Involuntary Memories and Dissociative Amnesia

Abstract

Autobiographical memories of trauma victims are often described as disturbed in two ways. First, the trauma is frequently re-experienced in the form of involuntary, intrusive recollections. Second, the trauma is difficult to recall voluntarily (strategically); important parts may be totally or partially inaccessible—a feature known as dissociative amnesia. These characteristics are often mentioned by PTSD researchers and are included as PTSD symptoms in the DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). In contrast, we show that both involuntary and voluntary recall are enhanced by emotional stress during encoding. We also show that the PTSD symptom in the diagnosis addressing dissociative amnesia, trouble remembering important aspects of the trauma is less well correlated with the remaining PTSD symptoms than the conceptual reversal of having trouble forgetting important aspects of the trauma. Our findings contradict key assumptions that have shaped PTSD research over the last 40 years.

The frequency of involuntary autobiographical memories and future thoughts in relation to daydreaming, emotional distress, and age

“…The present findings do not support such dissociation between involuntary and voluntary modes of remembering and imagining (see also Berntsen & Rubin, 2014). …”

“…Third, day dreaming, PTSD symptoms, dissociation and thought suppression are all associated with emotional distress (e.g., Carlson & Putnam, 1993; Giambra & Taynor, 1978; Killingworth & Gilbert, 2010; Purdon, 1999; Rubin, Boals and Hoyle, 2014; Stawarczyk, Majerus, Van der der Linden & D’Argembeau, 2012) for which reason correlations with the IAMI might reflect that it too is associated with emotional distress. If so, this would agree with a long tradition for viewing involuntary remembering as a response to negative emotional events, such as observed in the case of intrusive involuntary memories of traumatic events in PTSD (Berntsen & Rubin, 2014). In order to explore this possibility, we included questions that probed the emotional contents of the remembered and imagined events.…”

“…If the IAMI, but not the voluntary control questions, showed a similar pattern, this would be consistent with a long history for associating involuntary (but not voluntary) autobiographical memories with emotional distress and unresolved personal concerns so that individuals with higher levels of emotional distress or unresolved problems would be likely to more frequently experience involuntary memories and involuntary future thoughts, but not their voluntary counterparts (see Berntsen, 2009, for a review). In contrast, if voluntary and involuntary memories (and their future counterparts) are both more frequent among individuals with higher levels of emotional distress, this would be consistent with the alternative view that voluntary and involuntary retrieval operate on the same underlying structures and therefore may be affected similarly by a disposition to experience negative affect (e.g., Berntsen, 2009; Berntsen & Rubin, 2014). Study 3 was conducted to clarify these issues.…”

“…Second, we examine whether similar correlations are seen for the voluntary control questions, in order to decide whether they are specific for involuntary retrieval. Third, we examine correlations between the emotion ratings for the events and the IAMI in order to examine if individuals with more frequent involuntarily remembered and imagined events also rate these events as more negative, which would agree with the view that involuntary mental time travel is a response to negative, stressful events (e.g., Howowitz, 1976), but is counter to our prediction based on previous work (e.g., Hall & Berntsen, 2008; Berntsen & Rubin, 2014; Rubin et al, 2008). Fourth, we compare the future and past directed parts of the scale to examine if involuntary memories are rated as more frequent that involuntary future events, consistent with Study 1.…”

Event centrality of positive and negative autobiographical memories to identity and life story across cultures

“…This positive correlation between centrality of the negative event and symptoms of PTSD is also found when controlling for other factors, such as neuroticism, anxiety and severity of the trauma. Furthermore, it has also been found for events that do not fulfil the diagnostic criteria for trauma (see Berntsen & Rubin, 2014, for a review).…”