. If you have
highly upsetting memories or assumptions about causes, it might be healthy to
question the accuracy of your memories. Daniel Schacter (2000) in The Seven
Sins of Memory provides well researched information about our highly fallible
and deceptive memories.
Here
is a glimpse of some more research findings: many parts of the actual
experiences are simply left out of our memories. At the same time, many totally
made-up details are added in our memories. These additions are often immediate
embellishments that "complete the story" or provide us with an
explanation--a "cause"--of what we saw. Our unique additions,
deletions, and distortions usually conform with our personal beliefs and, thus,
meet our emotional needs. Faulty memories come in many forms: believing
something + or - happened which didn't; believing that something did not happen
but it did; believing he/she did something + or - (even a horrible crime) but
they didn't; believing they did not do something + or - but they did.
Additional studies demonstrate that false memories can be created rather easily
(Pickrell & Loftus, 2001). Moreover, parts of memories can be easily
changed by suggestive questions, by being told what other people have done, by
just being told to "think about it," and by previous or subsequent
events.
In
general, very negative memories stay with us longer than pleasant memories--the
exception to this is that personally embarrassing parts often fade away
quickly. In truth, we know relatively little about why some people remember
vividly some bad experiences but thoroughly forget others. It probably has to
do with emotional needs, pay offs, and personality. Little is also known (scientifically)
about how to accurately recover repressed memories. Likewise, we don't
know a lot about the wisdom and risks of repressing or recovering bad memories.
Therapists have their hunches but the science is limited.
Of
course, human memories are an amazing phenomena. But, at the same time, careful
study should convince us that memories are seldom if ever the total
truth--there are idiosyncratic distortions and omissions. For instance, there
are even cultural-family influences on memories--the childhood memories of
American and Chinese adults are very different focusing on different aspects of
their early lives. Our memories may be our most available and direct view of
the past but it could be healthy to recognize that we are seeing our past
through a murky, dark, wavy glass. The total picture is almost never available
to us.
It might
be helpful to find out if others who were there have the same memories. These
efforts to corroborate our memories often leads to discovering that others
familiar with your history have somewhat different interpretations or
impressions--different opinions. Sometimes the memories of others are quite
different from ours. In many situations, the consideration of other views could
be realistic and healthy. Even the reduction of our certainty of what happened
and why it happened might be useful in our search for insight and
understanding. See woundology
as an example of how people's reactions and social support can influence the
content of our memories.
(3)
Psychology has developed several ways to reduce the emotional responses
associated with a scary situation or object and when unpleasant memories or
thoughts come to mind. They include some self-help methods:
In
addition, some specialized therapy techniques have been developed in the last
decade or two to deal with the emotional reactions lasting long after a trauma.
Most have not, as yet, been translated into self-help methods, but that is
probably not far off. One of the more promising techniques is TIR, Traumatic Incident Reduction,
which utilizes aspects of exposure, desensitization, and non-directive
counseling. The client selects a specific traumatic incident that he/she wants
to handle better. The therapist simply asks the client to review,
without commenting, the event as though it were a videotape in his/her mind.
When the silent review is finished, the therapist just asks "what
happened?" and the rest of the session (which lasts as long as needed) is
devoted to allowing the client to describe the incident and his/her reactions while
reviewing it. If there is time, the therapist asks the client to do the same
thing again (reviewing the videotape and then describing the event as well as
his/her reactions while reviewing it). The therapist doesn't give detailed
instructions, the idea is for the client to get comfortable reviewing and
describing the traumatic event. After a few sessions done in this manner, the
client becomes more and more comfortable with the process. This will lead to
attending during the review to different aspects of the trauma situation.
Eventually, the client will courageously attend to and describe the more
disturbing emotional aspects and the more uncomfortable actions during the
event. TIR usually takes 10 to 20 hours spread over several weeks.
If
things go well, after several sessions the client will have little or no
negative emotions associated with the incident. During the repeated reviewing
process, the client will frequently remember another traumatic event. In that
case, the other event will also be reviewed and described over and over until
the emotional reactions are eliminated. Naturally, as the details of the trauma
experiences are explored in this way, new aspects will be discovered--these may
be different emotions and feelings, thoughts and needs that had gone
unrecognized, and a better awareness of the body's physiological reactions
during the event. This enhanced perception of the trauma will often lead to new
insights and new ideas about how to cope with similar situations.
It is
uncertain if a person can benefit from such a repetitive review process when
done alone, without a therapist. Since this often involves a highly emotional
situation, I would not recommend it. Yet, the TIR therapist intentionally
avoids being directive, encouraging, expressing sympathy, and giving other
reinforcing behaviors. So, the client remembers and thinks about the trauma
situation over and over in a safe, calm, undemanding setting. In effect, the
trauma experience is being desensitized. Keep
in mind, research has shown that writing in detail over and over about an
emotional experience also reduces negative emotional reactions to the stressful
situation (https://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap15/chap15f.htm).
A more
self-help oriented method for understanding and soothing intense emotions is Emotions Manager 2000 ($39.95). This is a
software program published by Quate Publishing and based, in part, on Rational-Emotive
Therapy. Don't expect this CD-ROM to offer quick, easy relief; just like
therapy or other self-help methods, it requires daily work for several weeks or
months. If that is not your habit or style, then don't buy it. Here is what you
input to the program: whenever you have a strong emotion (happy, sad, angry...)
in any arena (work, spouse, children, health...) of your life, you enter and
store a detailed description of the experience into the program. Then you write
out and record your answers to several questions about this emotional
situation: What events or thoughts preceded your strong emotion? Were there
some positive things about this experience? What is the worst case
scenario--what awful things do you think might happen? If the worst things did
happen, how could you handle them? That is what you do, so in a couple of
months you will have recorded at least 60 and maybe hundreds of intense
experiences to study and understand.
The
value of the Emotions Manager program really comes in the review and analyze
phases. It will enable you to review your recorded emotional reactions by kind
of emotion and arena, so you can see if the emotions are changing--stronger or
weaker, more or less frequent--and if there are trends and connections. It will
print out colored graphs and tables, showing how recent emotions compare to
reactions in the same situation 6 months ago. It will help you identify your
frequent triggers, your catastrophizing thoughts, your common irrational ideas,
and your usual ways of trying to cope. The program does not do the thinking for
you and draw conclusions about how to change your thinking and expectations,
how to correct irrational ideas and schemas, how to do less awfulizing and more
preferring, how to see even unwanted outcomes as "lawful" and the
natural outcome of existing complicated events and causes, and so on.
Another
wrinkle that some therapists would add would be to ask you to record or
remember the dire expectations you had during many, many times you have been
upset. Then, six months later record what the actual outcome was, so you can
check the accuracy of your awfulizing or catastrophizing. In this way, you use
subsequent reality to correct some of your habitually upsetting thoughts.
If you
are an introspective person with some compulsive tendencies and/or a love of
writing, this method (or something like it) might work very well for you.
Anyone this committed to gaining self-understanding and control, might also
benefit considerably from consulting with a therapist. Such a detailed
record/diary should be useful in therapy. If you are not in therapy, read a
Rational-Emotive or Cognitive Therapy book or, at least, read Method #3 near
the beginning of this chapter. Most of us need some outside help in identifying
our faulty logic and automatic ideas (such as pessimistic or self-critical
thoughts) as well as developing new and better ways of thinking or coping, etc.
(4) If
none of the forgetting, behavioral, and cognitive techniques have worked after
a couple of months of daily effort, then an effort to gain insight into the
persistence of the upsetting memory/thoughts/feelings is another choice. Chapter 15 concentrates on
self-understanding, including uncovering needs and motivations that one has not
been aware of. Just reading and understanding other cases similar to yours
could be helpful. But when one seeks new insight, the usual and best approach
is to see a therapist specializing in the kind of stress or trauma that you
have experienced. In one form or another, insight therapy seeks to establish an
absolutely safe place where all thoughts, feelings, needs, wishes... can be
explored and disclosed to the therapist (and yourself). Obviously, this is not
a quick fix...count on it taking months. Moreover, considering the typical
therapist's fee is $100 a session or more and that many people are not covered
by insurance, long-term psychotherapy is not a practical solution for many
people
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