Erasing Details Of Bad Memories

An anonymous reader writes "People can be trained to forget specific details associated with bad memories, according to breakthrough findings that may lead the way for the development of new depression and post-traumatic stress disorder therapies. New study (abstract), published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, reveals that individuals can be taught to forget personal feelings associated with an emotional memory without erasing the memory of the actual event."

Comments

Why bother with roofies anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rohypnol: that's soooo 2001.

Re:Why bother with roofies anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
Each prayer accepted and each wish resigned.

Slashdot?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell's that?

I AM NOT QUAID!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

AHHRHRHHRHAHGHGHGHGAHGHGHGHG

Midazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

The drug Midazolam (trade name Versed) is already used to induce anterograde amnesia before certain unpleasant medical procedures. This is used where the effects of an anesthetic are undesirable or impossible.

Sometimes this causes problems - it is often abused by the health care industry to sometimes horrific results. In the worst cases, people are put through what can only be called torture under the assumption that the drug will block their memories of the event, and even though their conscious memories of it are gone later, they suffer PTSD type symptoms after the fact. The tales of people who've had bad experiences in that regard are bone chilling. This isn't universal of course, and used judiciously the drug has beneficial uses. But it is not always used wisely.

Also, there is some evidence it can cause permanent or semi-permanent memory impairment in the elderly, as it interferes with the mechanisms of memory formation.

Re:Midazolam

[bill_mcgonigle]

under the assumption that the drug will block their memories of the event, and even though their conscious memories of it are gone later, they suffer PTSD type symptoms after the fact.

This sounds like wildly incompetent malpractice then. Even if you're going to get 'routine' major surgery with general anaesthetic you should insist on a spinal block for pain. The anaesthetic blocks out frontal lobe consciousness and some memory formation, but other parts of the brain are going, "holy fuck, I'm being sawn in half!" which leads to major brain trauma and long-lasting problems. Ever know somebody who came out of surgery 'changed'?

Docs at Walter Reed have been on the forefront for a while, because screwed up soldiers are expensive. But regardless of their cost cutting motivations, this should be well known in anaesthesia by now...

Re:Midazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

Use case: Woman goes into labor, no time for a epidural to take effect, C section needs to happen now. Bad scene but no alternative.

Re:Midazolam

[FrootLoops]

During one of my dad's heart surgeries, they kept him semi-conscious with Versed. He curses the person running the anesthesia to this day for not giving him enough Versed since he remembers much of the procedure, including the doctors discussing how much energy to use to shock his heart out of fibrillation.

That said, I wonder if using too little Versed is sometimes the culprit in the PTSD type symptoms you're discussing (which my dad has, for that procedure and other reasons).

Re:Midazolam

[datavirtue]

You don't need drugs to do this. It's called the Science of Compassion.

http://www.amazon.com/Walking-Between-Worlds-Science-Compassion/dp/1889071056

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsGl-XIWM5Y

Looks like crazy shit until you give it a chance and realize that it is not about the messenger and his crazy hair, but about a more rational and evolved way of treating life in one's mind.

Just sayin'

Re:Midazolam

[Khyber]

"This sounds like wildly incompetent malpractice then"

And you're speaking from what authority? Let me see your MD. I had to have some pretty bad surgery (I'm a huge chunk of titanium on the right side of my skeleton) and I've got some problems emotionally from that. This is fairly typical, speaking among other patients that underwent similar trauma surgeries.

You ever have to have MAJOR surgery after being dead, TWICE?

Re:Midazolam

[redneckmother]

Holy Crap!

I lost an entire week last year (post-op) because of Versed. In defense of my surgeon (and prescribing doctor), I now believe that it is a GOOD THING that I can't remember any details.

I was initially upset about the "loss", but now feel indebted to my doctor. The time I "lost" was well worth not having to remember what transpired. I came to this conclusion after discussing the events with my spouse, other family members, and hospital staff.

I don't *think* I have any PTSD from the experience. I do know that I have some memory loss (specifically, inability to recall names of friends made prior to surgery).

Re:Midazolam

[bill_mcgonigle]

Don't depend on me, I've just related what I've read in articles. I cited the authority already - call the docs at Walter Reed who study this if you need to see an MD degree.

Re:Midazolam

[bill_mcgonigle]

Ah, you're insisting on a particular legal standard. I'm talking about common usage and a violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

Here's the general definition:

mal-prac-tice:
Noun:
Improper, illegal, or negligent professional activity or treatment, esp. by a medical practitioner, lawyer, or public official.

If part of a procedure is skipped that is known to prevent harm, I don't know what else you'd call it.

Re:Midazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

"Docs at Walter Reed have been on the forefront for a while, because screwed up soldiers are expensive."

And the above doctors have had stunning success, right ?

That must be why the US has lost more soldiers to suicide than to enemy action.

Re:Midazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

That must be why the US has lost more soldiers to suicide than to enemy action.

Really? I didn't know that. Could you please provide some references?

Re:Midazolam

[r0ball]

Wow....googled this and it appears to be somewhat right: apparently more soliders killed themselves than died in combat in 2010

Re:Midazolam

[r0ball]

Even if you're going to get 'routine' major surgery with general anaesthetic you should insist on a spinal block for pain. The anaesthetic blocks out frontal lobe consciousness and some memory formation, but other parts of the brain are going, "holy fuck, I'm being sawn in half!" which leads to major brain trauma and long-lasting problems.

Fortunately for those of us who've undergone major leg surgery with general anesthetic, I don't think there's much evidence out there of the occurrence of "major brain trauma and long-lasting problems" from not having also had a spinal block. I'd be interested to read any actual evidence you can provide to support your statement.

Re:Midazolam

[mSparks43]

News you won't find on CNN or Faux.

Re:Midazolam

[FrootLoops]

I gave the video 11 minutes and never got past the "crazy shit" stage. He seems to ramble from one irrelevant line of thought to the next while only rarely getting to a point that's somewhere between mildly insightful and rather trivial (eg. people tend to feel the emotions they see in others, as when a crowd gets fired up by a frontman; he gave no example, I supplied this one). By far his most important asset as a speaker is his extremely calm, almost otherworldly delivery. It dresses up his lackluster content in the guise of a metaphysical guru who just "knows things".

That said, the 2 hour presentation probably has a few minutes' worth of insight if you can stomach it. I could not, though I would read a page of notes derived from it by someone more... sane.

Re:Midazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't necessarily translate to a bad scenario. Suppose because of their effectiveness zero casualties were the result of combat, but that soldiers were as likely as members of the general public to commit suicide. I'm not saying that's the case, but a higher suicide than casualty rate could possibly be taken to be "a good thing."

Re:Midazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, I didn't already have an intense fear of ever having surgery and being put under some sort of failed-anesthetic to begin with (it happens more often than people thing, apparently). The idea of being awake and aware of people cutting into you and digging around in your body while you are helplessly paralyzed is the absolutely most terrifying thing I can ever imagine.

Re:Midazolam

[TheRaven64]

That article quotes a suicide rate of 468, from an armed forces contingent of 1.5M or 3M if you include reservists (which the 468 figure does include). That means that 0.015% of the US military commits suicide, which puts them at around 15 times the national average. That doesn't necessarily imply a causal relationship. Several reasons come to mind immediately why they would be expected to have a higher suicide rate than the general population:

Most people in the USA who commit suicide do so with a firearm (around 60%). This is one of the easiest ways of killing yourself because it lets you do it quickly - giving you less time to reconsider - and is believed by most who do so to be a painless way out. At the very least it's quick.

The second reason is that a lot of army recruitment material talks about giving people a purpose or direction in life. As such, I'd expect a significant percentage of people who feel they have nothing to live for to join up (as is a recurring theme in fiction) and, if the army then fails to provide them with something that they consider to be a worthwhile purpose for suicide to seem like an attractive alternative.

Finally, there's the obvious correlation between high-stress occupations and suicide...

Re:Midazolam

[Sara Chan]

Suicides in the military are most commonly due to domestic personal matters: the soldier's spouse being unfaithful back home.

Re:Midazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're right - you won't find coverage of this on any mainstream media propaganda site!

I wish somebody would cover this vital issue that's very important to me. So important that I've overlooked the literally hundreds of articles written about it in the last couple years.

Yep, you're right. No Mainstream Media coverage at all. Better write to Ron Paul, he'll save us!

Re:Midazolam

[Shoe Puppet]

Technically, the suicide is still caused by the time in the military that way.

Re:Midazolam

[demonlapin]

I'm a practicing anesthesiologist in the United States. My first job out of residency was running a day surgery center that was over 50% orthopedics. I understand the treatment of surgical and postsurgical pain. I know how to create a proper balance of analgesia (pain relief) and anesthesia (loss of response to surgical stimulation) and amnesia (not remembering things you'd just as soon forget).

It sounds to me that you have been told about a very common method for dealing with pain after joint replacement and assumed that it was a generally good plan for most anesthetics. It's not. Here's why.

That "spinal for pain" is - when we're talking about joint replacements - usually 200 micrograms of morphine. It's not a "spinal anesthetic", which would be a local anesthetic agent like bupivacaine or lidocaine injected into the fluid around the spinal cord in order to make someone surgically numb; instead, it's there to work on the receptors in the spinal cord that prevent pain from being transmitted upward. As a downside, it does cause itching in the majority of people. You can't give them to people who are taking blood thinners (there's a risk of a hematoma developing in the epidural space and causing paralysis if it's not noticed and corrected in time). You can't use it for outpatients, because it does carry a risk of respiratory depression. Patients who get it can't have a patient-controlled-analgesia (the press-a-button-for-morphine pump) for the first 12-24 hours.

For those who are having arm/shoulder or foot/ankle surgery, a peripheral nerve block is by far the superior choice, but there are certain cases where it can't be used, and others where the risk-benefit balance means it's not worthwhile. In the military, they often leave catheters in place to pump local anesthetic into the peripheral nerve block for a couple of days, but they have the benefit of people who are under regulations and meet certain minimum standards. In private practice, most insurance companies won't pay for one, and I don't trust most people to use them correctly even if they were paid for - you can really, really mess someone up with one if it's not managed correctly, and my experience with epidurals (which are the most common place in which continuous infusions of local anesthetics are used) has shown me clearly that a large portion of people just don't understand the idea of not ever moving or disturbing the place where the catheter enters the skin.

BTW, most people who come out of surgery "changed" are those who have been on cardiopulmonary bypass. It's a known risk.

Re:Midazolam

[mug funky]

additionally, spinal blocks are difficult and don't always work so well. the anaesthetists are fixated about spinal health, for obvious reasons. they're shooting blind for a tiny area, and if they fuck up, they fuck you up.

my wife's spinal block wasn't so pretty - it came out patchy, there was still feeling in blotches well below the block. when they turned the dosage up, the block went so high it was in danger of shutting her breathing down.

Re:Midazolam

[Khyber]

How is it a known part of a procedure when the nervous system still isn't fully known?

We only just RECENTLY obtained a live scan of what happens to your brain when you go under general anesthesia. We're still figuring out the implications.

Using the best practice available at the time != malpractice.

Re:Midazolam

[Khyber]

"So only someone with a degree can possibly have a valid opinion on whether wrong was done ?"

When it comes to medicine, yes, which is why we have laws preventing any sort of medical claims or advice without license.

"That's bullshit, and it is so arrogant that it boggles the mind."

Okay, I'm throwing you into a room with a patient that needs an immediate brain operation. Have at it.

"I hope you get terminal cancer soon"

Thankfully, I've got a genetic disorder that makes me rather unsusceptible to cancer. As a result, however, my life span is rather short. I might have another 20 years if lucky.

Your anger is palpable. You must be lonely.

Re:Midazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds like wildly incompetent malpractice then.

And you sound like a Scientologist.

Re:Midazolam

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the US military is predominantly men. Men have suicide rates several times that of women (the actual ratio varies depending on age group, but for young adults [20-24] who would be the bulk of the military, men have a 7x rate of suicide compared to women). Gender and Suicide

captcha: relevant

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

We might need some therapy to erase the pain of watching that movie.

In a breakthrough study

[Anonymous Coward]

under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities, a cross-country team of researchers found that study participants can be trained to "forget" the details of bad experiences by "concentrating on something else". This contradicted long accepted wisdom regarding the permanence of memories tied to emotional events, and one researcher admitted to being "stunned by the outcome"; however, after weeklong discussions with colleagues at a conference in Nice, France, researchers became convinced that... [snip]

Re:In a breakthrough study

[Anonymous Coward]

It's nice to see someone out there is living the candy-ass life.

These bad memories can be replaced with good ones

[oheso]

We would never lie to you. Your tax burden is decreasing in real terms. You like our candidate. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

skeptical

[zhub]

I'd say the Don't Think About Pink Elephants test soundly contradicts the Autobiographical Think/No-Think procedure. And the basis for their scientific results is each subject's emotional response And I saw nothing to indicate that the study involved actual PDST patients, despite the article's scarcely related photo. .

Re:skeptical

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, but if every day you have pink elephants you need to go and talk to, but you had terrible experiences with two in the past, then being able to defuse the interaction emotionally would, you know, help the person out.

Re:skeptical

[sjames]

That's why it took some time to figure out. Instead of the obviously un-workable, they have you come up with an emotionally charged (for you) word that makes you think of pink elephants and then they pair that with an emotionally neutral word.

Can it train me to forget its price?

[Anonymous Coward]

$11.95, sadly...

A little worried about this

[BluPhenix316]

Ok I originally was just going to say something goofy about this but this does have my concerned a little bit. I am a soldier in the US Army and PTSD is a really bad thing. It affects a lot more people than even the media is portraying. The thing is though, most people who get it easily "cope" with it by just talking about the event with people they feel understand it. From that point they use those hard emotions to do positive things. Atleast in the military, they usually become trainers for other people, or even invest that time in artistic ways. This all depends though on the severity of the event. The trend i'm beginning to notice though is that most of the more severe cases of PTSD i've ran across in the military are usually attached to something else though. I'm sure something like this could really benefit the more serious cases of PTSD. On the other hand, for the less serious cases people have acutally used those emotional memories to fuel positive change.

Re:A little worried about this

[Seumas]

The first thing to be concerned with is that we no longer call it "shell shock". That's what people used to call it. But, gosh, that just sounds so harsh and brutal. It's far more comfortable (especially for those of us who don't experience it) to call it something like "post traumatic stress disorder". See, that way it sounds more like something you get from working hard on a project with a quickly approaching deadline that you can prescribe squeezing a stress-ball and taking long walks through a garden to address.

If we referred to it as "shell-shock", we'd have to confront just how terrible it is. Not just individually, but as a society in the way we treat those we send off to do our dirty work and in the way we treat them when we come back. But that's too much responsibility and bother. So we just give it a disconnected term and assume it's something you'll work through with a "therapist".

Memory sickness

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Khmer Rouge invented new terms. People were told to "forge" (lot dam) a new revolutionary character, that they were the "instruments" (; opokar) of the ruling body known as "Angkar" (, "The Organization"), and that nostalgia for pre-revolutionary times (chheu satek arom, or "memory sickness") could result in execution."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge#Language_reforms

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...

[yanom]

.. also Total Recall.

Re:Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...

[jamesh]

.. also Total Recall.

Isn't this more like the exact opposite of those stories? The characters in those stories seemed to recall feelings of the events but had no other memory. TFA talks about erasing the bad emotions associated with past events, leaving the memory of the event itself intact.

Re:Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. also Total Recall.

Can I go ahead and preemptively block out memories of the new Total Recall?

Wool

[__Paul__]

This sounds very much like the beginning of the saga in Hugh Howie's Wool/Silo series...

(slight spoilers ahead) ...humanity develops drugs that, in combination with stressful events, allow memories to be suppressed. Unpleasantness follows...

Risking apathy?

[gmuslera]

Our emotions attached to memories is what makes us give them a meaning, a value. Take out that you liked or disliked something and it wont be good or bad, or tasty, or fun. Misused could be as bad as the problem it tries to solve.

Re:Risking apathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who worked hard in middle school to get rid of all his emotions (due to bullying, depression, worthlessness, etc...) I wouldn't recommend it. Everything is so-so for me. Should I pick this activity over that one? I can't say. One is never better than the other. Why do you want to try XXXX? Because I do... I can't give a reason, I can't say that I enjoy it because I don't. I can't say that I don't want to do that other activity because I don't like it, because I don't. It's difficult to make choices and go through life when you don't hate and/or enjoy anything.

Sure I don't get angry at anyone/anything and you can't make me mad, but you also lose everything worth living for. Risking apathy isn't worth it to remove bad memories. Take it from a guy who took that trade off to prevent future (now past) bad events.

Re:Risking apathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, I'm over 24 now.

Re:Risking apathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is actually a term for this condition, Alexithymia. Literally translated, it means without words or without words for emotions. Basically the mind does what this drug is supposed to do in shutting off all emotional components of memory or thought. Except that it doesn't just do it to 1 memory, it affects everything. As the AC above said, I wouldn't recommend it.

Re:Risking apathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

This sounds sort of like me. Minus the middle school thing and the losing everything worth living for, which is just an opinion.

Re:Risking apathy?

[UpnAtom]

You can't get rid of emotions that way. You're undoubtedly suppressing them, which isn't as bad as it sounds.

What I'm saying (as a psychotherapist of 16 years) is that you have the opportunity to learn to feel them again as well as resolve and thereby 'delete' the negative ones.

Just an option. And yeah, school sucks.

Re:Risking apathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

That must be what i have. I'm 45 now and i've realised i'll never have a close relationship to anybody, ever. Its all vacant. By the way i'm 100 times better than i was in my 20's or 30's. If i live to 200 i might get it sorted by 150 or so, and have a nice life. Dunno what to do but i'm not a "therapy" person, nor do i drink. I just go along. I think its a defense mechanism, that helped me survive. So it worked.

Re:Risking apathy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hang on, nah, thats not it. I know what emotions are, i just don't feel any good ones. Over n out.

Both good for the individual & bad for society

[bill_mcgonigle]

PTSD is reassuring for me in a way - if humans were truly naturally murderous beasts, as some would like to insist, PTSD would be very rare or non-existant. But it isn't, and we're not built for heinous acts - more bonobo than chimp, as it were.

The trick is, if PTSD is 'curable' then there are even fewer consequences for sending in men to do terrible things to other people. We're already learning that the lower the domestic cost of war is, the more politicians engage in it. I don't want veterans to suffer, but this is all headed in the wrong direction.

Re:These bad memories can be replaced with good on

[Anonymous Coward]

And the weekly chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grams!!!!

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[cfalcon]

Rofl fantastic. You're opposed to medicine because it will make people more willing to fight as well, right?

Violence is morally neutral. Like all tools, it is how you use it.

Hey know what worked for me?

[Mashiki]

Lot's of booze. Not really kidding, of course the PTSD flashbacks are a bitch at times.

Re:Hey know what worked for me?

[datavirtue]

Flashbacks happen because the events are not integrated. The person who experienced them did not have the emotional or mental framework with which to process them.

What I find more curious is the people who shot numerous guys in the head when they had no idea why they were really doing it and who now live their life proud of the fact.

I have met these people, and you would not be able to tell they did this unless they told you. You wouldn't even guess them the type of person who would.

Re:Hey know what worked for me?

[Sentrion]

There's a reason why the armies of the world prefer to field the youngest soldiers to the harshest conditions of the front line. This has been true for all history. Give a 16, 18, or 20 year-old a gun and tell him he's a hero, and he will charge against all hell and fury if you tell him to. Armies that don't care about civil rights, the Geneva Convention, or public opinion prefer even younger soldiers. After a little more time to mature, men in their 30's and 40's tend to be much less enthusiastic about such things, and my presumption excludes those older men who have decided to let themselves go physically.

As for the other post regarding the "positive" side of PTSD, I think it's worth noting that when the US has been able to engage in war without significant allied casualties the public has been much more accepting. As long as the US sticks to surgical strikes and SEAL team extractions of terrorists and war criminals, the US public will eat it up. Tell the public that we're going to invade with ground forces and occupy a country indefinitely then public support goes down the tubes, as it should. People saw the shell shock of soldiers returning from the Great War, and as such WWI never held a positive image in the American conscious. The horrors of WWII were tolerated because most Americans felt they had done everything to avoid war and were dragged into it. Korean vets experienced flashbacks and Vietnam forced us to recognize PTSD. When you see the suffering and mental torment of the vets returning home your much less likely to support a rush to war. But training and arming 3rd world peasants to kill and maim each other - that's OK.

Re:Hey know what worked for me?

[Anonymous Coward]

so if you don't risk your life in the act of violence, its more like a game? and if you beat the game completely Ender gets sad.

Goodbye Second Marriage...

[theNAM666]

and third, and fourth, and...

--Zsa Zsa & Liz

Heh.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Bet Taco'd be happy if I forgot: "The Lone Gunman are Dead."

Clear

[Anonymous Coward]

That's something Scientology teaches.

Re:Clear

[Spy Handler]

Scientology is big on confronting painful memories, instead of repressing them or forgetting about them as advocated in this article. That's what a "clear" is, someone who has confronted all his painful memories ("engrams") and is no longer affected by them.

Problem arises when someone confronts (or "runs") his painful memories, and he doesn't get any better. They have an answer for this too -- they look for an "earlier similar" incident and run that. The theory is that a later incident will lock on top of a similar incident which happened earlier, and the later one will not erase until the earlier one has been confronted.

So what happens is that they end up running whole chains of similar incidents, going back further and further until they find the earliest one. And more often then not, they end up running incidents that happened before the guy was born. (past life incidents)

Now, since there is no such thing as past lives, and modern science has proven that a person's consciousness begins at birth and ends when the brain dies, Scientology and Hubbard have been shown to be a quackery and a sham.

Re:Clear

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the scientific proof that a person's consciousness begins at birth and not pre-birth?

Re:Clear

[mug funky]

an online survey. the "age" field is very comprehensive on this point.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[bill_mcgonigle]

Rofl fantastic. You're opposed to medicine because it will make people more willing to fight as well, right?

If you look up at the subject line, it says that it can be both good for the individual and bad for society. That's a point of moral ambiguity, not opposition.

Violence is morally neutral. Like all tools, it is how you use it.

Right, which is why I wrote that it's unfortunate that it's being used to make war more palatable.

Maybe for some people...

[axlr8or]

I hope they don't plan on lumping this into a treatment for depression. Althouh I do remember bad things more than good thigs I can't say its memories that make me depressed. I just am. Have been since I turned 21. This may help some people I would think. Certainly not everyone.

Sexual Assault Victims

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife has severe PTSD due to being sexually assaulted by a doctor as a child, and is constantly trying to find better ways to cope and heal now that she's an adult. There are a LOT of victims (as shown yet again today by Joe Pa's trial) that could benefit from therapy like this if it could be effective for even severe trauma like that. Wired had an article about the idea of a pill to help you forget, but this article appears to be more just about therapy than medicine. Unfortunately it also says it was done on non-depressed victims, so I'm not sure how useful this would be to someone who truly has something traumatic in their past they really really want to forget but can't.

Living with a sexual assault victim, and in the process meeting other victims, and seeing the *profound* affect it can have on someone's life and happiness has drastically changed how I feel about the seriousness that people need to take that kind of crime.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[BlackSabbath]

Hey there soldier! Worried about PTSD? Afraid your conscience may interfere with your patriotic duty? No need to worry! With our new treatment you'll never have to worry about flashbacks, or fear that you may have to turn whistleblower. War-crimes trials? No fear. We'll make sure you will always be the most reliable and entirely truthful un-witness.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[Anonymous Coward]

PTSD doesn't only apply to soldiers. It can occur after any traumatic event, whether the patient is an auto accident or a victim of a violent crime. In a previous story, doctors and therapists are able to, on a case by case basis, remove the emotional content of the memory of the traumatic event and lessen the crippling psychological symptoms. This is a good thing, whether or not it applies to soldiers and war.

New PTSD drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Propranolol helps PTSD a lot.

Recalling a memory may allow it to be changed

[Anonymous Coward]

Recalling a memory may allow it to be changed:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/How-Our-Brains-Make-Memories.html?c=y&story=fullstory

Psychiatric drugs

[Anonymous Coward]

That's something Scientology teaches to hate.

Books

[Tyrion Moath]

Not to turn this into a book review, but I just started reading the sequel to the Wool series of books by Hugh Howey called First Shift - Legacy, and the concept of purposefully forgetting things is pretty central to the book. Very good reads, both of them.

This is too weird

[SlithyMagister]

I have always been like this.
I do not remember anything bad that happened to me.
I can be reminded, and when I am, I remember them in sufficient detail, but in general, I just plain don't.
One of the the greatest blessings of my existence.

Re:These bad memories can be replaced with good on

[Velex]

Oh good god. Fuck your smug, comfy-ass bullshit.

Do you know how much it scares the shit out of anyone living with me when I wake up screaming, even after the fourth or fifth time?

So I'm not a veteran and I wasn't abused or anything like that, but it doesn't change when my ex-father attacks me and starts breaking every bone in my body and I wake up screaming. The only reason my subconscious won't let go is because I actually trusted and thought I loved that fundamentalist, racist, delusional, conspiracy-theory-loving piece of crap for 18 years, and then he broke that trust.

Veterans need this. You think Goatse or Two Girls One Cup can't be unseen?

I just wake up screaming every now and then if I haven't had my dose of b33r after a couple days. It's nothing more than that.

I don't even know what real post traumatic stress syndrome is like. I've never seen someone killed, and I've never had to kill someone or be killed myself.

Re:My bad memory of Steve Ballmer

[datavirtue]

I though you were a little loopy until I saw this:

Steve and Bill are killers, it gives them sexual pleasure to seek out an unknowing programmer who believes Microsoft can be trusted.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[cfalcon]

War is morally neutral too- again, like violence, you can have just or unjust wars. If you are a pacifist, say so, but it doesn't excuse being opposed to medicine because it will ease the suffering of individuals that you personally don't approve of.

I mean, do you fucking think for ONE GODDAMNED SECOND that the people in charge are like "well, no, we don't want to go to war, because our soldiers may experience PTSD". You think that's holding them back? It's not like THEY are the ones to make that sacrifice. The correct ways to eliminate unnecessary wars involve education, empathy, transparency, and I would argue a spirit of brotherly love, even with those who share different values. It sure as fuck isn't "Maybe the men serving the nations could suffer more? That's cool, right? I mean, they are willing to sacrifice themselves for vague concepts like "country" and in some cases the financial interest of fucking organizations, maybe they could sacrifice even MORE somehow, and that would make tragedies less likely to happen."

1)- War isn't always wrong.
2)- Violence isn't always wrong.
3)- Abolition of suffering is always moral.
4)- Principles aside, your opinion is empty practically as well.

If you think I'm being a bit over the top, or maybe coming across rude, it is because I despise everything you've said in this thread here with every ounce of my being, and disagree with it profoundly.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[dan14807]

PTSD is reassuring for me in a way - if humans were truly naturally murderous beasts, as some would like to insist, PTSD would be very rare or non-existant.

Read On Killing. Only psychopaths can kill without emotional consequences. People are naturally opposed to killing when it comes to dealing with members of the same species. Men can hunt and kill a deer. That's instinct. When confronting other humans, the instinct is to posture or submit. Same applies to most other mammals.

This is new?

[Murdoc]

I'm glad that the rest of the psychology community is catching up. We've been doing this with NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) for at least a decade. Just look up NLP and trauma.

Re:These bad memories can be replaced with good on

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just going to put this into the memory hole...

Alcohol

[CAIMLAS]

Meanwhile, this is really nothing new: Alcoholics figured it out thousands of years ago. Mastadon trample your kids? The chieftan fucking your wo-man? The bastards in Sales pissing you off? Great, have a fucking drink.

Re:Alcohol

[Anonymous Coward]

If people had figured this out thousands of years ago maybe there wouldn't be so many alcoholics now. Alcoholics didn't figure anything out except how to be alcoholics.

Forgetting Bad Memories

[Sentrion]

So, that's what the GOP has been putting into the water.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[Anonymous Coward]

Soldiers follow orders, up the chain of command, with generals at the top, who are ultimately given their missions by politicians. Now, politicians are widely regarded as being in the pockets of powerful interests, whomever those happen to be depending on time and place. While I completely agree that war isn't always wrong, I can confidently say it often is.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[bill_mcgonigle]

Read On Killing

Thanks. Just added it to my list.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[bill_mcgonigle]

it doesn't excuse being opposed to medicine

Yeah, that's the second time you've tried that. I don't think anybody at home is going to be confused by conflating the two issues. In case you really don't get it I'll try again: it can't be the right thing to do to treat the individual, but it's still bad for society.

mean, do you fucking think for ONE GODDAMNED SECOND that the people in charge are like "well, no, we don't want to go to war, because our soldiers may experience PTSD".

There are absolutely political calculations, including domestic response/approval that goes into a decision to go to war. Wounded veterans (physically or mentally) is a big part of that. You're either ignorant or foolish if you think all non-defensive wars don't get political consideration and that the actual prosecution of the wars, once started, isn't influenced by political calculations dependent on the status quo.

If you think I'm being a bit over the top, or maybe coming across rude, it is because I despise everything you've said in this thread here with every ounce of my being, and disagree with it profoundly.

Get ahold of yourself. Emotional outbursts aren't impressive or persuasive.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[bill_mcgonigle]

it can't be the right thing to do to treat the individual, but it's still bad for society.

err ... sloppy editing/proofreading. Sorry 'bout that. Once more:

it can be the right thing to do to treat the individual, but also still bad for society.

there, almost valid English.

That was abuse.

[Anonymous Coward]

So I'm not a veteran and I wasn't abused or anything like that, but it doesn't change when my ex-father attacks me and starts breaking every bone in my body and I wake up screaming.

That was abuse - very severe physical abuse.

It's quite smart of you to not want to base your identity on being a victim and wallowing in your past, but then again, I don't think you shouldn't be afraid to call it for what it was.

Re:That was abuse.

[Calydor]

Sounds more to me like he's describing events in a dream, not actual events in his past. That's not to say his ex-father didn't at one point beat him up, the rest of the post suggests that may have happened, but he wasn't suffering daily physical as I understand it.

Midazolam : Been there done that.

[isopropanol]

Had it for a follow-up orthopedic surgery where they had to ask me how it feels (beyond just it hurts). Don't remember it.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you being sarcastic? If not, are you a psychopath? Violence isn't a tool, it's a vestigal trait that should be stamped out by whatever means necessary.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[Anonymous Coward]

Only psychopaths can kill without emotional consequences.

Are you still a psychopath if you don't feel anything for killing someone who threatened your life, as I had to? What if you're against killing except in self-defense, still feel empathy for those who don't threaten your life, but don't feel empathy for those who do threaten your life?

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, this is just evil. If you're opposed to a particular war, deal with that in the voting booth, and accept that sometimes your side is going to lose. Don't take it out on soldiers with PTSD, who are fairly powerless in this situation. Do you also think there's a moral problem with the use of medicine to heal soldiers' physical wounds, because a higher body count would help build opposition to a war you disagree with? I'm sorry, that's unpatriotic and evil.

What I need

[Anonymous Coward]

What I need: A drug to make a woman happy she's having sex with a fat, ugly, middle-aged man in his mother's basement.

Re:What I need

[neminem]

They've been making that drug for at least five thousand years. It's called "alcohol". (Works on guys, too!)

Dissociative response

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like the intention is to cause a strong dissociative response. While this is usually a normal and healthy reaction when dissociation is too strong the effects can be really destructive. For me they have included a form of gender dysphoria, depression, loss of time and several other symptoms which led to 2 suicide attempts before I sought out help and eventually came to understand what causes the way I feel. The therapy I needed to gain a degree of control essentially revolved around remembering and accepting my past rather than forgetting it!

my anecdotal experience

[jsh1972]

In early 2010, my wife and I were living in the asshole of the world (port Arthur, tx), when one night a woman (I use that term loosely here) came by the house around 1 am with three men she had been riding around and smoking crack with. Hearing a knock on the door, I went to see who it was, as soon as I was unlatching it because I recognized her, the three other guys rushed in and started what turned out to be a marathon torture fest/home invasion robbery. I was pistol whipped severely,threatened with homosexual rape, forced to watch as my wife was actually raped, beaten so severely my skull has a four inch fracture on the back of me head. Finally they stomped me into unconsciousness, and left. Their take? A busted up msi lappy with a cracked LCD.shortly after, we changed cities. There are still nights that I lay awake, every little sound I hear outside is in my mind them having found my new home and come for retaliation (charges were pressed- aggravated assault, they had priors, bye bye)... I'll lay awake for hours imagining them flanking my house, rushing in through front and rear doors and proceeding to fuck my shit up big time. Do I still suffer from the experience? Of course. Would I erase memories of it? Not necessarily, who knows, I might revert to my former trusting self and get fucked over again. It's not fun to have to assess strangers as potential threats before anything else, but I have a very healthy feel for people with hidden agendas now.

Re:my anecdotal experience

[SternisheFan]

Firstly, my sincere congratulations, and respect, to you and your wife, for surviving that ordeal. I won't go into my story here, no need. You two were able to see justice via the court system, an ordeal in itself, not every innocent victim gets to have that chance, and that outcome. When bad things happen to people, you are no longer the person you once were, you are now changed forever by the experience. No going back. My advice: Theres a lot of good in this life, though sometimes you need to look for it. Accept that you've been changed, but do not allow it to turn you bitter. If you do, it's allowing those who commited the crime to still have control, which will keep you a 'victim'. That is what you CAN control. Good luck to you and all other 'former' victims, with moving forward in your lives. And , one more thought. "Don't let the bastards of life determine the outcome of your life. Don't allow them that power." ;-)Firstly, my sincere congratulations, and respect, to you and your wife, for surviving that ordeal. I won't go into my story here, no need. You two were able to see justice via the court system, an ordeal in itself, not every innocent victim gets to have that chance, and that outcome. When bad things happen to people, you are no longer the person you once were, you are now changed forever by the experience. No going back. My advice: Theres a lot of good in this life, though sometimes you need to look for it. Accept that you've been changed, but do not allow it to turn you bitter. If you do, it's allowing those who commited the crime to still have control, which will keep you a 'victim'. That is what you CAN control. Good luck to you and all other 'former' victims, with moving forward in your lives. And , one more thought. "Don't let the bastards of life determine the outcome of your life. Don't allow them that power." ;-) We are stronger than we realize. It takes time to see that.

Re:my anecdotal experience

[UpnAtom]

To echo some of what the other guy said, you've been through a truly horrible experience and I'm genuinely sorry about that. You probably feel responsible even though anyone would do the same in your position.

It's not wrong to mostly trust people you know. This kind of thing happens rarely.

With the right kind of help, you can end some of these symptoms. I'd treat you and your wife for free if you're able to get to England.

Congratulations for putting them behind bars.

Re:my anecdotal experience

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll lay awake for hours imagining them flanking my house, rushing in through front and rear doors and proceeding to fuck my shit up big time.

That's typical for PTSD. Apart from new developments as discussed here EMDR might be something that could benefit you.

My PTSD (according to a psychologist who soon after the diagnosis couldn't follow my abstraction level nor my speed once I got going) is a consequence of bullying by classmates when I was young and growing up with parents who weren't capable of emotional bonds with each other or their kids (with pretty gruesome WWII experiences to explain that in my mother's case). The worst bullying was done by 2 boys, one very strong and agressive, who made it their hobby to beat me up after school on the way home. For 5 years I was beaten up a few times per week and hunted for practically every school day. The kind of reactions you have in bed I had walking outside for the next 18 years. The worst part was not the bullying itself but my parents ignoring it, the emotional neglect hurt more than the physical violence, I found, and the effects last much longer. I'm 50 now, I saw the psychologist about 6 months ago.

Before the psychologist started on EMDR I had already tried my own version at home, with spectacular results. I was confronting one of the things that invokes anxiety in me and thought: why not try it as it happens? EMDR works with alternate left-right stimuli, by looking to the left and right, by click sounds or by touch. So I rolled my eyes left and right. After just 2 seconds the anxiety was completely gone, after 30 seconds I was laughing from relief, and half an hour later I got a migraine attack. After that I used sound. I used Audacity to create a 60 second track of clicks, two per second, left-right-left-right... (takes some editing), put it on my mp3 player and listend to that when I felt anxiety made me avoid doing things. While the effect wasn't as spectacular as my first experiment it did make it much easier to get things done. Still the effect could be pretty strong in the beginning, once I felt nauseous for two days after doing it. I didn't use it all the time, took as much as felt right, sometimes with weeks in between, but pretty soon it didn't seem necessary anymore. I got rid of much of my anxiety in perhaps 2 months this way.

I stopped seeing the psychologist after just a few visits, but I did tell him what I was doing. He didn't look very happy about it, pointed out that this was not exactly how EMDR was supposed to work, but also said EMDR is not supposed to do any harm (unless you have a serious mental condition such as schizophrenia), and just asked me to be careful with myself.

It might be worth trying this, either through a therapist or by creating such a track and listening to it for a minute or so when you lay awake. Just see what effect it has on you, and if it has an effect, don't overdo it.

I don't think there is a universally accepted explanation for why alternating stimuli work. My own pet theory is that the anxiety reaction keeps itself going. Perhaps neural pathways that are easily activated remain easily activated if they're activated a lot. Somehow the clicks disturb that process. Without distracting you on the cognitive level they do distract on the anxiety level, breaking the vicous circle. Or whatever. For me it worked.

Re:my anecdotal experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Port Arthur? What the fuck? That place needs to be nuked off the map. I'm guessing you moved there originally because of the boom. :-/

According to breakthrough findings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Breakthrough findings that you can still re-invent things that were discovered, proven, documented and demonstrated using NLP nearly forty years ago.

baiting the troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd imagine that such pedantry, mixed with anger and a great deal of physical scar tissue makes you quite a lonely man. I am overwhelmed by your fervor over an opinion of impression on an open forum. Such a display drove me to question your mental state, for it certainly isn't well adjusted.

You take pride in your hardship, though it was difficult on you. It proves something to you or about you. Anyone that takes away from that in part or whole is a threat to your already shattered emotional state. And thus you attack.

Should this not be enlightening enough the reason why I am AC may be: if you think major surgery is difficult, think of people that do it to themselves, without anesthesia, all because the horror feels better than their state of mind. Depression is a helluva thing and it appears you are at high risk of it.

Re:baiting the troll?

[Khyber]

"I'd imagine that such pedantry, mixed with anger and a great deal of physical scar tissue makes you quite a lonely man."

check it out, another armchair psychiatrist.

I'm married, fool. Not lonely at all.

"You take pride in your hardship, though it was difficult on you. It proves something to you or about you. Anyone that takes away from that in part or whole is a threat to your already shattered emotional state. And thus you attack."

No, armchair fool, I defend the integrity of a profession from laypeople that would open their mouths and discredit that which they're not qualified to talk about. It'd be like me coming into your bedroom and telling you how to fuck your wife (although I know my sex pretty well, which is why I work in a sex shop, so that's a kind of moot argumentative point.)

"Should this not be enlightening enough the reason why I am AC may be: if you think major surgery is difficult, think of people that do it to themselves, without anesthesia, all because the horror feels better than their state of mind."

Like I did resetting my own foot, bracing it, and letting it heal when I got a Lis Franc fracture? You assume I've never done this shit myself, child. You're a fool.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[UnknownSoldier]

> If you're opposed to a particular war, deal with that in the voting booth,

That reminds me of that old cliche:

The 5 boxes of liberty: The Soap Box, the Mail Box, the Ballot Box, the Jury Box, and the Ammunition Box. Please use them in that order.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[para_droid]

Only psychopaths can kill without emotional consequences.

Are you still a psychopath if you don't feel anything for killing someone who threatened your life, as I had to?

Yes.

What if you're against killing except in self-defense, still feel empathy for those who don't threaten your life, but don't feel empathy for those who do threaten your life?

Yup.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[Biotech_is_Godzilla]

I'm definitely no expert on this, but I've heard from people who claim to know what they're talking about that PTSD has nothing to do with being freaked out by killing others, and everything to do with the fear of your own death or the fear of a loss of control over your own life. Not sure how the two things can be separated, but apparently they can, and no one seems to have any problem with killing, as long as they feel it's justified . It's the immediate exposure to death that makes you think of your own mortality, leading to PTSD. Allegedly.

PTSD is very treatable

[UpnAtom]

EMDR has already shown efficacy for PTSD and at least one study has strongly implied EFT works too.

A colleague of mine, Andrew Austin, teaches an expanded model of EMDR called IEFT. He found something very interesting: that flashbacks were not to moments where eg the sufferer saw their friend die but rather to a moment where they felt responsible, where they wish they'd made a different choice. Typically, this was on an irrational basis where the eg a different choice would probably have made no difference, or relied upon non-existent prior knowledge.

Also worth pointing out that the so-called creator of EMDR stole it from John Grinder and never credits him.

It's possible that forgetting the trauma as suggested by the submission might make it worse. As a psychotherapist, I've treated people with repressed abuse and it can come out in the form of weird nightmares and disturbing emotional reactions in daily life.

Re:PTSD is very treatable

[gr8_phk]

Concur. I have seen some very positive outcome from EMDR.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[Anonymous Coward]

So um... when did you develop photosynthetic capabilities, and stop moving around? Because your eating & movement both involve the violent deaths of millions of organisms across your lifetime, you genocidal madman.

Force is a tool - it is inherently morally neutral. Defending myself against an assault by someone else is morally good. Using force to club someone and take their money is morally bad.

If you can't see a crucial difference between these two very simple scenarios, then I'd suggest you're the psychopath with an untenable black and white world view.

Reminds me of Reiki

[Pinky's Brain]

Reminds me a bit of Reiki practices (cultish quack medicine some relatives are caught up in). They word it in pseudo-scientific crap, but trying to change the emotional baggage associated with memories seems to be an important part of Reiki (but again, I only have tangential experience).

Breakthrough Findings?

[dave562]

Therapists have been doing this Neuro-Linguistic Programming for decades at this point.

What is old is new again?

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, so what? Didn’t RTFA, am furious anyway. We’ve been helping psychotherapy clients dissociate emotions from memories for decades now, and there are many proved (i. e., published & peer-reviewed) methods available. Why need new proof when you could spend the time actually DOING the work?

eft

[Anonymous Coward]

EFT and matrix re-imprinting already deal with this and don't need any drugs etc.

I've been using this for the past 2 years and it really is excellent for a wide variety of issues from emotional to physical pain.
The beauty is that anyone can do it and it's easy to learn.

Check out eftuniverse.com or just Google eft

Memory Without Emotion

[Anonymous Coward]

Negative feelings would be useless if there really were no threats. However, since, unfortunately, there are dangers, is it useful to have negative feelings about anything? Is it possible to consider something right or wrong from a purely thoughtful perspective, without emotional association? Moreover, without the emotional aspect, would it even be possible to deem something as right or wrong, positive or negative, respectively? So, I can think that it is wrong for someone to break into my home and that I need to be prepared. Though no one has broken into my home, my car was violated. Someone broke into it and stole my head unit. I remember the feelings of anger, creepiness, and violation. Over time, I no longer feel anything from the memory; however, I can know that it was a violation and that it was wrong. It might be more useful to remember an event, prepare for a recurrence, and forget any negative emotion associated with the event. That way, the negative emotions do not need to interfere with a general sense of well-being concerning life itself. Philosophically, it is interesting for me to wonder if it is possible for an exact repeat of the event would cause, again, the same negative emotions as before if the emotions were trained away. Also, without the emotional feelings of violation, does the quote attributed to George Santayana, according to wiki answers, still apply: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."?

Re:These bad memories can be replaced with good on

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems pretty clear that you DO have real PTSD. It doesn't require some specific type of trauma, it simply means that at some point the stress went beyond our ability to cope in that moment, whatever the event and the situation. The younger we are, the more likely we will be unable to cope in a healthy way, and the less severe the event needs to be to overwhelm our resources. Even seemingly minor stressors can overwhelm a child and cause permanent damage. (though with proper treatment can usually be resolved) As we are older, it tends to take more. Unless our coping ability was already damaged at a younger age, in which case we will be more susceptible than our peers, even as an adult.

If you need to drug yourself to prevent these episodes, you need to get help. For the good of the people around you, if nothing else. This is one issue which will NOT get better by not thinking about it. I tried for 40+ years and did not consider myself abused or traumatized more than anyone else. I was wrong. (though also, there are a lot more traumatized people walking around than I realized) And it affected those around me much more than I realized. I was blind to the forces which were driving my life.

Sadly, trauma treatment is in its infancy, and like most of the medical care, drugs are way overused. Drugs will never cure PTSD. They don't cure anything. Do the research. Amazon has many books which document the utter failure of drugs for psychological issues. (at least over the long term, though they may have some short term usefulness in a crisis, such as to prevent impending suicide)

Trauma is stored below conscious thought, and some kind of body-centered therapy is important, along with reframing at a conceptual level. Check out the book "Waking The Tiger" by Peter Levine, one of the world experts on the nature of trauma and how to treat it. There are a number of related books listed on Amazon, once you get that foundational understanding.

Re:Both good for the individual & bad for soci

[beguyld]

Abolition of suffering is always moral.

Not necessarily. As a trivial case, think of allowing children to reap the natural results of their actions. Removing the suffering in the short term can be extremely harmful to someone in the long term. So some context is needed. Often well-meaning removal of short-term suffering can make things much worse over the longer term. The last 20 years or so of child-rearing theories have resulted in a lot of self-centered brats and parents pandering to 3 year old tyrants. That is most certainly NOT going to serve those children as adults. They will have a hard time with their bosses not thinking that their egos are the center of the universe.

Addiction is another example. Trying to remove the suffering which is a natural result of the addict's poor choices early on may mean they continue in a manner which really destroys their life, and even kills them. The sooner they 'get' that their choices are causing their suffering, and are willing to accept help to address the real issue, the better. One can easily contribute to a life-time of suffering and a horrible death by removing an addict's suffering which is due to his/her own choices. (for example, providing money, food, etc. often means just more money available for drugs...)

Life is more complicated than simple rules can represent.