Suppressing stressful memories in PTSD - counterintuitive

[Enlightenment]

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patients’ attempts to suppress their traumatic memories have long been considered an ineffective mechanism. Instead of confronting these painful images in order to leave them in the past, the way they were trying to repress or drive them out was seen more as a negative strategy, intensifying the intrusions and worsening the situation of those with PTSD.

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The results show that the participants with PTSD present a deficiency of the mechanisms that suppress and regulate the activity of the memory regions during an intrusion (particularly the activity of the hippocampus).  

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Conversely, the functioning of these mechanisms is to a large extent preserved in the individuals without PTSD, who are able to fight the intrusive memories

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results suggest that trauma exposure is associated with neural and behavioral disruptions in memory suppression and point to the possibility that difficulty in active suppression of memories may be just one of several likely factors contributing to the development of PTSD.

https://presse.inserm.fr/en/ptsd-resilience-after-trauma-the-role-of-memory-suppression/38240/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30844595

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-020-0285-3