Abstract
The treatment of emotional distress has stalled. There has been no improvement in depression outcomes for 30 years, and recent opinions have highlighted the lack of clear validity for the mechanisms involved in current models of complex psychological interventions. Emotional distress is a phenomenon that underpins a swathe of apparently diverse mental health conditions. Childhood trauma has been found to be endemic and common in those with poor psychological adjustment in adults. Executive processes cause a split between knowledge of an event and knowledge of its negative ongoing emotional effects so making integration of the memory of such events and resolution of its effects is a challenge. Recent research into the relationship between well-being and memory structures has converged with research into episodic memories and their key role in goal programming, giving an opportunity to describe a new model with plausible mechanisms for emotional distress, regulation, resilience, and recovery. Humans seek goals that fulfil their universal basic psychological need for self-determination, and the structures of memory networks drive behavioral algorithms that can satisfy or thwart that goal. We propose that a single underlying deficit in memory networks could underpin the psychopathology of emotional distress and that a new formulation of distress and recovery could drive a useful update on the mechanisms of psychological interventions with greater validity and utility for recovery and propose the NEMESIS (Negative MEmorieS Integration Systems) model.
Highlights
FREE ASSOCIATION REVISITEDSpecialty section: This article was submitted to Mood and Anxiety Disorders, a section of the journal Frontiers in PsychiatryReceived: 08 April 2019 Accepted: 24 June 2019 Published: 02 August 2019Citation: Dobbin A and Ross S (2019) HowMemory Structures Influence Distress and Recovery.Front
We (AD and SR) had previously observed that a particular form of positive resilience priming, an implicit instantiation of an emotional growth model with similar principles to Hong et al [59], could nudge those in a state of emotional distress towards a reappraisal of past dysfunctional memories, resulting in an increase in quality of life and reduction in depression [60]. This led to us collaborating with ELABORER in a randomized experimental study of a group of university students to test the effect of a 10-min resilience priming audio on the self-determination levels of a negative self-defining (NegSDef) main memory and its network memories when compared to an active relaxation control group and a neutral music control [34]
We see this work as underpinning a new model and understanding of emotional distress, regulation, recovery, and resilience, with clear and measurable mechanisms based on empirical science. With this new knowledge of the source of positive emotions that mediate resilience, i.e., episodic memory networks, we propose a new model of recovery and resilience—NEMESIS (Negative Memories Integration Systems)
Summary
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Mood and Anxiety Disorders, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry. We (AD and SR) had previously observed that a particular form of positive resilience priming, an implicit instantiation of an emotional growth model with similar principles to Hong et al [59] (study 3), could nudge those in a state of emotional distress towards a reappraisal of past dysfunctional memories, resulting in an increase in quality of life and reduction in depression [60] This led to us collaborating with ELABORER in a randomized experimental study of a group of university students to test the effect of a 10-min resilience priming audio (the intervention group) on the self-determination levels of a negative self-defining (NegSDef) main memory and its network memories when compared to an active relaxation control group and a neutral music control [34]. Since the findings and ongoing revelations of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study in the US have revealed the astonishingly high levels of difficult early experiences in a normal population [63], it seems entirely credible that unresolved memory structures could be exerting the major effect on many manifestations of subsequent mental disorders
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