Reappearance of Distant Memories of Emotionally Taxing Life Experiences
Memory can be difficult to understand. On the one hand, recent short-term memory is frequently affected by distraction, preoccupations, and by aging. On the other hand, distant long-term memories often remain clear and precise well into old age. It’s as if there are two separate brain regions for memory storage - one for recent memories and a another for distant memory.
Memories from emotionally powerful life experiences typically shift from recent to long-term memory storage over the passage of time. Additionally, these long term memories are often extremely clear and precise. It's as if they were captured on the highest quality of movie film. Importantly, it is not just traumatic memories that can be preserved, but extremely pleasurable memories are similarly stored. Therefore, it’s the intensity of the emotional arousal, rather than the positive or negative qualities of the life events, that appears to promote long-term storage.
Portions of distant, emotionally powerful, life experiences can be replayed in a person’s dreams following the occurence of recent, and not related, stressful life events. This dreaming progresively diminishes as recent life stresses are managed. Counselors at the University of Oregon, Department of Psychology, reported the long term follow-up of a group of amnesty-granted immigrants who were terribly abused in their country of origen. Memories and dreams of their life-threatening experiences before coming to America diminished over their first years in America. However, when New York City suffered the ravenges of the 9/11 attacks, many of these immigrant patients reported dreaming once again of the life stresses that caused them to flee their country.
Very pleasurable life experiences can also return to one's thoughts, and dreams, or upon voluntary efforts of recall or when coming across provocative mementos. These pleasant memories are also crystal clear and minutely detailed in their presentation.
Clinical Significance:
The recurrence of unpleasant and even threatening memories of stressful early life experiences can be seen by mental health practitioners treating a patient recovering from a current life crisis. A mistake can be made by a therapist when assuming that focusing attention on these early stress memories the patient’s current anxieties will resolve. This approach may well increase the patient’s current suffering and do nothing to lessen the stressful effects resulting from their recent life trauma.
I have worked for the past 8 years at two Veterans Affairs Mental Health Clinics where I've treated veterans from World War II up to the present military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. A good number of aging veterans have reported a return of early life (often combat related) stressful military memories. They are frequently told that this indicates they are suffering from chronic PTSD. After obtaining a full recent history from these patients, I frequently find that they are in the midst of several very recent life stresses - such as loss of employment, a difficult residential move, a major illness of a spouse, the death of a close friend, and severe financial problems. Treating these current life problems I see their early military stressful memories gradually recede. This is not the clinical picture of patients suffering from chronic PTSD.
