Is Every Memory Worth Keeping?Controversy Over Pills to Reduce Mental Trauma

[BellisimaJ.]

Kathleen Logue was waiting at a traffic light when two men smashed her car's side window, pointed a gun at her head and ordered her to drive. For hours, Logue fought off her attackers' attempts to rape her, and finally she escaped. But for years afterward, she was tormented by memories of that terrifying day.

Logue volunteered for an experiment designed to test whether taking a pill immediately after a terrorizing experience might reduce the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study is part of a promising but controversial field of research seeking to alter, or possibly erase, the impact of painful memories -- a concept dubbed "therapeutic forgetting" by some and taken to science fiction extremes in films such as this summer's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

Proponents say it could lead to pills that prevent or treat PTSD in soldiers coping with the horrors of battle, torture victims recovering from brutalization, survivors who fled the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and other victims of severe, psychologically devastating experiences.

A fascinating article pointed out to me by Chiquita. I would love to get a discussion going on this.


Edited to add the link to the article.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/art...Oct18.html

[maryrussel]

I'd like to read the rest of the article but my gut reaction is that I don't want my memories erased. Even the bad ones.

[BellisimaJ.]

[quote author=maryrussel link=topic=6239.msg35456#msg35456 date=1165526132]
I'd like to read the rest of the article but my gut reaction is that I don't want my memories erased. Even the bad ones.
[/quote]

It's a very interesting article, filled with all sorts of questions about the ethics of it all.

I have had several intensely traumatic experiences in my life (as have many others), and I really don't think I would be willing to take a drug to forget. Anesthetization does not seem like a viable recourse.
My memories make me who I am--------who would I be without them? Not too sure I am willing to find this out..

There are other issues as well.....................

[maryrussel]

Can you provide a link to the article, or do you have it in that post and I am just missing it?

[BellisimaJ.]

[quote author=maryrussel link=topic=6239.msg35465#msg35465 date=1165529354]
Can you provide a link to the article, or do you have it in that post and I am just missing it?
[/quote]

DUH, on me. :oops: :oops: :oops:

Sorry. I can't believe I did that, lol. :oops:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/art...Oct18.html

[chiquita]

So far, the research has suggested only that the emotional effects of memories may be blunted, not that the memories themselves are erased.

"I think it's an unfortunate misconception that it's blotting out memories," said Charles R. Marmar of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, who helped conduct the French study. "What it does is help people manage the memories so they can tolerate them."

This is the flipside of the argument. The memories still remain intact, but the physiological and emotional reaction to the memories are blunted, not removed. In other words the reaction to the memory loses its intensity.

The study sample size at this point is relatively small. Much more controlled research is needed at this point. The potential for abuse is always present. The US army was just given a huge grant to do research on the use of propanol in treating military personnel returning from combat. The number of PTSD cases is extremely high in the veteran population.

What I would totally disagree with would be the use of medication before exhausting all other avenues of treatment including mental health services.

[maryrussel]

Thanks Bell.
I agree with you that memories, good or bad are what make us who we are. All of my memories have helped me to learn and to grow. Even my short stores are often based on both bad and good memories.
i.e.
Rudolph

At the age of 5 her favorite toy was a squeaky Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Neither of them seemed to fit in anywhere. It was the first of her favorite toys to mysteriously disappear. One by one all of her favorite toys were removed and given away to those less fortunate. She soon learned not to form attachments to anything or anyone.

Her foster mother seemed to resent her. She would ask her to set the table and then berate her for being “too stupid to do it the right way”.

Her mom turned every learning experience into a punishment. When it took her more than 5 minutes to learn how to tie her shoes she was sent to the corner of the kitchen and told that she could leave when she could tie her shoes correctly. As she became a little older Sunday sermons became a nightmare. Upon arriving home from church she was confined to her room until she could write coherently about what she had learned. When her mother decided that she should learn how to embroider, her sewing was torn apart and she was made to redo it if her mother judged it inadequate. When her tiny fingers would drop the needle between the cracks of the hardwood floors, she was made to search for it on her hands and knees before she could leave the room.

They lived about a block away from the grade school that she attended so she came home for lunch every day. She was not able to enjoy her lunch because she had to bring her catechism book home with her so that most of her lunch break was spent being drilled by her father.

She never told her parents about the recurring nightmares of her murdering them.

At the age of 10 her foster parents told that she would be going to live in an orphanage. As she entered the door of the orphanage her mother said, “Don’t miss us too much”, to which she replied, “Don’t worry, I won’t”. She was genuinely surprised to see the look of hurt that briefly appeared on her mother’s face.

Sundays were visiting days and she would dress up every Sunday waiting for them to come to see her until one of the nuns finally took pity on her and explained as gently as she could that she would not be seeing her parents again. Although she cried, the murderous nightmares stopped.

In her presence one of the nuns told another nun that she suffered from an inferiority complex. She explained to them that she actually suffered from a superiority complex but was trying to hide it by acting inferior. She inwardly chuckled at their astonished expressions.

Another foster family took her in when she was 12. They treated her with love, but she had a difficult time returning it.

She met her future husband when she was 18. They married 2 years later but it wasn’t until 8 years later that she discovered that she truly loved him and that she had finally found the happiness that had eluded her all those years.

[maryrussel]

I believe that my memories are what has made me a writer. It is just an unproven theory of mine but I have met many people who have had unhappy childhoods or other traumatic experiences who have become amazing writers. If my theory is correct, manipulating those memories could be a great loss to those of us who love to read.

[BellisimaJ.]

The memories still remain intact, but the physiological and emotional reaction to the memories are blunted, not removed.

But Chiquita, doing so would still have to change the person that you are. That is the problem that I have with it.

I think it's safe to say that I have eaten life with a very large spoon.    ALong the way, a few bad things have happened. BUT, I would not want to decrease the intensity of those memories by using a drug. I really think it would make me a different person. We are our feelings, IMO.
And, what if this were to cause us to lose our ability to feel anything intensely?

What I would totally disagree with would be the use of medication before exhausting all other avenues of treatment including mental health services.

I absolutely agree with this!!

Mary, a sad but triumphant story. And impossible without your memories.

I just can not see allowing someone to mess with my "me-ness".

If my theory is correct, manipulating those memories could be a great loss to those of us who love to read.

I agree, Mary!!

[chiquita]

Belle very good points. There are also other non-invasive techniques that have shown success in lessening the biochemical reactions to stressful/traumatic events. Biofeedback, relaxation therapies, are just a few.

Great story Mary.