I've posted about this before . . . but it's in the news again (see "blood pressure drug erases bad memories"). Basically, an accidental side effect of a certain type of blood pressure medicine may pave the way to designer drugs catering to memory erasure in trauma victims. The most recent Dutch experiment sounds a bit on the creepy side (the scientists induced fears in volunteers by associating images of spiders with electrical shock) but it is pointed towards more work in this area.
As I have stated before, I honestly believe artificial repression or memory erasure is a bad idea. It is an area worth looking at, but personally, I think a much better strategy is to help folks cope with their memories rather than to attempt to remove them.
While the jury is still out on whether chemical erasure is truly permanent, there is enough evidence that other forms of memory replacement do not have longterm benefit (although they may have short term positive effects in terms of interrupting the response long enough for other coping strategies to be built, although even then it is better to be working within the memory frame to build the coping strategies).
Artificial repression ends up doing what spontaneous repression does, it is a short term coping mechanism that allows a person to function in the short term but eventually, the negative emotional energy builds up and leads to other problems.
See past essays on this subject here:
- Hypnotic Memory Erasure: Artificial Repression (No Eternal Sunshine, No Spotless Mind) at https://briandavidphillips.net/2005/01/hypnotic_memory.html
- Freedom of Choice and the Client in Therapeutic Relationships at
https://briandavidphillips.net/2005/01/freedom_of_choi.html - Dangerous Hypnosis? Dangerous Misconceptions about Hypnosis at https://briandavidphillips.net/2005/04/dangerous_hypno.html
- Hypnotically Induced False Memories for Dieters: No Thank You at https://briandavidphillips.net/2005/08/hypnotically_in.html
- Repressing Data from Memory: He Doesn't want to Worry (Better Options are Available) at https://briandavidphillips.net/2005/08/repressing_data.html
Of course, we may not know for some time what the long term effects of the various memory erasure pills on the market will be – whether they do indeed lead to psychologically robust healthy individuals or if they lead to neurological damage that causes other memory bleeds or something else. We do know that some folks do indeed need some form of chemical help and most can be helped through other means and coping strategies, including appropriate hypnotherapy.
Yes, the pain is awful. However, there is help. Doing a reboot on areas of the brain may help in terms of short term grief, fear, or worse, but it may not turn out to be the best long term solution.
This is . . . of course . . . my opinion.
All the best,
Brian
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Brian David Phillips, PhD, CH [brian@briandavidphillips.com]
Hypnotist, Hypnotherapist, Intuitionist, Trance Wizard
President, Society of Experiential Trance
Associate Professor, NCCU, Taipei, Taiwan
