ABM in distress

ABM in distress

1. PTSD

   • direct retrieval
   • intrusive memories that disrupt cognitive processes
     • vivid but jumbled

2. John - sees friend fall to his death

   • PTSD sufferer
     • social anxiety and avoidance
       • memory gaps after event
         • vivid flashbacks and hyper arousal e.g. flinching
   • disruption to his every day life

3. 3 Components

   • traumatic Event
   • feelings during event
   • resulting symptoms
     • intrusive, vivid flashbacks
       • re-experiencing
         • Ehlers 2004
       • sensory-perceptive affective
     • avoidance
       • learn and avoid cues which can disrupt social life
       • amnesiac avoidance
         • gaps in memory
     • hyper arousal
       • startle responses, on alert for danger

4. Conway and PP 2000

   • threat to goals of WS e.g. being alive
     • prevents integration

5. Nature of intrusive memories

   • images, sounds, smells
   • contain emotion from event
     • disgust/fear - Grey 2002
   • nowness
     • recollective element is blocked
       • no sense of self in the past
         • WS can't prevent it
           • therapy aims to make PTSD memories more like normal ABMs
             • some more than others
               • which threaten WS goals the most
   • exact copies and same each time remembered
   • sometimes distortions e.g. Holmes 2005
     • how can this be if need to preserve record of survival?