The Differences Between Traumatic Memory and Everyday Memory

When humans are traumatised, they tend to behave and think in a different way from others. Feeling sad and abandoned is part of their constructive mental process after an unpleasant or tragic event has happened in one’s life. Symptoms such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an effect of traumatic events involving actual or threatened death experiences or serious injury to self or others (Colman, 2006; Flannery, 1993), are embedded into one’s mental activity. A component in traumatic memory is that the memory is experienced as if the event and one’s responses to it - sensory, cognitive, emotional and physiological; are all happening again and most typically intense flashbacks and nightmares force traumatised individuals to cope with constant recurrence of memories without the prospect of relief (van der Kolk, Hopper & Osterman, 2001), unlike the counterpart of everyday memory where individuals are able to cope with stressful memories without any constant recurrences (Anderson, 2005; Medin, Ross, & Markman, 2005). In normal conditions, memory works as an active constructive dynamic process where 'schemas' plays an important role in helping to fill in the gaps and guide one’s to recall; particularly when distortion in memory is at the core of understanding in just about all memory processes including forgetting.

Traumatic memory can lead to extremes of retention and forgetting (van der Kolk, McFarlene, & Weisaeth, 1996). Thus in understanding this notion of traumatic and ordinary memory, Whitfield (1995) study also suggested that forgetting is one of the differences in traumatic memory and everyday memory. As a part of encoding, storage and retrieval process (memory) determines ones personality and psychological function of preserving information. Another aspect of the differences between traumatic memory and ordinary memory is the emotions, which is also very much related in remembering traumatic behaviour.

According to Caruth (1995), traumatic memory takes a longer time to remember. The whole memories become disconnected as a result of trauma (Williams, & Sommer, 1994). A study shows that it took more than 3 to 4 hours to remember the event to tell the story (Caruth, 1995). Once the story was told, it only lasts for half a minute which is what most ordinary memory can do where it should be integrated with other experiences (Caruth, 1995). In terms of forgetting, Caruth (1995) suggested that traumatic memory is not adaptive. For example, when a patient with trauma was asked to tell her traumatic story, she then told a slightly different story than she did to other people. This is are seen as 'contrast' to ordinary memory, where the story being told is similar to the one that was told earlier. This is because with the person who has traumatic memory; their awareness of internal and external reality tends to be confused, and they have frequent personal boundary distortions, whereas these tend to be easier to sort out and differentiate in ordinary memory (Ashcroft, 1998; Whitfield, 1995). Following the example, a business man who had been emotionally, physically and mentally abused by his brother and parents as a child could not remember it and had difficulty telling his own experience to another family member. Not until the last 3 years after joining group therapy was he able to express his traumatic memory and live as his own self.

Many individuals have trouble in remembering even the central details of their experience for some period of time (van der Kolk, Hopper & Osterman, 2001). On the biological point of view, this failure in remembering, or forgetting, is caused by an earlier arriving sensory input from the thalamus (processes the visual, auditory, kinaesthetic sensory) which “prepares” the amygdala to process the later arriving information from the cortex which does the integration and planning in mental processes (van der Kolk, McFarlene, & Weisaeth, 1996; Lewis, Haviland-Jones, Barrett, 2008). Therefore people become automatically and hormonally activated before they can make conscious decisions and appraisals in response to what they are reacting to. The sensory input is then passed to the other brain structure that is called the hippocampus (memory processing). A strong emotional arousal may prevent the proper evaluation of categorisation in experience by interfering with the hippocampus function (van der Kolk, McFarlene, & Weisaeth, 1996). Because the hippocampus has not played its role in helping with memory recognition and processing, these fragments continued to lead an isolated existence, improperly functioning. These findings raise the possibility that the dysfunctional amygdale and hippocampus may be related not only to learning abnormalities but also to the encoding, storage and retrieval of traumatic memories (Everly & Lating, 1995). 

In terms of people with traumatic memory, the way these traumatic memories function is that; it has no social component whereby the patient does not respond to anybody, it is a solitary activity. This is because the personality of the person is controlled by their ‘false self’ due to an overwhelming feeling of emotional state of mind, where the authentic self ‘goes into hiding’ deep within the unconscious mind (Whitfield, 1993, as cited in Whitfield). In contrast, ordinary memory serves a social function (Ashcroft, 1998). An example would be when we tend to share our inner life experiences such as beliefs, thoughts, feelings, decisions in our social normal surroundings (Whitfield, 1995), which distorted traumatic individuals are not able to do.

Emotional memories such as shocking events are detailed; accurate and persistent (van der Kolk, McFarlene, & Weisaeth, 1996). It is also suggested that emotional memories are established biologically via thalamoamygdala pathways that may be relatively irremovable and indelible (LeDoux et al. 1989, as cited in Everly & Lating). Traumatic events also appear to become fixed in the mind, unaltered by the passage of time (van der Kolk, McFarlene, & Weisaeth, 1996). For example, the study by van der Kolk and friends (1996), over 15 years after the traumatic events, patients reported the same traumatic scenes over and over again without any modification. With normal memory people usually have the tendency to report false memory (a memory that was recalled with certain amount of confidence but actually did not occur) after being asked to remember, where the story changes over time. However traumatic memories are like pieces of puzzle to some patients. Dreams, flashback and other pieces of information related to the unpleasant event are helpful in pulling the pieces of memory together (Williams & Sommer, 1994). Unlike normal everyday memory, it is easier to remember. 

Emotion is a state of mind (Goleman, 1995). People who are emotionally healthy are more likely to be able to share their thoughts and feelings with others without feeling anxious or worried (Goleman, 1995). But in the case of traumatic memory, people who have survived a traumatic event are most likely to be emotionally numb Williams & Sommer, 1994). The terms of emotional numbness refer to the tendency to shut off emotionally, to be reluctant or unable to share a deep emotional level (Williams & Sommer, 1994). This is because the emotional part of memory was accompanied by the feeling experienced during the tragic scene that leads to a person to become traumatised (Caruth, 1995). A war veteran or an accident survivor, for example, may experience considerable guilt over having lived while others died. When a patient was asked to remember the traumatic incident; he or she then mentioned that they felt very sad and abandoned. Thus creating an underlying sense of guilt, anxiety, dissociated self (Benamer& White, 2008) and low self-esteem (Williams & Sommer, 1994). Traumatic memories are affected by the emotional valence of an experience, fears and interests (van der Kolk, McFarlene, & Weisaeth, 1996). In traumatic memory, the engaged feelings are mostly painful while in ordinary memory, the feeling can be painful as well as joyful (Whitfield, 1995). 

Re-experiencing the traumatic memory emotionally leads to a repeated automatic behaviour (Caruth, 1995). A patient’s behaviour after the tragic death of her mother includes performing the exact acts she had performed the night when her mother died. In this case, it is found that individuals with traumatic memory can remember very well the memory of what has happened during the tragic memory (mother died). This was triggered under certain circumstances (Caruth, 1995). An example would be when a girl is near her deceased mother’s bed, which leads to her traumatic memory on her mother’s death. It is the event that triggers the memory of the death scene. 

In conclusion, we know that traumatic memory is very complex compared to everyday ordinary memory. The subject is often incapable of making a memory with regard to the event discussed; and yet remains confronted by a difficult situation in which they had not been able to play a satisfactory part (Healy, 1993). In some cases, certain details are easily retained under stressful conditions compared to others (Wolfe, 1995). As various lines of study are involved in this relatively new psychology fields, a more in-depth investigation and further research is needed in studying traumatic memories as well as their impact and outcome.

References 

Anderson, R. J. (2005). Cognitive psychology and its implications (6th e.d). NY: Worth Publishers. 

Ashcroft, M. H. (1998). Fundamental of cognition. New York: Longman. 

Benamer, S., & White, K. (Eds). (2008). Trauma an attachment. London: Karnac. 

Caruth, C. (1995). Trauma. Explorations in memory. London: John Hopkins University Press. 

Colman, A. M. (2006). Oxford dictionary of psychology (2nd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Everly G. S., & Lating, J. M. (Eds). (1995). Psychotraumatology: Key papers and core concepts in post-traumatic stress. London: Plenum Press. 

Flannery, R. B. (1993). Post-traumatic stress disorder: The victim’ guide to healing and recovery. NY: Crossroad Publishing Company. 

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Book. 

Healy, D. (1993). Images of Trauma: From hysteria to post traumatic stress disorder. London: Faber and Faber. 

Lewis, M., Haviland-Jones, J. M., Barrett, L. F. (2008). Handbook of emotions (3rd e.d). NY: Guilford Press. 

Medin, L. D., Ross, H. B., & Markman, B. A. (2005). Cognitive Psychology (4th ed.). NJ: John wiley & Sons. 

Van der Kolk, B. A., Hopper, J. W., & Osterman, J.E. (2001). Exploring the nature of traumatic memory: combining clinical knowledge with laboratory methods. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 4(2), 9-31. 

Van der Kolk, B. A., McFarlene, A. C., & Weisaeth, L. (Eds). (1996). Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on mind body and society. New York: The Guilford Press. 

Whitfield, C. L. (1995). The forgotten differences: ordinary memory versus traumatic memory. Consciousness and Cognition, 4, 88-94. 

Williams, M. B., & Sommer, J. J. (Eds). (1994). Handbook of post-traumatic therapy. USA: Greenwood. 

Wolfe, J. (1995). Trauma, traumatic memory and research. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 8(4), 717 – 726.