Memory Under Stress There are a lot of questions and ideas about what happens to memory when there is a stressful event. We can all relate to the experiences of our memory playing tricks on us. It may be an intense over-reaction to a seemingly minor event. A child's memory is no longer accepted as an "exact replica" of what happened. Lenore Terr, MD in her book, Too Scared to Cry, she talks a bout how one of the Chowchilla children answered that his kidnapper wore red. This was later discovered to be false but his mother did wear red the last time he saw her before he was kidnapped. In early works of Breuer and Freud ( 1896/1955) The idea was that a person may actively push painful memories out of their consciousness. Problems occur due to the strain to keep them out and would later come out in disturbing and confusing ways.

Later work identified what has become known as state-dependent memory. The memory is recalled when the original mood-state that was occurring is reinstated ( Eich,1995) when the individual is again in a state of trauma. It is a common experience for people to talk about past traumatic events when they are in this state.

A new idea with support from various research on both animals and humans suggests that memory is affected by a dual system in our mind/brain. One system is referred to the "cool" cognitive system and the other is the "hot" emotional system. The "cool" system records information in a cool unemotional way and the "hot" system contributes by highlighting emotional experiences into memory. With mounting stress, the hot system is increasingly responsive ( McGaugh,1989). At traumatic levels of stress, the cool system becomes dysfunctional, while the hot system becomes hyper-responsive. An everyday experience for many of us is not being able to recall information like an address, or phone number when we are very upset. Another example is when walking into a room to get something and not being able to recall what one went in there for.

Information recording in the cool system is recalled in a narrative autobiographical way but the hot system stores information in a coded, more fragmented way. Speigel and Cardena (1991) have summarized the irrational fears, fragmented memories and dissociated experience in PTSD patients. Van der Kolk (1994) has provided extensive discussions about how those with traumatic stress disorders fail to integrate traumatic experience into their story of their lives. The work of therapy is to weave these memories into the main fabric of ones life.

Experimental psychologists apply their findings with great caution and are concerned about applying laboratory results to memories of abuse. Newsweek (July, 1996) reported "when someone imagines a pseudo-event over and over they often implant sensory data about it in the mind. In this way , one can see, hear and/or feel an event that never occurred. Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus finds that it is entirely possible to take individuals and create wholly false memories in their minds. At a training I attended she reported she had successfully planted a memory in a teenage boy of him having an accident that never occurred.

Memory both fabricated and fragmented are real phenomena and the challenge is to distinguishing the two at times. Results have tremendous costs to those involved. True recovered memory is possible as is fragmented memory. These are some of the current ideas about memory. Each idea and research finding will have it's unique implication in your everyday world.. Rest assured that the debate continues and the questions continue to be asked. This is not a complete discussion about memory and what happens to us under traumatic times. Our learning continues about memory. Please let us hear from you on how this discussion fits into what you know or have experienced.

4/15/98

Connie Saindon, M.A., MFT, has been a Licensed Marital and Family Therapist since 1979. In addition to providing services for Individuals, couples and families, Ms. Saindon is among the few specialists in the field of violent death bereavement. Founder the Survivors of Violent Death Program and volunteer faculty at the University of California Medical School Department of Psychiatry, she is author of The Journey, Violent Death Bereavement: Adult Survivors Workbook and contributing author of Violent Death: Resilience and Intervention beyond the Crisis. To reach her, please see this page.