New study to explore intrusive memories
[Thursday, 5 November 2009]

NEW STUDY TO EXPLORE INTRUSIVE MEMORIES

People who survive traumatic events often relive the experience over and over again. Now a researcher from The Australian National University wants to explore if people with depression experience similar intrusive memories of key events in their life.

Doctoral researcher Lian Parry from the Department of Psychology at ANU said that for some people the experience of a traumatic event results in a constellation of psychological symptoms and impairment of functioning severe enough to warrant a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

“One of the key features of PTSD is a sense of re-experiencing the traumatic event as if it were happening in the present,” Ms Parry said. “So, for example, the car crash you went through years ago might replay in your mind as if it were happening now. This is known as an intrusive memory.”

But recent research suggests that intrusive memories of important negative past events may also occur for people with depression, yet it’s not clear if they are different to intrusive memories in PTSD.

We want to clarify how these recurrent memories in people with depressive symptoms resemble the intrusive memories of trauma survivors,” she said. “If intrusive memories across both groups are similar this might suggest that types of therapy currently available for PTSD suffers might also be useful for people with depression.”

Ms Parry added that effective treatment for PTSD has often involved some form of exposure therapy, which targets the memories of the trauma, the internal and external cues associated with the re-experiencing symptoms and the situations avoided by the sufferer.

“If we uncover enough similarities between the kinds of intrusive memories experienced by people with PTSD and depression, this could strengthen new avenues of treatment for the many thousands of Australians who live with depression.”

Ms Parry is calling on people from the Canberra region aged between 18 and 65 to take part in her study. Participants would need to have symptoms of depression or have experienced a traumatic event more than one month ago, which continues to cause psychological distress. Ms Parry is also inviting healthy adults, without a history of psychological illness to participate as part of her control group.

Participants will be able to complete the first part of the study either at ANU or in a secure online environment, and then will be asked to write about and listen to descriptions of their memories of negative life events as part of the project’s second stage to be conducted at ANU.
Participants can register by emailing lian.parry@anu.edu.au or online at
http://bit.ly/memorystudy