What You Remember and How You Act
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by: Patrick Glancy
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Word Count: 461
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 Time: 7:13 AM
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You know you can think of happy memories and feel the happy emotion, if you let yourself. Just like you can think of a scary or sad memory and feel that emotion.
There is obviously a close connection between our emotions and memories. Almost as if the emotion is part of the memory. Our memories are always in our minds so it makes sense that the emotions in our memories can constantly have an effect on how we feel.
This can cause psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress and depression. It can also cause more basic disruption in your life like fears, phobias and high stress.
The most popular way to deal with these sorts of problems is prescription medication. But, medication only tries to help the 'symptoms' instead of treating the 'cause'. Long term results are usually just long term symptom management.
The key to long term help with these issues would appear to be the emotional association with the memory. What would happen if that association could be erased, reduced or even changed?
There is a medication being researched called propranolol that acts as an "amnesia drug". It is being used to directly disrupt the connection between our memories and the emotions associated with them.
This study, in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, talks about psychiatrists at McGill University and Harvard University using the amnesia drug to disrupt the memories of trauma victims. The drug reduces the emotional part of the memory while leaving the conscious part of the memory.
People can still remember what happened, but get a sense of distance or detachment from the memory. How permanent this process is and any potential side effects are not discussed.
It all seems a little too sci-fi to me, when there are more reliable, established, and safer methods available.
Specifically hypnosis. Proper hypnosis seems more effective for this process since, when you are in hypnosis, you are using the emotional portion of your mind. This is especially true with memories containing strong emotion from childhood. When experiencing memories from childhood will generally 'feel' the age you were when you created the memory.
When using modern hypnosis to re-experience a traumatic memory, the hypnotist needs to be properly trained for the process to be quick and effective. When these conditions are met, the client can experience the memory with the perspective of adulthood. This alone will often reduce or negate the emotions involved.
Addressing issues in this is about gaining real, inner perspective on your past. When this is done, it creates a sense of distance from the memory. A memory that no longer influences how you feel.
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