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

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.

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

[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.