Healing Unwanted Memory

A fact is a fact. Life experiences are a fact. The residual of experiencing life events, memory, is a fact. Human memory is a complicated subject. Many of us are not aware of the impact recorded memories have on our lives. Every aspect of us and our lives are affected by what is filed in our long-term memory bank. How we think, feel and behave toward ourselves, others and the world is influenced 50% on what is stored in our memory. We are not always aware of our enjoyable and successful memories but traumatic memory seems to haunt our minds and affects our ability to function.

How the Brain Treats Different Life Events

The human brain is a complex organ. The brain regulates functioning of all the organs, balance and movement of the body, processes of the mind (thinking, emotions and behaviors), and spiritual elements of self. It is also responsible for the memory functions such as recording, storage and replaying of life events. The human brains ability to perform all this functions is through “order”. Without order the brain would not be able to accomplish what it does.

Neurological research has shown that the brain processes traumatic memory differently than non-traumatic memory. The human brain’s job in reference to non-traumatic memory is to record, process, integrate, order and store. Simply put, the brain perceptually receives and records all the information from a life event; it processes all the images, smells (content), records all the sounds (audio), achieves closure of feelings (associated emotions) and then places the recorded life event into long-term storage bank for future retrieval and replay.

How the Brain Works with Traumatic Memory

When the brain is faced with an intense overwhelming life event, like abuse, trauma or a catastrophic act of nature, the processing of the event is put on hold and hidden from consciousness for protection. The recorded event is then held in a temporary location. So the overwhelming event is filed and is out of order.

The unprocessed memory then remains in the alternative storage area for months or even years, until something triggers it to resurface. A trigger defined as any event, person, smell, thought, or place that initiates a reaction or sets of another. Basically a trigger is how the unprocessed memory is filed. At some point when the memory well be triggered, the brain will bring the memory out of hiding back to consciousness with all its intensity in an attempt to put it into order, make emotional closure and integrate it into long-term storage. If the memory is rejected or repressed, the memory is then forced back into the temporary location. The resurfacing of an unprocessed memory is termed a flashback.

Hope for Reduction of the PTSD Symptom of Re-experiencing

In these days of specialization, why isn’t there a teachable skill that would target one memory at a time quickly and safely? Well, there is. A guided protocol called Rapid Reduction Technique® (RRT) was developed to reduce the effects of traumatic flashbacks and memories for women who had experienced abusive and traumatizing life events and had Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). RRT has been used and studied with the PTSD population for the past ten (10) years in an inpatient psychiatric setting. RRT has been successful in helping survivors reduce the intensity of the flashbacks, help in the processing the overwhelming images, smells and sounds, achieve closure with the associated emotions and facilitate storage into long-term memory. RRT is a teachable and safe skill which works on one memory at a time. RRT is a life skill based on revisiting traumatic or abusive life events, not reliving or re-experiencing. The RRT protocol teaches a survivor to bring a reoccurring flashback up to consciousness safely, work with the emotions associated with it and assist the brain in processing the memory.

Case Study

An example of this process of embedded traumatic memory and trigger can be see through a case study of a incident that occur on 9/11 in New York to a 42 year old African-American New York Policewoman. This New York Policewoman was one of the First Responders at the World Trade Center on 9/11. She arrived on site after the collapse of the first tower. The events she witnessed were horrifying and overwhelming. Upon the collapse of the second tower she became covered in white soot. As a result of what she witnessed and experienced, she had became disabled and unable to fulfill her duties as a police officer, so she resigned from the New York Police Department. To avoid the recollections of that day she moved to Florida.

For seven years she became more and more dysfunctional and unable to work or at times even leave her house. Every time she was out of her house and she heard a police siren, a fire truck or ambulance come up behind her she would freeze and have to pull off the road. Frozen and experiencing tachycardia, rapid respiration and haunting images of her 9/11experience, she was unable to drive home.

The flashbacks, or overwhelming images, that haunted her was that of her being covered in soot, bodies everywhere and watching the second World Trade Center tower collapsing. She was so disabled due to fear of being triggered again. In an outpatient therapy session with her Psychologist, she agreed to confront her traumatic memories with the life skill call Rapid Reduction Technique®. Within one session, she learned to safely and protectively revisit her unprocessed memories of 9/11 and face her emotions of that day. She achieved closure, order, disconnected the triggers and forgiveness with her 9/11 memories. Her experience with RRT assisted her in freeing herself and within months was able to return to a balanced life with her husband, children and herself.

There is hope for reducing the disabling affects of flashbacks. RRT is not a cure but a life skill that helps the survivor achieve balance, order and closure. Once the overwhelming emotion associated with the traumatic memory is rendered ineffective, the survivor is able to work successfully through the content of the traumatic life event.