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Johanna Rozenblum (clinical psychologist)
According to a new publication, there is a scientific method to erase (too) bad memories from the mind. A way to permanently move away from the trauma? We talk about it with Johanna Rozenblum, clinical psychologist.
Who has never wanted to erase a memory of shame, for example, or worse a trauma that has haunted you since childhood? This is what is now offered by a new technique called “forgetting window” which would allow patients to delete the most present negative memories.
A window of oblivion where to place your worst memories
According to the study published in the journal Nature Communications, the forgetting window method would thus make it possible to suppress negative memories unconsciously, taking advantage of a short period of time when our brain is already seeking to voluntarily inhibit other memories. This “amnesic shadow” as it is called disrupts the functions of the hippocampus, a key region for memory, and in fact creates a time window where reactivated memories can be erased more easily. It would therefore be possible to place other more difficult memories there.
To test this theory, the researchers used a method called “Think/No-think” (TNT). For the experiment, 48 participants were asked to either recall or delete a specific memory in response to a cue. During these periods of suppression, subliminal reminders of negative memories were presented. The results showed that participants were less able to recall these negative memories afterwards, confirming the effectiveness of the amnestic shadow.
“Forget”, a good or bad answer?
For researchers, this discovery is important, since it would allow patients suffering from traumatic memories to simply erase the traumatic content and recreate a safe environment.
But on the psychology side, the method can raise questions. Certainly, “forgetting” may seem tempting, but for Johanna Rozenblum, clinical psychologist, this is the opposite of solid management of the trauma itself:
“In psychology precisely, it is not a question of helping a patient to take away a part of his life, however dramatic it may be. On the contrary, it is a question of learning to live with it, and of letting go of the weight of the effects and suffering so that the memory can remain, be evoked, understood, assimilated, without causing trauma or somatization. It is therefore quite the opposite of this window of forgetting. Where this method rejects the past, we try more to integrate it into the life cycle, and to work on this memory and its symptoms to gradually minimize the suffering generated.
To forget or to understand, perhaps we are moving towards a choice.