The Coherence of Analogue Traumatic and Nontraumatic Memories Over Repeated Recall

Abstract

In therapy, clients sometimes repeatedly recall their traumatic memories to, among other things, resolve the incoherence said to underlie distress. But the literature is silent on the extent to which people’s memories for traumatic and nontraumatic memories cohere over repeated recall compared with similar “control” memories not repeatedly recalled. We asked people to watch two films portraying traumatic or nontraumatic events and then to repeatedly describe their memory for one of those films over 5 days. Our data suggest repeatedly recalling traumatic and nontraumatic memories prevents the loss of coherence that occurs when memories are not repeatedly recalled. There was little evidence of incoherent traumatic memories or of a relation between the coherence of traumatic memories and posttraumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD) symptoms. These findings suggest that when it comes to PTSD, the effectiveness of exposure therapy is not easily explained by the notion that therapy resolves incoherent traumatic memories.