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This study examined the stability of autobiographical memory dysfunction (i.e., difficulties in retrieving specific memories) during the course of major depressive disorder, its relation to early adverse experiences, and its influence on the course of depressive disorder. Using the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), specificity of autobiographical memory was assessed in 25 subjects with a current depressive disorder at baseline, and at 3 and 7 months follow-up. Also, information about self-reported childhood traumatization, and demographic and clinical variables was obtained. Autobiographical memory performance was relatively stable over time despite clinical improvement in the sample. It was not related to depression severity at baseline, while higher levels of childhood traumatization were correlated with more specific memory performance to negative cue words at baseline, but not during follow-up. Specific autobiographical responses to negative cue words predicted a better prognosis, whereas specific responses to positive cue words were not related to prognosis. Autobiographical memory dysfunction in depression appears to be stable over time, is related to short-term prognosis in depression, and may act as a vulnerability factor that influences the long-term course of depressive disorders.

(1995), narrative changes from the first to the last exposure session were compared for improved and nonimproved PTSD patients on fragmentation, organization, internal, and external events. Improved (n = 8) and nonimproved (n = 12) patients did not differ regarding changes in fragmentation or organized thoughts. However, improved patients showed a greater decrease in disorganized thoughts during treatment. Furthermore, all patients, independent of improvement, showed significant changes in the same direction; a decrease in disorganized thoughts and external events and an increase in internal events. Although previous results were partly replicated, it is concluded that narrative changes may be due to exposure treatment itself rather than to changes in memory representation.KEY WORDS: PTSD; exposure therapy; narratives; fragmentation; memory.Several studies explored the relationship between trauma narratives during exposure therapy and PTSD symptom severity. Most research thus so far has focused on narrative content (e.g., Pennebaker, 1993). In contrast, Foa, Molnar, and Cashman (1995) explored the process of narrative organization during PTSD treatment. Assuming that traumatic memories differ from other types of memories, Foa and colleagues argued that trauma recovery requires a special type of mental processing.Successful trauma therapy aims at increasing traumatic memory organization and should result in more coherent narratives. To test this, Foa et al. (1995) developed a coding system and examined the cohesiveness of patients' trauma narratives. They hypothesized that successful treatment results in a decrease in fragmentation and an increase in narrative organization. Although the decrease in fragmentation did not reach a significant level, it was significantly related to successful treatment outcome. Moreover, compared to the first session, significantly more organized thoughts were found in the last session, supporting the idea that therapy enhances narrative organization. In addition, at the end of the treatment patients expressed significantly more internal events (e.g., feelings), and, though not significant, slightly fewer external events (e.g., details). This study aims at replicating and extending the findings of Foa and coworkers. Although this previous study is informative with respect to narrative organization processing, an important limitation is that all patients (n = 14) highly improved during therapy. Therefore, it remains unclear whether changes in narratives were exclusively due to the reorganization of traumatic memory. To establish whether these changes reflect an underlying recovery process rather than an epiphenomenon of treatment, we compared trauma narratives in the first and last therapy sessions of improved and nonimproved PTSD patients. If changes in trauma narratives reflect adequate processing of a traumatic event, improved patients should show a larger decrease in fragmentation and a larger increase in narrative organization than nonimprovers. In addition, improvers should sho...

A lack of specific autobiographical memory may result from exposure to psychological trauma, intrusive memories of adverse events, and/or a general memory deficit. This study explored the role of these variables in 25 patients with various psychiatric diagnoses and 15 healthy controls. All participants had been exposed to war atrocities during their childhood in Indonesia. Patients produced significantly less specific memories than did controls. In addition, rather than performance on general neuropsychological memory tests, the frequent occurrence of intrusive memories and the avoidance of reminders of trauma predicted less autobiographical memory specificity. These results replicate and extend earlier findings on intrusive and nonspecific autobiographical memory in depressed samples to a group of people who experienced war atrocities in childhood.

The authors examined group differences in memories for hearing the news of and reactions to the September 11 attacks in 2001. They measured memory for reception context (immediate memory for the circumstances in which people first heard the news) and 11 predictors of the consistency of memory for reception context over time (flashbulb memory). Shortly after 9/11, a questionnaire was distributed to 3,665 participants in 9 countries. U.S. vs. non-U.S. respondents showed large differences in self-rated importance of the news and in memory for event-related facts. The groups showed moderate differences in background knowledge and emotional-feeling states. Within non-U.S. groups, there were large differences for emotional-feeling states and moderate differences for personal rehearsal, background knowledge, and attitudes toward the United States. The authors discuss the implications of those findings for the study of group differences in memory and for the formation of flashbulb memories.

Pregnancies complicated by PE or PPROM are associated with PTSD in a substantial number of women. Especially women with proven vulnerability for psychological problems are at risk of developing PTSD postpartum, as are women whose children died in the perinatal period.

A number of studies have reported that central information of an emotional scene is well retained, whereas peripheral details of such a scene are poorly recalled. Experiment 1 tested the hypothesis that attentional narrowing is responsible for this phenomenon. In addition, an attempt was made to increase the ecological validity of the experiment by giving extensive self-relevant instructions. Results showed that, although an emotional slide elicited eye-movements consistent with attentional narrowing, the corresponding recall patterns were absent. Experiments 2 and 3 explored some of the variables that might be responsible for the latter result. Experiment 2, relying on the original design of Christianson and E.F. Loftus (1991), found enhanced recall of central information of an emotional scene. Experiment 3 systematically varied stimulus exposure and interstimulus interval durations. However, the results of this experiment were rather complex and did not fully support the predicted differential recall patterns. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. It is suggested that other methods (e.g. increasing levels of emotion rather than involvement) may be more suitable for testing the attentional narrowing hypothesis of emotional memory.

Taken together, the findings indicate that a lack of autobiographical memory specificity predicts changes in depressive mood after a stressful event.