Would You Erase Your Bad Memories?
If you were asked to suppress your traumatic memories by taking a pill, would you do it? Before answering, remember that no medicine is safe, they all have side effects.
In recent years, several research teams, from different universities, are looking for a drug that allows us to forget bad memories.
The objective of these neurobiologists is that the victims of accidents or violent actions (robberies, rapes, attacks) who suffer post-traumatic stress, can erase these events from their minds to stop suffering for them.
According to these scientists, taking a pill at the right time could suppress the specific memory that generated the trauma so that the person does not get mortified by repeating the event over and over again in his head.
As the researchers explain, the idea of ​​forgetting traumatic memories seems to be the panacea to stop suffering, but, personally, news of this type generates great concern when I think about how everything in our society wants to be solved based on of miracle drugs.
Why erasing memories can be harmful
First, there is the question of who and how decides what to forget. Memories are not like computer files, perfectly defined and limited.
If so, we could delete a specific file with the assurance that it will not affect the rest of the information. However, human memory works differently.
- Memories are connected by certain common elements that help us have a general coherence throughout our personal history.
- We remember (consciously or unconsciously), for example, all the experiences we have had with a friend or family member, and this helps us to know what to expect from them in the future.
- If we were to suppress a negative memory we had with our father, how could we be sure that we were only eliminating that event and not other characteristics of our relationship with him?
This brings us to another question that is even deeper and more difficult to resolve. If we do not recognize and assume our personal history, we will not learn from it, nor will we be able to draw conclusions that will help us in our future and, therefore, it is very likely that we will repeat the same harmful behavior patterns forever.
Bad memories can sometimes warn us of dangers
Imagine, for example, a boy who, due to reckless driving, has a terrible traffic accident in which a friend dies and he almost dies.
Obviously, the young person will be traumatized by this event and will suffer fear, anguish and all the symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
But if this memory is erased with the intention of saving you from suffering, what would happen if you were to drive again? Would you drive irresponsibly again? Would he put his companions and himself in danger again?
It is better to face a bad memory than to ignore it
Obviously, people who suffer from post-traumatic stress need enormous help to get out of the negative loop they are in and to be able to continue with their lives, but the solution does not lie in suppressing their memories, but in helping them to come to terms with and overcome what happened.
Many years ago, I received a call that made a great impact on me. I still remember it vividly and I thought it appropriate to bring it to this space to share it with you.
It was about an older woman who was looking for someone to do hypnosis to “put her to sleep and erase her husband from her mind.” I asked him how many years they had lived together and he replied 35.
I explained that the therapy did not work by making her forget 35 years of her life, but that it would help her understand, work, overcome and heal the trauma and emotional damage received.
Only then, in what would be a new starting point, could she rebuild her life to manage it herself and avoid repeating the patterns of behavior that harmed her in her past.
Indeed, erasing memories with a pill would not nullify the secondary effects associated with trauma.
The person would continue to feel anguish, fear or blockage in certain situations, but would not know its origin, so they would live in constant uncertainty and seized by the unpleasant feeling of not having control over their emotional reactions.
The job of good therapy should be to bring traumatic memories to light to reorganize them , see them from a new, more adult and mature perspective. In this way, the person can program new patterns of action for future situations.
Only by knowing and working with our past can we have control over our present.
