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Chapter 11: Uncovering Secrets: The Problem of Traumatic Memory

This chapter details the history of research into traumatic memory. Pierre Janet published the first book on traumatic stress in 1889, titled L’automatisme psychologique. He believed the key to traumatic stress was uncovering the intense emotions at the source, and spoke with his patients for hours to determine this. He documented a case of reenactment, in which a woman would reenact the memory of the death of her mother, and coined the term dissociation. Janet’s contemporary, Sigmund Freud, took a similar approach with his patients and popularized the “talking cure” in the treatment of traumatic stress. Van der Kolk’s patient Julian, who had been molested by a Catholic priest as a child, repressed the traumatic memories until adulthood, when they would resurface in flashbacks and occasional reenactments.

Chapter 12: The Unbearable Heaviness of Remembering

Chapter 12 discusses the controversy surrounding repressed memories, and how normal memory differs from traumatic memory. The idea of traumatic amnesia and repressed memories has long been heavily debated. Some scholars vehemently deny that there is any evidence that trauma can affect memory and that false memories can be implanted or suggested. Dr. Linda Meyer Williams conducted a study in which she interviewed girls between 10 and 12 who had been sexually abused, and then interviewed them again as adults, finding that 38 percent did not recall the abuse at all. Of those who forgot and later remembered, their recovered memories were mostly accurate. Van der Kolk conducted his own study on traumatic memory in 1994, during which patients were found to have disorganized, hazy memories of traumatic events that improved over time. In contrast, positive memories were organized, and did not change over time. Van der Kolk’s patient Nancy, who was awake but paralyzed during a surgery, could not make sense of her memories immediately afterwards, but over time the details began to solidify until they could be pieced together into a full memory.

Previous section Part 3: The Minds of Children (Chs 7-10) Next section Part 5: Paths to Recovery (Chs 13-20) & Epilogue

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