Splintered memories or vivid landmarks? Qualities and organization of traumatic memories with and without PTSD

Abstract

SUMMARYOne hundred and eighty-one students answered a standardized questionnaire on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): 25 reported trauma(s) and indicated a pattern of after-effects that matched a PTSD symptom profile, whereas 88 indicated trauma(s) but no PTSD symptom profile. Both groups answered a questionnaire addressing the recollective quality, integration and coherence of the traumatic memory that currently affected them most. Participants with a PTSD symptom profile reported more vivid recollection of emotion and sensory impressions. They reported more observer perspective in the memory (seeing themselves 'from the outside'), but no more fragmentation. They also agreed more with the statement that the trauma had become part of their identity, and perceived more thematic connections between the trauma and current events in their lives. The two groups showed different patterns of correlations which indicated different coping styles. Overall, the findings suggest that traumas form dysfunctional reference points for the organization of other personal memories in people with PTSD symptoms, leading to fluctuations between vivid intrusions and avoidance.

The centrality of event scale: A measure of integrating a trauma into one's identity and its relation to post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms

“…Having a traumatic memory as highly accessible and central in the overall cognitive organization of autobiographical knowledge is likely to lead to vivid, intrusive memories and thereby generate a need by the person for distancing him-or herself from the phenomenologically painful reliving of the trauma and its associated emotions. It may thus lead to the activation of dissociative coping techniques, such as observer perspective in remembering (see Berntsen et al, 2003, McIsaac & Eich, 2004. This assumption is supported by our earlier work (Berntsen et al, 2003) in which we showed that participants with traumas and a set of symptoms indicating PTSD showed relatively high positive correlations between memory characteristics taken to indicate dissociation, on the one hand, and the severity of the traumatic event and vividness of the traumatic recollection, on the other.…”

“…It may thus lead to the activation of dissociative coping techniques, such as observer perspective in remembering (see Berntsen et al, 2003, McIsaac & Eich, 2004. This assumption is supported by our earlier work (Berntsen et al, 2003) in which we showed that participants with traumas and a set of symptoms indicating PTSD showed relatively high positive correlations between memory characteristics taken to indicate dissociation, on the one hand, and the severity of the traumatic event and vividness of the traumatic recollection, on the other. Such pattern was not observed among participants without symptoms indicating PTSD.…”

“…However, both claims have found little support when subjected to more systematic experimental examination (e.g., Berntsen et al, 2003;Gray & Lombardo, 2001;Porter & Birt, 2001;Reviere & Bakeman, 2001;; but see Halligan, Michael, Clark, & Ehlers, 2003). Because the CES is primarily concerned with the second part of the claim-that is, the integration of the trauma memory into the overall life story and self-schema of the person-our review of previous work will focus on this issue.…”

“…Items 10, 14, 15, 16, and 18 in the appendix addressed whether the event (or series of events) was regarded as a turning point in the life story. Five point Likert scales were chosen to be consistent with our preliminary work on the CES scale (e.g., Berntsen et al, 2003) as well as with the scale we used to measure PTSD symptoms (the PCL, see Blanchard et al, 1996).…”

“…If memories of traumas and other highly negative life events form reference points for the organization of less salient experiences in a person's life, the outcome is likely to be harmful to that person's mental health (Berntsen, Willert, & Rubin, 2003). In such cases, a highly negative, unpredictable, and probably rare event will influence the attribution of meaning to other more mundane events as well as the generation of expectations for future events.…”