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Addressing betrayal in love as post-traumatic stress, a team of scientists tested a therapy that directly alters memory. The method would indeed alleviate the symptoms. But is it necessary to medicalize these heartaches?
At the base of many films, series or intrigues, betrayal in love is however much more than a dramatic spring: for many people involved in a romantic relationship, the betrayal of a spouse can cause immense suffering, stress acute, and affect mental health. This can result in an adjustment disorder bringing stress, sometimes to depression or even suicidal thoughts.
Betrayal in love, an often acute trauma
Betrayal in the area of love would even be the first cause of consultation with a psychologist. However, this frequent state of stress has apparently never given rise to extensive experimentation as to its resolution. “There is no empirically accepted treatment for adjustment disorderssaid study author Alain Brunet, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychiatry at McGill University.
“We were interested in determining whether the good clinical results we had obtained in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with reconsolidation therapy applied to a broader set of trauma-like states, hence our interest in this disorder.” The study, published in Journal of Affective Disordersuses a beta blocker to interfere with memory reconsolidation.
Propranolol used to “weaken” emotions
The propranolol used in this study is a beta-blocker often prescribed for high blood pressure, migraines and certain anxiety disorders. But the drug has also been shown to weaken the emotional tone of memories by blocking adrenergic pathways. The author specifies the established strategy: “Reconsolidation therapy consists of recalling a bad memory under the influence of propranolol with the help of a trained therapist”he explains.
“This processing approach is translational processing from neuroscience research, which states that a recalled memory must be resaved to long-term memory storage in order to persist. Interfering with the storage process will produce a less emotional memory”.
Memory reconsolidation established over 4 weeks
To test their hypotheses, Dr. Brunet and his colleagues recruited 61 adults who met criteria for adjustment disorder following a betrayal event, such as infidelity, during a long-term monogamous relationship. .
Researchers asked participants to write a first-person account of their betrayal/romantic abandonment event, before and after treatment. Participants were asked to focus on the most emotionally provocative aspects of the event and to include stress-related reactions, such as feeling tense, shaking and sweating.
After being placed on a 4-week waiting list, participants received 5 weekly 25-minute treatments during which they recalled the betrayal event, 1 h after orally ingesting the beta-blocker propranolol.
The results revealed that adjustment disorder symptoms decreased significantly during the treatment phase compared to the waitlist phase. Significant before/after reductions in anxiety-depressive symptomatology were also found. Improvement was maintained at 4-month follow-up on all outcomes.
Reassessing love trauma is necessary
Apart from the positive result of their study (reconsolidation therapy works with adjustment disorder), the team of scientists was thus able to establish new conclusions as to the power of love trauma. “The magnitude of improvement before and after treatment compares to the results we obtained in our research on post-traumatic stress” reveals the main author. Dr. Brunet also said he was surprised at the high disorder scores established before the treatment. “Looking at the severity of the symptoms, I was surprised at how painful adjustment disorder can be.” explained the researcher, regretting that we generally take this disorder for a simple weakness of character. “It’s clearly a misconception,” he confirms.
A methodology of the study that does not allow to conclude
However, the methodology of the study is questionable.
- On the one hand, we compare the period during which the patient was placed on the waiting list with the subsequent period during which he received treatment. The simple delay between the traumatic event and the evaluation during these two stages is already an important bias;
- In addition, the trial is not a double-blind trial: we do not compare patients who would have been treated with a placebo versus an active treatment, the patients and the healthcare professionals knew that they were receiving an active molecule. In fact, we cannot with certainty rule out the fact that the treatment with the therapist and the fact of writing down the traumatic event does not have an impact, independently of the drug treatment;
- The fact that patients and physicians knew that they were using an active treatment may induce a placebo effect that the study methodology cannot rule out;
- Finally, the number of patients remains limited (only around sixty).
Does love trauma deserve to be erased?
For psychiatrist Lucie Joly, consulted on the subject, the study also raises questions.
“In post-traumatic stress syndromes, Canadian researchers have demonstrated that propranolol, which crosses the blood-brain barrier to go into the brain, would prevent the processes of reconsolidation of the traumatic memory. And would thus act on symptoms such as traumatic reliving, flashbacks, hypervigilance… In this case, if the love trauma produces these same effects, in fact, beta-blockers could reduce the feelings of fear associated with this traumatic memory and would allow you to move forward normally again” she acknowledges.
Nevertheless, the medicinal method cannot, and probably should not respond to the slightest shock of love life:
“If heartache was trauma, it could be prescribed, but not all heartache is trauma. And then, in the event of a breakup, even a difficult one, we go through many phases of mourning which build us as a person, which should not necessarily be erased.”.
The treatment, if it were to become widespread one day, should not be used as first-line treatment, according to our expert.
“Not only because of the side effects, but also because we all have inner resources that allow us to go through hardships. Impairing memory should only be possible in the event of proven trauma” she concludes.