The Mechanism Of Intrusive Memory In PTSD: From The Perspective Of Involuntary Autobiographical Memory

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder caused by extraordinary terrifying or disastrous event overwhelming the individual's ability to cope, which is the fourth most common mental disorder and increasing being paid attention to. It is commonly believed that intrusive memory is one marked feature of PTSD patients. In other words, the individuals with PTSD unusually have traumatic memories with no preceding conscious attempt at retrieval, and which often accompanied by strongly emotional and physiological and behavioral responses, as the event is occurring"now and here". More importantly, some researches find that the intrusive memory correl- -ated with the symptoms of PTSD, and it is an important predictor for it. So, increase- -ing psychologists is working on the research of the mechanism of intrusive memory, but it haven't reach agreement right now. Influenced by the early research in psychia- -try and clinical observation, some researches believe that the traumatic events are processed in such a abnormal manner that the information of the event can not be adequately encoded and be compatible with the knowledge of oneself, resulting the incoherent in the voluntary recall, even forgetting, and a lot of intrusive memory about the trauma. For example, the stress response theory of Horowitz, the dual representation theory of Brewin, and the cognitive processing theory of Ehler. Is the mechanism of intrusive memory really special? Recently the special mechanisms theories have been challenged by other psychologists, who reiterate that there is as yet less evidence to support the early theories. In addition, not finding the empirical evidence for the special mechanism theories, many psychologists'experiments show that the trauma memory is not fragment and incoherent, the trauma event correlate positively with the life story and the symptoms of PTSD. These results challenge the early view and theories to a great extent. And so, how does intrusive memory generate and persist on earth? Recent researches in the field of involuntary autobiographical memory showed us a new perspective. Involuntary autobiographical memory is first proposed by Ebbinghaus in his research of memory in 1885, but it has been treated as a exception, only recently have involuntary memories been a focus of systematic research. Now a number of findings showing that involuntary and voluntary memories are strikingly similar with regard to factors that are know to support encoding and maintenance, and the two forms of memory are sampled from the same system. They only differ from one another with regard to the way they are retrieved, that is to say, involuntary autobiographical memories are activated by cues and without preceding goal-directed search as voluntary memories. As the consequences of the different ways of retrieval, some features can be found in involuntary autobiographical memo- -ries, the more vividness and specificity and emotional as such. Based on the early points and theories, this article will make a thorough inquiry to the mechanism of intrusive memory from the perspective of involuntary autobiographical memory. It believed that intrusive memory doesn't have special mechanism, it is only a extreme form of involuntary autobiographical memory. It seems that characteristics of involuntary autobiographical memories in everyday life may be extrapolated to account for characteristics of intrusive memory. It is the features of intrusive memory cause the appearance of the flooding intrusive memories, and it is the relation between the trauma information and the life story and current concerns cause the persistence of it. The researches in field of the mechanism of intrusive memory is very important to not only the theory of individual'cognition but also the treatment of PTSD patients. The article is hoped to contribute to the two aspects.