Research Paper on Memory Distortion and Trauma
Introduction
Memory distortion is a scary experience and frustrating especially when memory loss may be a result of traumatic events. Memories from trauma are prone to bringing distortions and malleable acts as it is for other memories. Research from both laboratory-based studies and the field indicates that memory distortion and loss arise by following a particular pattern. In this light, people will tend to remember more of the trauma they had come across than they experienced, while those who remember the experience, they tend to have more of “re-experiencing” those symptoms that are associated with the post-traumatic stress disorders (PSTD). Moreover, other research indicates that there are some definite relationships between psychological, emotional, or physical trauma and memory loss. The memory loss exhibited as a result of trauma may be of great importance in facilitating coping with the experience. Memory loss as result trauma can be temporary or permanent whereby the end implications justify the nature of trauma extent. In this case, temporary memory loss is caused to cope with the trauma accompanied while permanent memory losses are caused by severe brain injuries and disturbing psychological traumatic events. By understanding the extent at which trauma can affect one’s memory can guide an individual in formulating some specific treatment methods applicable while avoiding trauma which can generate memory distortions (Marschall, 2019)
Thesis Statement
The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the effects of trauma on memory, the memory distortions brought about by the traumatic events experienced in all spheres of life ranging from emotional, psychological, and psychical. Memory distortions may be evidenced in individuals with a history of trauma, depressions, or PSTD for they are at risk of producing false memories when they are their knowledge base is called into operation. In this light, a conclusion is made where false memories can be contributed due to trauma, PSTD, or depression.
Memory Distortion for Traumatic Events
Memory distortion is brought about by failure exhibited in people’s source monitoring affiliated by some underlying mechanisms. In this case, after the traumatic event, the experience generated inhibits intentional remembering or the effortful retrieval as well as unintentional remembering or the intrusive mental imagery when assimilated in one’s memory about the traumatic event. The people’s memories arising from traumatic events are more distortive in memory compared to other events. Similarly, the memory distortion process caused by experience gained from traumatic events tends to follow a particular trend. In this light, people will be in the apposition to remember more trauma events than what they have experienced. The phenomenon is known as ‘memory amplification’ whereby the brain’s capability to remember traumatic events exceeds its capabilities to remember the experience. The memory amplification is of great importance for it carries the real consequences. Meaning the ‘re-experiencing’ symptoms will be unveiled by people with big memory amplification who are associated with PTSD having intrusive images and thought. In this case, memory amplification will be measured as a result of different mechanisms realized from the traumatic event. For instance, people will confuse the information they may generate after the traumatic event for both intentional cases when conversing with other people and unintentional through intrusive imagery including what exactly occurred during the event. In this sense, the source monitoring frameworks (SMF) need to be provided as well as the roles the proposed source monitoring errors may arise from.
The Tenets of Source Monitoring Framework (SMF)
Source monitoring framework states that memory distortions occurrences are a result of a lack of storing our memories with labels indicating the specific origin of each property. For this reason, the capacity –limited cognitive approach is of importance where the simple heuristic measures help to judge some origin of the entire memory or particular details. However, the heuristic may fail when some traumatic events occur repeatedly or when some vivid events come into one’s mind more easily many times, in this regard people will be made to mistake their sense of familiarity by accompanying those familiarities with those of genuine recollection. Source monitoring appears to be less or more difficult as a result of different factors thus making source monitoring errors be also less or more to occur due to factors of traumatic events. For instance, traumatic events may be likely to be rehearsed extensively more so in an intentional manner whereby a victim may make a statement to the police, engage in some conversation with friends family and therapists, and be on the limelight on the media platforms. The rehearsing opportunities will come with inadvertent suggestions accompanied by some misleading details. Similarly, traumatic events may be rehearsed in unintentional ways whereby intrusive images, thoughts as well as memories that are associated with PTSD arise.
How Trauma Affects the Brain
The traumatic incident in life can cause a great deal in stress which may be realized both in short and long periods. The stress responses are accompanied by different impacts within the brain parts, which include the amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex. The impact realized in the brain is due to the ability of those areas being in a position to change in volume, shape and they can experience some diminished functions. Moreover, these parts of the brain are one which is strongly associated with the memory functions in the body. Post-traumatic stress disorder can be realized as a result of intense traumatic events which include attacks, natural disasters, or accidents (Conde, & Siebner, 2020). There exist different kinds of PTSD which range from acute where the symptoms take three months or less to end, the chronic where the symptoms continue for more than the three months and there is delayed-onset where the symptoms may not present themselves to be noticed after the traumatic event. Some of the symptoms attached to memory loss and people with PTSD in the society may include; irrational behaviors, angry outbursts, detachment from their family and friends as well as feeling shame and guilt. The occurrences of PTSD memory loss aggregate the stress and as a result, it can intensify other symptoms. There exist different kinds of trauma which can lead to memory loss in either permanent or temporary basis (Monteleone, Alessio, Palmiero, Fabrizio, Anna, Valeria, Antonietta, Marco, Francesco, and Maj, 2019)
Memory Loss and Physical Trauma
The physical trauma may greatly affect one memory more so when the brain damages may arise as a result of the injury. A physical injury like a head injury or the stroke may damage the brain or may impair the ability of an individual to process information and store information properly which is the core function of the memory. Also, the Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome brain damage which arises from chronic abuse of alcohol affects memory. The syndrome is a result of a combination of both Wernicke disorders which the poor nutrition may damage the nervous for both the central and peripheral nervous system and the Korsakoff syndrome which affect the memory by inhibiting the problem-solving skill and the learning abilities. Besides, the occurrence of severe injury and cases of physical trauma may generate PTSD which led to temporary memory loss which helps to cope with the injury caused by the traumatic event. The extent of memory loss incases physical trauma depends on the severity of the injury (Yang, & Everson, 2020).
Memory Loss and Emotional or Psychological Trauma
Memory can be affected by both emotional trauma and psychological trauma. In this light, the memory loss acts as a survival skill and also a defensive mechanism developed by humans in protection against the psychological damages which may arise. Emotional traumatic events, violence, and sexual abuse can lead to dissociative amnesia which assists a person in temporally forgetting the details of events that happened during a certain traumatic event. The memory loss also referred to psychogenic amnesia or the functional amnesia that continue into existence where the person with always suppress the traumatic memories until they reach a time they will be in a position to handle them which at one time may never occur (Hess, & Bradley, 2020). The situation-specific accompanied by memory loss help and individual to block the traumatic events but due to the existence of another form of dissociative amnesia, the global amnesia may make one forget the traumatic events for a short period but still living in depression and with experiences of confusions. Since the dissociative amnesia range from mild to severe, the effects led to various dysfunctions in relationships as well as changes in daily activities during the normal time of a person’s life (Morris, 2020)
The emotional or the psychological trauma which generates PTSD which may manifest in different forms which include the flashback of the traumatic events and the intrusive which highlight the unwanted thoughts about the trauma. The repressed memories of experiences from traumatic events and the PTSD are common while lack of treatment for the repressed memories may lead to resurfacing at one time in future when triggered and if revisited for more times, the brain may experience the trauma again (Taheri, Shabani & Sichani, 2019).
PTSD and Memory
PTSD occurrences arise when an individual had experienced or when one had witnessed a traumatic event. In this light, the key symptoms affiliated to the disorder are the fact that the traumatic event may be re-experienced where people with the disorder faced by voluntary, recurrent, and existence of intrusive distressing ideas which happened in the time of traumatic events. The observations realized had been utilized by different authors in concluding PTSD as being a disorder of memory. For instance, Ehlers, & Clark, (2000) formulated the existence of PTSD symptoms that may arise since the traumatic memories may be poorly integrated and elaborated thus the patients faced with the disorder may experience problems when intentionally recalling details of traumatic events.
Depression and Memory
Depression according to the Psychiatric Association, 2013 involves the existence of some depressed moods in people’s behaviors which are accompanied by some symptoms which include; fatigue, impaired concentration, sleeplessness as wee as suicidal ideation. Memory dysfunctions also bring about depression disorder. The basic principle associated with depression is that depressed people remember about the past differently compared to what people without depression may remember (Silverman, Galanter, Jackson-Triche, Jacobs, Lomax, Riba,& Yager, 2015). The most critical characteristic of depression involves the recollection of negative experiences in a biased manner, whereby depressed individuals tend to recall more of the negative memories compared to no depressed people and at the same time depressed people exhibit more intrusive and often have more of traumatic memories.
False Memory
The traumatic events which bring about the traumatic experience may bring about false memories when retrieved. Memories with more capabilities of retrieval are those which involve the traumatic experience, which is generated after the memory is regained. For instances, people who are in clinical care for treatments for a long time, tend to have more memories of some traumatic events that had happened in their life after regaining the memory, some traumatic events such as sexual abuse will be remembered (Goodman, Gonzalves, & Wolpe, 2019).
Conclusion
Healing from trauma can take days, weeks or even months to recover depending on the traumatic event that raised the alarm of the trauma. In this light, memory loss man is retrieved suddenly but the causes of the traumatic experience must be analyzed and solved which call upon professional help if the memories distortion persist. In this light, the emotional, psychological, and physical distortions that arise from traumatic events aggregate all kinds of memory loss and in severe ways can lead to loss of life or either temporally or permanent loss of memory.
References
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