Traumatic Recollections Research Articles

Community nostalgia and transgenerational trauma: reconciling dichotomies from women’s oral history of West Belfast, 1975–1995*

ABSTRACT This essay utilises a series of oral history interviews conducted with women in West Belfast to consider the role of community nostalgia and transgenerational trauma within the post-accord landscape. It argues that nostalgia should not be dismissed as an unreliable assessor of historic communality and instead highlights its importance in understanding post-conflict community atomisation. Equally, it advocates for an understanding that nostalgic sentiments can co-exist alongside traumatic recollections and understandings of generational traumas. The simultaneous expression of these dichotomous feelings reveals the intricacies of women’s collective remembrance, and the continued impact of historic traumas on present-day communities in West Belfast.

Challenging memories reduces intrusive memories and the memory amplification effect

ABSTRACT This study scrutinizes the influence of attenuating beliefs about the veracity of traumatic experiences on the manifestation of intrusive recollections and the memory amplification effect. Participants were exposed to distress-inducing visual stimuli, subsequently rating their emotional status pre and post exposure. They engaged in a recognition task, identifying scenarios within the stimuli. Participants' recall was contested, casting doubt about the occurrence of certain scenes. Subsequently, they maintained a daily log of intrusive memories over a week. A second session reiterated the same process. This method effectively diminished the certainty in the participants' traumatic memories. Scenes whose occurrence was contested demonstrated a significant decline in both intrusive memories and memory amplification when juxtaposed with uncontested ones. Interestingly, no significant correlation emerged between the diminished belief in traumatic incidents and reductions in intrusive memory or memory amplification. Thus, this study advocates that interrogating the veracity of traumatic recollections can mitigate the prevalence of intrusive memories and the memory amplification effect, suggesting a novel potential therapeutic approach for trauma-related disorders.

Recovery, Interrupted: The Zeigarnik Effect in EMDR Therapy and the Adaptive Information Processing Model

This theoretical article proposes that the Zeigarnik effect (ZE) (i.e., better memory for interrupted rather than completed tasks) explains the formation of traumatic memories as incomplete tasks. These tasks are thought to foster pathological rumination toward their completion while simultaneously stoking avoidance. After looking at the role of the ZE in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the article examines the physiological substrates of the ZE, including brain network imbalance, excessive autonomic nervous system activation, and prospective memory acuity for incomplete events. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is proposed as uniquely capable of providing closure to interrupted facets of traumatic recollection, as this treatment may facilitate greater memory reconsolidation and inhibition of Zeigarnik reminders than extinction-based models. The ZE may be implicated in the overall EMDR treatment effect, as it is activated in several EMDR phases. Specifically, the use of brief interrupted exposures during EMDR reprocessing may benefit from the ZE in resolving traumatic events. Eye movements themselves are also considered interruptions to rumination upon traumatic memory. Recommendations for the further use of the ZE are described, and suggestions are made for future research. Protocol modifications and interweaves which mobilize the preceding insights are also provided.

Inhibitory control of threat remembering in PTSD

ABSTRACTIntrusive traumatic recollections suggest an inability in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to control and notably to inhibit memories for trauma-related information. Supported by inhibitory deficits found on experimental settings in PTSD, memory functioning and memory biases in the disorder were usually explained through inhibitory and control deficits in the processing of trauma-related information. The present study aimed to directly assess this hypothesis by investigating memory control abilities for emotional information in PTSD. For this purpose, 34 patients diagnosed with PTSD were compared to 37 non-PTSD controls on an item-cued directed forgetting paradigm for emotional words combined with a Remember/Know recognition procedure. Results revealed enhanced amounts of Remember recognitions for trauma-related words in PTSD. Moreover, we replicated findings of memory control impairments in the disorder. However, such impairments only occurred for non-trauma-related words. Accordingly, it appeared that PTSD patients presented preserved memory control abilities for trauma-related words, at the expenses of other emotional valences. Surprisingly, PTSD patients presented a preserved ability to control and notably to inhibit their memory functioning for trauma-related material. In addition to potential theoretical and clinical relevance, these results are discussed in the light of resource reallocation hypotheses and vigilant-avoidant theories of information processing in PTSD.

Complex PTSD in relatives of people with ID: an illustrative clinical case study from South Africa

The debilitating impact of trauma on people with learning disabilities is increasingly recognised in research. Sinason’s influential psychoanalytic writing has drawn direct links between the presence of an opportunistic secondary handicap and pervasive exposure to trauma. Traumatic events often occur within families, implying that more than one family member may be exposed to the same traumatic stressor(s). Because adults with learning disabilities require additional support from caregivers to live socially valorised lives with optimal degrees of self-direction, in the context of home living, a parent’s experience of severe trauma could have a deleterious impact on her caregiving capacity to meet her child with learning disabilities’ support needs in an equitable manner. This paper contains a case study that describes how a mother’s experience of earlier trauma, which resulted in complex post-traumatic stress, had a profound influence on her object-relations and object-relatedness with both of her children, including her daughter who had mild learning disabilities and severe behavioural difficulties. While the mother’s own experience of trauma deserves attention in its own right, her defences against traumatic recollection also affected her responsiveness to her daughter’s high behavioural support needs.

Narrative Length and Speech Rate in Battered Women.

Narrative length and speech rate of traumatic recollections have been previously associated with different emotions and adjustment trajectories after trauma. However, the evidence is limited and the results are mixed. The present study aimed to evaluate length (i.e., word count) and speech rate (i.e., words per minute) in narratives of events with different valence (i.e., neutral, positive, and negative/traumatic) by 50 battered women (trauma group) and 50 non-traumatized women (controls). The results showed that traumatic narratives by the trauma group were longer than those by the control group. Moreover, they were inversely related to time since the event and anxiety during disclosure, whereas the speech rate was also inversely associated with anxiety, as well as with peritraumatic dissociation and avoidance. The shorter narratives for positive events and a decelerated speech pattern for traumatic experiences predicted psychological symptoms. Additionally, the individual’s emotional state predicted narrative aspects, with bidirectional effects. Our findings showed that linguistic characteristics of traumatic narratives (but also of narratives of positive events) revealed information about how the victims elaborated autobiographical memories and coped with the trauma.

Fludrocortisone in posttraumatic stress disorder: effective for symptoms and prazosin-induced hypotension.

To the Editor: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treated with prazosin is associated with hypotension. We report 2 cases wherein fludrocortisone was effective in treating prazosin-induced hypotension. Fludrocortisone may have improved symptoms of PTSD. Both patients were admitted in early 2014 to the co-occurring inpatient unit at Sheppard Pratt Health System, Baltimore, Maryland. Case report 1. Ms A is a 56-year-old woman diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) and PTSD (DSM-5 criteria). She was sexually abused as a child and physically abused as an adult by her husband. Oral prazosin was started at 1 mg at bedtime and gradually increased to 4 mg 3 times/d. Ms A experienced symptoms of orthostatic hypotension. Her baseline blood pressure was 132/80 mm Hg after starting prazosin and remained consistently low; her lowest level was 90/60 mm Hg. Fludrocortisone was started at 0.1 mg every morning to elevate her blood pressure. Symptoms of orthostatic hypotension resolved despite increasing the prazosin dose. At discharge, Ms A had a blood pressure of 120/70 mm Hg and no PTSD symptoms. Case report 2. Ms B is a 22-year-old woman diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, MDD, and PTSD (DSM-5 criteria). She was sexually and physically abused throughout adolescence and adulthood. Oral prazosin was started at 1 mg twice/d and was gradually increased to 5 mg 3 times/d at discharge. Ms B’s baseline blood pressure was 130/78 mm Hg. After starting prazosin, she experienced several episodes of hypotension; her lowest blood pressure level was 88/56 mm Hg. Fludrocortisone was started at 0.1 mg every morning, which normalized her blood pressure at 122/86 mm Hg. The PTSD symptoms showed consistent improvement. The most common adverse effect of prazosin is dizziness (10%).1 Fludrocortisone was effective in treating prazosin-induced hypotension in both of our patients. Fludrocortisone is the most effective first-line treatment for orthostatic hypotension.2 Fludrocortisone has mineralocorticoid properties and increases intravascular volume via increased renal sodium reabsorption, thus affecting electrolyte balance.2 Alternatively, sodium chloride (table salt) tablets 1–2 g 1–2 times/d may be used to treat prazosin-induced hypotension (Erica Duncan, MD, 2014, written communication). Fludrocortisone may also have been effective in improving PTSD symptoms3 concurrently with prazosin.1,4 Patients with PTSD showed heightened responsiveness of glucocorticoid receptors, and cortisol may decrease the impact of trauma-related thoughts by inhibiting retrieval of memories.3 Initial observation in combat veterans showed decreased levels of cortisol and increased traumatic recollection of events; administration of intravenous hydrocortisone improved declarative memory. This improvement was attributed to normalization of glucose metabolism in the hippocampus and amygdala.3 Short-term management with fludrocortisone is convenient due to a short half-life and variable dosage interval. Dosing is 0.1 mg orally per/d and titrated up by 0.1 mg every 10 days, with a maximum of 0.4 mg.5 Due to its glucocorticoid effects, long-term use is not recommended. Fludrocortisone is preferred over other blood pressure–elevating medications, including midodrine and pyridostigmine, because the latter 2 require higher doses to achieve the same efficacy, with adverse effects presenting in short-term use.5,6 Certain patient populations may have chronically low baseline blood pressure levels, such as young women and those suffering from eating disorders. Therefore, fludrocortisone may be started first to elevate blood pressure, and, then, prazosin may be added subsequently. This novel treatment of prazosin and fludrocortisone provides a therapeutic strategy that is safe, tolerable, and effective. To our knowledge, this is the first case series on the effectiveness of fludrocortisone to treat PTSD symptoms and prazosin-induced hypotension. This therapeutic strategy should be considered in the management of PTSD, as it may lead to better outcomes. Acknowledgments: Mss Vaishnav and Patel thank Sheppard Pratt Health System and Dr Koola, the attending psychiatrist.

Threat of death and autobiographical memory: a study of passengers from Flight AT236.

We investigated autobiographical memory in a group of passengers onboard a trans-Atlantic flight that nearly ditched at sea. The consistency of traumatic exposure across passengers, some of whom developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), provided a unique opportunity to assess verified memory for life-threatening trauma. Using the Autobiographical Interview, which separates episodic from non-episodic details, passengers and healthy controls (HCs) recalled three events: the airline disaster (or a highly negative event for HCs), the September 11, 2001 attacks, and a non-emotional event. All passengers showed robust mnemonic enhancement for episodic details of the airline disaster. Although neither richness nor accuracy of traumatic recollection was related to PTSD, production of non-episodic details for traumatic and non-traumatic events was elevated in PTSD passengers. These findings indicate a robust mnemonic enhancement for trauma that is not specific to PTSD. Rather, PTSD is associated with altered cognitive control operations that affect autobiographical memory in general.

Tomasa’s Traumatic Memories in La voz dormida

This study aims to give the reader of Dulce Chacón’s novel La voz dormida a foundational understanding of trauma memory theories developed by Shoshana Felman, Dori Laub, Cathy Caruth, and Dominick LaCapra. This knowledge provides the basis for a framework that will allow us to comprehend how Chacón develops Tomasa’s struggle to engage with her traumatic recollections as a literary figuration of the very real pain and suffering many republican women experienced during the Francoist regime. The characterization of Tomasa not only gives the novel a great narrative force, but also offers the reader the possibility to share the experience of thousands of victims of Francoism.

Trauma in context. Working with traumatic experiences and recollections from the factual and immediate context

In this article, I advance a new way in which traumatic recollections may be treated in psychotherapy. This novel approach, closely connected to the theory of Elliott, Watson, Goldman, and Greenberg on evocative unfolding, trauma retelling, and meaning creation, focuses on narrative construction to make room for and help the assignment of meaning. In this narrative construction, we stay close to the factual and practical context of the story that can be told about the traumatic experience. Most clients will find it less difficult to consider the practical details than to directly address the traumatic psychological injury. Departing from this immediate context, the traumatic experience can be better appropriated, and made less self-alienated. However, this approach does require the therapeutic relationship to be at a stage in which enough attachment and trust has been established. After contemplating trauma in general and the way it may be handled in psychotherapy, the proposed new approach is discussed and elaborated.

A Case of Dual Dissociative and Re-Experiencing/Hyperarousal Subtypes in Childhood PTSD: A Neuropsychiatric Formulation

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article LettersFull AccessA Case of Dual Dissociative and Re-Experiencing/Hyperarousal Subtypes in Childhood PTSD: A Neuropsychiatric FormulationDavid L. Perez, M.D., Peter Hunt, Ph.D., and Michael Trieu, M.D.David L. PerezSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., Peter HuntSearch for more papers by this author, Ph.D., and Michael TrieuSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:1 Jan 2013https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.12010015AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail To the Editor: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is characterized by re-experiencing phenomena, hyperarousal, avoidance, and emotional numbing after experiencing or witnessing life-endangering trauma. Trauma responses exhibit two hypothesized phenotypes: hyperarousal/re-experiencing and dissociative subtypes.1,2 We present an illustrative case and neuropsychiatric formulation of dual dissociative and nondissociative PTSD symptomatology.Case ReportA 15-year-old, right-handed, Hispanic boy, adopted at age 4, with a history of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) admitted to a tertiary-care inpatient psychiatric service from an outside hospital after an approximately 30-minute episode of unresponsiveness. His vital signs showed a blood pressure of 131/78, heart rate of 66, and a glucose level of 100. His basic metabolic panel and toxicology screen were unrevealing. Upon waking, he reported 10 years of retrograde amnesia; he did not recognize his adoptive parents, failed to recall school events, and was surprised by his body habitus and physical abilities. His neuropsychiatric history included 2–3 months of recurrent, unresponsive, atonic events lasting minutes to hours. He was previously admitted for a neurological evaluation that showed normal brain magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, electrocardiogram, and transthoracic echocardiogram. Preceding stressors included exposure to verbal aggression and physical discipline directed toward his biological sibling. Medications on admission included sertraline 50 mg, aripiprazole 10 mg, dexmethylphenidate extended-release preparation 20 mg, and trazodone 50 mg. Mental status exam revealed poor eye contact, constricted affect, feeling “weirded out,” and intermittent recollection of a blue house. Cognitive testing (limited by patient cooperation) revealed mild lethargy and disorientation to month, year, and date. He registered 3/3 words and recalled 1/3 in 5 minutes, with improvement to 2/3 on word choice. Elemental neurological exam was normal. His hospital course was notable for resolution of amnesia over the first week and daily intrusive recollections of being locked in a closet while living with his biological parents in a blue house; he had similarly-themed nightmares. Over a 6-week period, he exhibited multiple atonic, unresponsive events lasting 10–30 minutes, triggered by traumatic recollections, negative peer interactions, or other stressors. He also manifested emotionally-triggered hyperarousal episodes characterized by jaw clenching, fist clenching, attack-like posturing, diminished responsiveness to redirection, and hypervigilence, lasting 10–30 minutes. The patient received supportive psychotherapy, psychoeducation, and pharmacologic adjustments (sertraline 150 mg daily, aripiprazole and trazodone discontinued, prazosin 2 mg nightly for nightmares, risperidone 2 mg twice daily for hyperarousal/agitation) with diminished frequency of both subtypes. This case provides a within-subject example of dual dissociative (disruption and fragmentation of memory, identity, consciousness, and bodily awareness) and hyperarousal/re-experiencing PTSD subtypes. Pathological hyperarousal and re-experiencing phenomena have been linked to emotional undermodulation (impaired top-down inhibition) mediated by diminished rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity, and heighted amygdala activity.2,4 Dissociation has been associated with dorsal ACC and medial PFC hyperactivity (overmodulation) and posterior parietal cortex dysfunction.2,4 Finally, ACC dysfunction could provide an overlapping circuit-based explanation for the patient’s ADHD and PTSD diagnoses.5From the Dept. of Psychiatry, Children’s Hospital Boston; Dept. of Psychiatry, Dept. of Neurology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and Dept. of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA.Correspondence: David L. Perez, M.D.; e-mail: david.[email protected]comReferences1 Bremner JD: Acute and chronic responses to psychological trauma: where do we go from here? Am J Psychiatry 1999; 156:349–351Medline, Google Scholar2 Lanius RA, Vermetten E, Loewenstein RJ, et al.: Emotion modulation in PTSD: Clinical and neurobiological evidence for a dissociative subtype. Am J Psychiatry 2010; 167:640–647Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar3 Lanius RA, Williamson PC, Boksman K, et al.: Brain activation during script-driven, imagery-induced dissociative responses in PTSD: a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation. Biol Psychiatry 2002; 52:305–311Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar4 Simeon D, Guralnik O, Hazlett EA, et al.: Feeling unreal: a PET study of depersonalization disorder. Am J Psychiatry 2000; 157:1782–1788Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar5 Bush G: Cingulate, frontal, and parietal cortical dysfunction in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Biol Psychiatry 2011; 69:1160–1167Crossref, Medline, Google Scholar FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byAn Integrative Neurocircuit Perspective on Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures and Functional Movement Disorders27 November 2014 | Clinical EEG and Neuroscience, Vol. 46, No. 1 Volume 25Issue 1 Winter 2013Pages E24-E25 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 January 2013 Published in print 1 January 2013

Traumatisch verleden ge(re)animeerd: Het gebruik van animatie in documentairefilm voor de representatie van traumatische herinnering<sup><a href="#_edn1" id="_ednref1">1</a></sup>

This article explores how animation provides various possibilities of representing trauma,using a textual analysis of the film waltz with bashir (Ari Folman, 2008). The ontological qualitiesof animation films make them suitable for the representation of traumatic recollections,also considered to be traumatic re-experiences of what were firstly visual experiences. Thefocus of this article is the way in which animation not only represents the traumatic events butalso addresses the problematic mechanisms that underlie the elusiveness of trauma.

Oranje en het journaille. De historische relatie tussen monarch en journalist

This article explores how animation provides various possibilities of representing trauma,using a textual analysis of the film waltz with bashir (Ari Folman, 2008). The ontological qualitiesof animation films make them suitable for the representation of traumatic recollections,also considered to be traumatic re-experiences of what were firstly visual experiences. Thefocus of this article is the way in which animation not only represents the traumatic events butalso addresses the problematic mechanisms that underlie the elusiveness of trauma.

EMDR Works . . . But How? Recent Progress in the Search for Treatment Mechanisms

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a highly scrutinized but efficacious psychotherapy commonly used in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. Despite much theorizing and speculation, EMDR’s mechanism of action remains unspecified. This article reviews several accounts of how EMDR works to reduce symptoms and/or aid memory reprocessing, including disruption of a traumatic recollection in working memory, increased psychological distance from the trauma, enhanced communication between brain hemispheres, and psychophysiological changes associated with relaxation or evocation of a rapid-eye-movement–like brain state. Several gaps in knowledge are also identified: The working memory account has received considerable support but has yet to be evaluated using clinical samples. How psychological distancing translates into symptomatic improvement is unclear. Psychophysiological effects of EMDR are well demonstrated but leave open the question of whether they constitute a treatment mechanism or an outcome of memory processing. Multiple mechanisms may work to produce treatment gains in EMDR; hence, an integrative model may be necessary to capture its myriad effects.

Corticolimbic Blood Flow During Nontraumatic Emotional Processing in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Recent brain imaging studies implicate dysfunction of limbic and paralimbic circuitry, including the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), in the pathogenesis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during traumatic recollection and imagery. However, the relationship between activity in these regions and general emotional processing unrelated to traumatic experience has not been fully examined. To investigate activity in the limbic and paralimbic brain regions in PTSD in response to a challenge with emotionally salient generic visual images. Cross-sectional, case-control study. Academic medical center. Sixteen Vietnam veterans with combat-related PTSD (PTSD group), 15 combat-exposed Vietnam veterans without PTSD (combat control group), and 15 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (normal control group). We used positron emission tomography to study regional cerebral blood flow while participants viewed complex visual pictures with negatively valenced/aversive, nonaversive ("neutral"), and blank pictures. Psychophysiologic and emotional self-report data were also recorded. All 3 groups activated the dorsal MPFC to general salient content. Controls without PTSD activated the left amygdala in response to aversive stimuli. Normal controls activated the ventral MPFC and combat-exposed non-PTSD and PTSD participants exhibited either no response or deactivation in these regions, respectively, during negative emotional experience. Consistent with current functional neuroanatomic models, patients with PTSD exhibited altered neural responses in the amygdala and ventral MPFC during the processing of emotionally salient but trauma-unrelated stimuli, potentially reflecting disorder-specific changes. Activation of the amygdala and lack of ventral MPFC deactivation to negatively valenced images in combat controls may reflect compensatory changes after trauma exposure that are not associated with PTSD.

Afterwardsness in film

The spectatorial paradigm proposed here develops directly from the Freudian concept of Nachträglichkeit, which developed out of Freud’s work on traumatic neuroses and the abandoned seduction theory. Afterwardsness, Laplanche’s reworking of Freud’s concept, and the cinema both share a concern with temporality. They also share a common interest in memory and are both bound to a particularly Laplanchean notion of translation. Film has always been thoroughly intertextual and has always sought to remake or (re)translate itself for differing generations and different nations. What I am suggesting in this essay is that spectators also remake films as part of the very process of spectatorship and that beyond the actual cinematic experience they carry a remade and remembered “film” with them. This view of spectatorship therefore takes afterwardsness as its motivating force. The experience of watching a film coincides also with the temporal directionalities described by Laplanche in relation to afterwardsness. Not only is the spectator left with memories from, and of, the film after it has ended, but any number of (frequently traumatic) enigmatic signifiers or messages may have been unconsciously recorded, requiring subsequent de‐ and re‐translation. Following a Laplanchian model, one might surmise that the cinematic spectator develops a cinematic unconscious on the basis of the “repression” of the messages received via the screen. This “repression” occurs as a result of the sheer volume and traumatic intensity of the visual and aural stimuli, which cannot be immediately ordered, understood, de‐ and re‐translated. These enigmatic messages, structured by the temporality of afterwardsness, provoke the spectator into a process of reconstruction, re‐translation. At the same time the visual and aural stimuli of the cinematic experience may also have an immediate effect on conscious perception or trigger the traumatic recollection of a previously unconscious trauma. Subjectivity in this context would thus be, as Laplanche asserts, a process of “auto‐translation”, provoked by the message of the other (see Laplanche 1992a). This other may well be partially or totally inflected by the hegemony of Hollywood; however, the de‐ and re‐translation that is part of the process of auto‐translation might enable an active “cinematographic performance” that may ultimately open up a critical space beyond the dominant discourses. (This notion of “cinematographic performance” is discussed in Guattari (1977).) These (traumatic) memories, enigmatic signifiers, the de‐translated remnants of one’s cinema history are re‐translated and remade, engendering a remaking of oneself around these fragments in a process of “auto‐translation”, what might also be thought of as a kind of re‐narration. There is an active, almost performative, dimension to this process of repetition in translation, in difference; an emphasis on re‐narration as part of a process of translation or re‐writing, a process of transformation. Thus it has been argued that: Afterwardsness is Laplanche’s term for the German Nachträglichkeit. “Deferred action” was James Strachey’s English translation, used in the Standard Edition. For a detailed discussion of the significance of translation for the concept see Sutton (2001). Forward movement in life is achieved through a backward movement in memory, but one that is more than a simple regression. In place of the blocked nostalgia or nausea of the perpetual return, the past is transformed in such processes as “working through” and “deferred action”. This is […] performance that is iterative and interrogative—a repetition that is initiatory, instating a differential history that will not return to the power of the Same. (Burgin 1996, p. 273) The idea of a Nachträglichkeit spectatorship is to express the very dynamism of the spectatorial experience, to speak of the reconstructive and creative aspect of spectatorship. This process of spectatorship recreates the films it “remembers” and articulates a certain kind of love at first sight (always already at second sight) of the cinema, the expression of a kind of après‐coup of the coup de foudre.

Elizabeth Bishop's Stories of Childhood: Writing the Disaster

The sight of columns of numbers, Elizabeth Bishop writes in her memoir “Primer Classs,” always induces the traumatic recollection of early math instruction: “a strange sensation or shudder, partly aesthetic, partly painful, goes through my diaphragm” (Prose 3). She compares the effect to the sight of a large dorsal fin cutting the surface of the water. The memory is potent and, like the mother's scream in “In the Village,” permanent: ”It is a memory I do not even have to try to remember, or reconstruct; it is always right there, clear and complete (Prose 4).

World War II veterans, social support, and veterans' associations

People use many different coping strategies to deal with their traumatic recollections. Twenty-five British World War II veterans were interviewed regarding the ways they used social support both during the war and in the years afterwards. The findings demonstrate that social support is used in fundamentally different ways. During the war comradeship was particularly important and even fifty years after the war comrades are still a valuable resource for discussing war experiences, and dealing with the emotional content of traumatic recollections. Veterans rely on wives and families to help deal with the more physical and practical elements of coping, but tend not to discuss their traumatic memories with them. The findings show that social support is an important lifelong coping strategy for World War II veterans.

Intrusive traumatic recollections and comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder in depressed patients.

Recent studies have found evidence of the presence and role of intrusive traumatic memories in depressed patients. In this study, we attempted to replicate these findings, examining the full range of early and later traumatic events, as well as comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder, in male and female depressed patients. Sixty-nine outpatients meeting criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, for major depressive episode were recruited from the outpatient department of an academic hospital. Seventy-five percent of the depressed patients were found to have had one or more early and/or more recent traumatic experiences. The symptom category of reexperiencing was diagnosed in 48% of these trauma-exposed respondents. Comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder was diagnosed in 13% of the total sample. The findings show that depressed patients are highly likely to have experienced traumatic events and intrusive traumatic recollections. Future research should focus on the direction of any causal relationship between trauma, reexperiencing, posttraumatic stress disorder, and depression.

Maintenance of intrusive memories in posttraumatic stress disorder: a cognitive approach.

Intrusive recollections are very common immediately after traumatic events and are considered necessary aspects of emotional processing. However, if these intrusive recollections persist over a long time, they are linked to long-term psychiatric disorder, especially Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This paper discusses the need to investigate factors involved in the maintenance of intrusive traumatic recollections. It is suggested that the idiosyncratic meaning of the intrusive recollections predicts the distress caused by them, and the degree to which the individual engages in strategies to control the intrusions. These control strategies maintain the intrusive recollections by preventing a change in the meaning of the trauma and of the traumatic memories. It is further suggested that what is needed is a comprehensive assessment of the processes that prevent change in meaning, going beyond the assessment of avoidance. In particular, safety behaviours, dissociation and numbing, suppression of memories and thoughts about trauma, rumination, activation of other emotions such as anger and guilt and corresponding cognitions, and selective information processing (attentional and memory biases) may be involved in the maintenance of intrusive recollections. Preliminary data supporting these suggestions from studies of individuals involved in road traffic accidents and survivors of child sexual abuse are described.