Traumatic Memories Research Articles

An Analysis of Mental Illnesses among People after COVID-19

Under the large uncertainty and unknown condition all over the world, a growing number of people are developing mental illnesses after COVID-19. Anxiety, major depression disorder, eating disorder, and Post-traumatic stress disorder, all of these mental disorders are collected for the majority of mental illnesses after COVID-19. The primary aim of this paper was to determine the prevalence, causes, effects, and treatments among mental illness patients after COVID-19. By reviewing the paper that has been published, it is nearly certain that psychological disorders will occur after suffering traumatic events and the outbreak of COVID-19, which is seen as one of the most serious pandemics in the world in the last few decades, a number of populations are undergoing a high level of psychological illness. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy can be one of the great therapies to treat mental illnesses after COVID-19. According to a study, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing treatment can greatly affect traumatic memories for psychological patients. After COVID-19, a growing number of populations become infected with mental disorders, therefore, the causes and some effective treatments are required. Especially those who have a previous history of psychological disorders might need some specialized intervention.

Continuing bonds of bereaved Muslims mothers with their young dead child

Based on continuing bonds theory, this research examined the experience and manifestations of continuing bonds of bereaved Muslim mothers with their children who died in home accidents. This qualitative phenomenological study is based on interviews with 15 bereaved mothers (aged 28–46 years) whose children (aged 1–6 years) died 2–7 years before the interviews. Analysis revealed three themes: efforts to continue the physical bonds, challenges in the continuing bonds in cases of traumatic death, and belief in afterlife as the main element of the continuing bonds. The traumatic circumstances of the death challenged the ability to maintain the bond based on positive memories without it being overwhelmed by the traumatic memories of the last moments of the child’s life. Religious beliefs played an important role in the characteristics of the bond. Maintaining the bond requires professionals to provide a therapeutic environment where bereaved mothers feel safe talking about it.

P048 Does Sleep Reduce Intrusive Memories after Analogue Trauma? Recent findings of Experimental Sleep Manipulations using the Trauma Film Paradigm

Abstract Introduction Intrusive memories are common in the aftermath of trauma, and these can develop into a pervasive, distressing symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Sleep disturbances have also been shown to contribute to later development and maintenance of overall PTSD symptoms. Recent evidence suggests there is a relationship between sleep disturbance and intrusive memories following experimental analogue trauma. However there has been conflicting findings regarding the direction of the effect; whether sleep following analogue trauma results in increased or decreased frequency of later intrusive memories. Methods We conducted a narrative review summarising research examining the role of sleep in the development of trauma-related intrusive memories, using the trauma film paradigm. This included recent meta-analyses of experimental studies. Results While there have been initial conflicting results across a small number of studies, meta-analytic results suggest sleep following exposure to analogue trauma leads to a reduced number of intrusive memories in the following week. Discussion The relationship between sleep following experimental analogue trauma and reduction in intrusive memory frequency may be due to the role of sleep in the consolidation and integration of traumatic memories into existing autobiographical knowledge. However, more research is needed to investigate the mechanism of action for this relationship. Future studies should attempt to disentangle to what degree consolidation, executive control over spontaneous cognition, or other mechanisms are affected by sleep and contribute to the development of intrusive memories.

Integration of emotion-focused therapy and prayer in overcoming a dissociative process --- a Chinese counsellor’s self-as-subject heuristic inquiry

ABSTRACT This paper is a self-as-subject heuristic inquiry on the integration of EFT and Christian prayer in treating a dissociative process. Heuristic inquiry is an experiential research methodology that values the researcher’s subjectivity and upholds disciplined spontaneity. The data analysis consists of significant therapy events taken from personal journals during the research period. The two main mechanisms in EFT for treating trauma are emotional co-regulation in a relationship and emotion processing. EFT procedures are effective in penetrating emotion self-interruption including dissociation, making emotion processing possible. Meanwhile, prayer inviting God’s presence provides enhanced safety when the client reexperiences trauma. By following the unknown sadness using EFT, I found an infant girl of myself who was forgotten but had bodily memories of trauma(s), who kept people at arm’s length despite her loneliness. While reaching the bottom of the pain (core pain), God’s presence transformed my lack of self-worth into self-compassion. This work shows one way of overcoming a dissociative process by using EFT and prayer, particularly emotion-focused prayer.

A brief treatment for veterans with PTSD: an open-label case-series study.

Despite the positive outcomes observed in numerous individuals undergoing trauma-focused psychotherapy for PTSD, veterans with this condition experience notably diminished advantages from such therapeutic interventions in comparison to non-military populations. In a preliminary study we investigated the efficacy of an innovative treatment approach in a small sample of veterans (n = 7). Recognizing that accessing and targeting trauma memory in veterans with PTSD may be more challenging compared to other patient populations, we employed unique and personalized retrieval cues that engaged multiple senses and were connected to the context of their trauma. This was followed by a session focused on memory reconsolidation, which incorporated both psychological techniques (i.e., imagery rescripting) and a pharmacological component (i.e., 40 mg of propranolol). The findings from this small-scale case series cautiously indicate that this brief intervention, typically consisting of only one or two treatment sessions, shows promise in producing significant effects on symptoms of PTSD, distress and quality of life.This is particularly noteworthy given the complex symptomatology experienced by the veterans in this study. To summarize, there are grounds for optimism regarding this brief treatment of combat-related PTSD. It appears that the potential for positive outcomes is far greater than commonly believed, as demonstrated by the encouraging results of this pilot study.

Reconsolidation of traumatic memories protocol compared to trauma-focussed cognitive behaviour therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder in UK military veterans: a randomised controlled feasibility trial

BackgroundPost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs more commonly in military veterans than the general population. Whilst current therapies are effective, up to half of veterans commencing treatment do not complete it. Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories (RTM) protocol is a novel, easy to train, talking therapy with promising findings. We examine the feasibility of undertaking an efficacy trial of RTM in veterans.MethodsA parallel group, single-centre randomised controlled feasibility trial with a post-completion qualitative interview study. Sixty military veterans were randomised 2:1 to RTM (n = 35) or Trauma Focussed Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) (n = 25). We aimed to determine the rate of recruitment and retention, understand reasons for attrition, determine data quality and size of efficacy signal. We explored veterans’ perceptions of experiences of joining the trial, the research procedures and therapy, and design improvements for future veteran studies. Military veterans with a diagnosis of PTSD or complex PTSD, and clinically significant symptoms, were recruited between January 2020 and June 2021. Primary outcome was feasibility using pre-determined progression criteria alongside PTSD symptoms, with depression, recovery, and rehabilitation as secondary outcomes. Data were collected at baseline, 6, 12, and 20 weeks. Interviews (n = 15) were conducted after 20 weeks. Both therapies were delivered by trained charity sector provider therapists.ResultsParticipants’ mean age was 53 years, the mean baseline PTSD symptoms score assessed by the Post-traumatic Stress Checklist (PCL-5) was 57 (range 0–80). Fifty had complex PTSD and 39 had experienced ≥ 4 traumas. Data were analysed at 20 weeks for feasibility outcomes (n = 60) and mental health outcomes (n = 45). Seven of eight progression criteria were met. The RTM group experienced a mean 18-point reduction on the PCL-5. TFCBT group participants experienced a mean reduction of eight points. Forty-eight percent of the RTM group no longer met diagnostic criteria for PTSD compared to 16% in the TFCBT group. All veterans reported largely positive experiences of the therapy and research procedures and ways to improve them.ConclusionRTM therapy remains a promising psychological intervention for the treatment of PTSD, including complex PTSD, in military veterans. With specific strengthening, the research protocol is fit for purpose in delivering an efficacy trial.Trial registrationISRCTN registration no 10314773 on 01.10.2019.Full trial protocol: available on request or downloadable at ISRCTN reg. no. 10314773.

A Language of Hope: Non-traumatic Narrative of Transnational Memory in Khodadad Mohammadi’s ‘The Translator’s Tale’

Focusing on the memory of refugees, asylum seekers, and detainees, this article categorizes their diasporic memory under transnational memory and questions the seemingly natural linkage between trauma theory and memories of exile. By examining the significance of the action of translation in Khodadad Mohammadi’s short story ‘The Translator’s Tale’, this article uncovers agency and hope in non-traumatic narrative and draws attention to the potential of such a narrative to promote solidarity among different communities and collective memories, contributing to the nexus of memory, literature, and activism.

Effects of imagery rescripting and imaginal exposure on voluntary memory

Trauma-focused imagery-based interventions, such as Imagery Rescripting (ImRs) and Imaginal Exposure (ImE), are effective in reducing involuntary re-experiencing in PTSD. However, it has been suggested that they may impair voluntary memory. This study investigates whether ImRs and ImE distort voluntary memory of an analogue trauma. We presented a trauma film to N = 120 healthy participants (Session 1) and randomly allocated them to one of two intervention conditions (receiving one session of ImRs or ImE) or to a no-intervention control condition (NIC) afterwards (Session 2). Voluntary memory was assessed using a free recall (Sessions 2 and 3), and a cued recall as well as a recognition task (both Sessions 3 and 4). The ImRs and ImE groups did not differ from NIC in the cued recall task and the recognition task. However, ImE (compared to ImRs and NIC) led to an increase in correct reported details in the free recall. In sum, the current findings do not suggest that ImRs or ImE impair voluntary memory.

Ghostly ruins: conflict memories, narratives, and placemaking among Lebanese diasporas in Montreal

ABSTRACTThe memory of past conflicts remains largely obliterated among the Lebanese diasporas in Montreal. Nonetheless, it invariably resurfaces in public performance of the Lebanese identity in the city as well as in people’s life stories. This ambivalent interplay underlines the role of remembrance and forgetting among diasporic populations in the construction of their local attachment to their places of residence. Stories as well as silences become ways of negotiating one’s presence and belonging. Building on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Montreal between 2017 and 2019, this contribution approaches war memories from a renewed perspective. Instead of examining their role in the mobilization and transformation of group boundaries, it resituates the politics of traumatic memories among Lebanese diasporas in the everyday negotiation of their presence in Montreal. In doing so, this article unravels how memory practices in diasporic lifeworlds also open creative imaginations that contest essentialized conceptions of identity and belonging.

Psychosocial interventions for survivors of rape and sexual assault experienced during adulthood.

Psychosocial interventions for survivors of rape and sexual assault experienced during adulthood.

Molecular mechanisms underpinning deconditioning-update in fear memory.

Traumatic experiences are closely associated with some psychiatric conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Deconditioning-update promotes robust and long-lasting attenuation of aversive memories. The deconditioning protocol consists of applying weak/neutral footshocks during reactivations, so that the original tone-shock association is replaced by an innocuous stimulus that does not produce significant fear response. Here, we present the molecular bases that can support this mechanism. To this end, we used pharmacological tools to inhibit the activity of ionotropic glutamate receptors (NMDA-GluN2B and CP-AMPA), the activity of proteases (calpains), and the receptors that control intracellular calcium storage (IP3 receptors), as well as the endocannabinoid system (CB1). Our results indicate that blocking these molecular targets prevents fear memory update by deconditioning. Therefore, this study uncovered the molecular substrate of deconditioning-update strategy, and, broadly, shed new light on the traumatic memory destabilization mechanisms that might be used to break the boundaries regarding reconsolidation-based approaches to deal with maladaptive memories.

The Trauma of Language Learning and Self-Translation in Elena Ferrante and Jhumpa Lahiri

ABSTRACT Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet (2011–2014) and Jhumpa Lahiri’s first work in Italian, In altre parole (In Other Words, 2015) can both be read as ‘language memoirs’, for they both posit language, language acquisition, and self-translation as central narrative events as well as sites for identity construction and reinvention of the self. In this essay I juxtapose Ferrante’s and Lahiri’s works to argue that both authors explore the traumatic encounter between a repressed or unlearned native/mother tongue and an adoptive language which is also the very language of their texts and the very proof of their linguistic mastery. The essay draws on trauma studies and translation theory to examine the lexical, structural, and thematic dimensions of what I define as ‘dialect trauma’ in Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels and to analyse the recurring rhetoric of linguistic incompetence or what I term ‘language imperfection trauma’ in Lahiri’s In altre parole. I contend that ‘dialect trauma’ in Ferrante’s Quartet manifests as Elena Greco’s recurring metalinguistic glosses which compulsively re-enact Elena’s traumatic memory on the level of her literary language. I then propose that Lahiri’s ‘language imperfection trauma’ can be located in her repeated attempts to pose and pass as Italian, all the while documenting her own language learning practice. My analysis puts in conversation depictions of language acquisition and the exiled or migrant self, representations of trauma, and translingual writing.

Hear-Telling the Chauraasi Archive: Performing Testimony After Trauma

In 2014, 30 years after the anti-Sikh pogrom (Chauraasi) instigated by the Hindu Right destroyed Sikh lives in New Delhi, I listened to the survivors and witnesses of the 1984 pogrom chat casually about their memories of the violence. Several visited their former homes at the original site of the violence and undertook ‘walks’ to remember what they had experienced. As they did so, they talked, creating a record of where their autobiographical re-tellings of those events created communal memory. While sociological scholarship attends to the trauma of 1984 (Saluja 2015; Das 2006), there is yet to emerge a reckoning with the performance iterations of such event-narratives as the memory walks. Using frameworks of witnessing, describing, and walking, thinking with how a walk can ‘hear-tell’ memory, I ask in this article: how does one re-tell testimonies of trauma and rumour that the survivors of Chauraasi remembered to and with a non-survivor? In what ways does rumour operate officially and informally? How does the telling, description, and undertaking of the memory walk reproduce a crisis of witnessing, and how does the aural and embodied performance of the walk respond to this crisis? How does the aporia between the descriptions emerging on memory walks and the ineffability of traumatic memory conjure the epistemic limits of narration?

Dublin 1904: Conflict in ‘The Dead’

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the role of futurity and hope in memory studies. This paper contributes to this conversation by examining futurity in a city marked by colonial conflict in the context of “The Dead”, the final short story from Dubliners by James Joyce. Drawing on discursive analysis, I argue that the postcolonial writer can rewrite the city, ripe for a new and unknown future. To support this argument, I analyze layers of the colonized urban space. Specifically, I look at the Wellington monument and the statue of Daniel O’Connell. Through this analysis, I demonstrate that futurity is an ambiguous concept capable of holding all possible iterations of the future after conflict. This paper contributes to ongoing debates about surpassing the current focus within memory studies on traumatic memories by drawing on research on hope, as it is lifeaffirming and inherently futureoriented, by Ann Rigney, and David P. Rando. In addition, it challenges conventional readings of conflict and trauma by extending hope to the dead. Thus, it exhibits how death helps to conceptualize an unknown future.

The 1999–2004 Ambon Wars: Embodied Experiences, Stories and (Re)Memories

This essay addresses embodied experiences of the wars involving Christian and Muslim communities in Ambon that started on 19 January 1999 and lasted until 2004—wars that were made possible by the existing (religious) segregation put in place since (Dutch) colonial time, which in turn exacerbated that segregation and left marks on Ambon—both the city and its people. Starting from embodied experiences of the 19992004 (religious) wars in Ambon, in this essay, I argue that wars are not mere events or concepts to discuss, debate, and draw policies from. Wars are experienced in/with the bodies of those who were unlucky enough to go through them. Wars are embodied experiences of people and city(ies). The trauma and haunting (re)memories of wars and their aftereffects remain with the people and the cities visited and touched by wars. And as we walk through a particular city that has experienced wars, chances are we might bump into these (re)memories.

Research Memories and Hauntings

In this critical meta-authoethnography, the author returns to the site of an ethnography she conducted five years before in a U.S. high school. JanCarlos, then a fifteen-year-old student, had taken up the position of interviewer and asked the author about her experience of the April 16, 2007, school shootings at Virginia Tech. His question—“Were you there when that kid killed all of those people?”—disrupted traumatic memories. Because JanCarlos had experienced increasing trouble and bullying in school, the author shamefully wondered about his motives in asking about the violent event. In a published book chapter, she writes about the difficulties of the April 16 conversation, including her discomfort at losing control of the interview, as well as her fear, ignorance, and stereotypes about school violence and bullying. In the end, the conversation had transformed her research, inviting her to seek to establish vulnerable presence with participants, experience emotion as instructive, embrace remembering as research, interrogate power with intersectional analysis, and acknowledge limitations to knowledge production. Five years later, she returns to re-engage in conversation with JanCarlos. She layers more understandings to her previous analysis of the April 16 conversation, as well as gains insight into JanCarlos’s difficult school year, bullying, and home/community experiences. The author delves into personal and methodological concerns, concluding with how a critical autoethnographic method is a humanizing way to be more transparent about knowledge production.

An Analysis of the Role of Gothic Architecture in Crimson Peak

Gothic architecture’s expression of anxiety about the relationship with the past, about the family, evokes the imagery of ghosts, and thus this type of house as a haunted site. Guillermo del Toro’s 2015 Crimson Peak provides a good example of the contribution of Gothic architecture to the atmosphere and visualisation of haunted house narratives in modern Gothic cinema, and demonstrates that the untraceable history of the Gothic sets the stage for the relationship between the traumatic memories of the past and the present. In the following part, we will delve into the confrontation between past and present suggested by Gothic architectural features, using Crimson Peak as a case study of how Gothic architecture has provided a lasting influence on the genre.

AMATORIOS, ON WILD ASPHALT BY NELSON RODRIGUES

The desire to investigate the intrinsic relationships that involve human relationships, entangled by the fine line of erotic drive, and its consequences in traumatic memories, which involve us, in family and social contexts. The scrutinization of the formation of naked and buried fantasies, in the basements of female unconsciousness, which are exposed by Nelson Rodrigues in Asfalto Selvagem, Engraçadinha, his loves and his sins, represented in the characters Engraçadinha and Letícia, will be our purposes. We use explanatory methodology, with a qualitative approach

Pathways to resilience and pathways to flourishing: Examining the added-value of multisystem research and intervention in contexts of war and forced displacement.

This paper examines the added-value that multisystem approaches bring to research and intervention in contexts of war and forced displacement. I highlight what is useful and truly innovative about systems-level work, aware that providing data-related evidence is only part of the story when connecting research to policy and practice. I discuss four types of added-value: these are conceptual, instrumental, capacity-building, and connectivity impacts that, respectively, aim to change current knowledge, improve implementation, build research skills, and strengthen network connectivity. Specifically, systems-based research can help transform the key frames of humanitarian work, fostering the more integrated and distributive models of professional assistance known as resilience and network humanitarianism. I argue that systems-level approaches on resilience and flourishing in war-affected and refugee populations help to articulate new mindsets, methodologies, partnerships, and ways of working relevant for humanitarian research, policy and practice. I focus attention on interdisciplinary, interventionist, prospective, transgenerational, and network-building initiatives. My specific examples cover the family context of mental health and trauma memory in Afghanistan, as well as program evaluation with Syrian refugees in Jordan, connecting stress biology to human experience, and social networks to psychological empowerment. The paper suggests future directions to support more effective and impactful systems-level work in protracted humanitarian crises.

Changes in cognitive processes and coping strategies precede changes in symptoms during cognitive therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder

Theories of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) highlight the role of cognitive and behavioral factors in its development, maintenance, and treatment. This study investigated the relationship between changes in factors specified in Ehlers and Clark's (2000) model of PTSD and PTSD symptom change in 217 patients with PTSD who were treated with cognitive therapy for PTSD (CT-PTSD) in routine clinical care. Bivariate latent change score models (LCSM) of session-by-session changes in self-report measures showed that changes in PTSD symptoms were preceded by changes in negative appraisals, flashback characteristics of unwanted memories, safety behaviours, and unhelpful responses to intrusions, but not vice versa. For changes in trauma memory disorganization and PTSD symptoms we found a bidirectional association. This study provides evidence that cognitive and behavioral processes proposed in theoretical models of PTSD play a key role in driving symptom improvement during CT-PTSD.