The majority of my clients who have experienced traumatic events disclose to me how crazy or ashamed they feel regarding certain reactions they engage in at times. Examples of this may be excessive anger or rage to a minor slight or annoyance, becoming panicked or excessively fearful to a predominately neutral stimulus, or it may include experiencing numbness or detachment when the person believes they should be feeling something and not doing so makes them a bad person.
Two specific examples come from clients who have agreed to share their stories. In the first instance, my client arrived to session expressing she felt embarrassed and crazy that she was brushing her hair over the weekend and went into a panic and then attempted to contact her hairstylist to have her head shaved. “What is wrong with me,” she said in a self-critical manner. I informed her what she experienced was a traumatic intrusion.
Case Studies of Traumatic Intrusions
We then began to explore this together. I asked her if there was any conscious association to anything with her hair. “No,” she asserted firmly. However, as we continued to examine her history a memory triggered spontaneously, and she recalled her father would grab her by the hair prior to dragging her down the hall to beat her when she did not provide the answer to his question he deemed appropriate.
In another case, a client walked into my office feeling shame and guilt related to how she had responded in an angry and critical manner to her elementary age son following the teasing of his sister. My client was in full blown self-attack berating herself every chance she could get in between my questions and efforts to exhibit compassion to her. After considerable attempts to de-shame her, my client consented to allow me to use EMDR therapy to begin processing the event. Within a minute, numerous memories of her stepfather who had both physically, emotionally, and sexually abused her began to surface.
Explicit Memories vs. Implicit Memories
In the latter incident, my client’s belief her son was being mildly abusive activated the effect of her stepfather’s abuse in her body leading to her experiencing rage and verbally attacking him. Each of these cases were triggered by what is referred to as implicit memories. All of my clients know I talk about implicit memories ad nauseum and refer to them as “the whole ball of wax.” Conscious or Explicit memories contain information, such as images, thoughts, and data we store in our long-term memory networks, recall when needed, and are consciously aware we are doing so. This type of memory is stored in a part of the brain referred to as the hippocampus.
Contrastingly, implicit memories contain no images, thoughts, linear time or have any capacity to differentiate people, place, or setting. It is a felt sense in the body of emotions, sensory information, and automatic non-conscious responses. They are stored in regions of the mid and lower brain, as well as in the body at a cellular level. The majority of them go unnoticed throughout the day unless they contain a large amount of energy that triggers excessive responses. However, even at lower levels they are influencing our thoughts, emotions, and decision-making.
The Positive Side of Implicit Memories
It is humorous to me now how people have stated for years, “You only use on average five percent of your brain’s capability.” Now if you have any knowledge of the brain, this statement is completely ridiculous; we use all of our brain pretty much all of the time. What is a more appropriate description is we are only conscious of 5% or less of what is occurring in our brain and nervous system. In psychotherapy, one of the objectives we have is increasing one’s conscious awareness of many of the influences to our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, particularly those from implicit memories , and taking more conscious control of one’s life.
The positive side of implicit memories is related to learning. When we attempt to learn a new skill, such as driving a car, playing a musical instrument, or typing, we have to focus consciously on the new information or ability we are trying to acquire. However, through a process referred to as “priming” we begin to develop neural pathways linking a stimulus with certain patterns of behavior or emotions. The latter is what is known as classical conditioning.
Habits and Implicit Memories
Advertisers are adept at priming. They show you their product, such as a soda or beer, along with people having fun and enjoyment. With repetition you begin to experience positive feelings when you observe their product. This is how implicit memories become mapped in the brain. In regards to learning, you repeatedly practice or rehearse the skill and it moves from conscious effort to becoming automated and non-conscious, such as driving a car or typing. Two parts of the brain responsible for this are the basal ganglia and the cerebellum. This is how we form habits both good and bad.
Hopefully, this gives you somewhat of an initial understanding of implicit memories and their positive aspects with the exception of being manipulated by aggressive marketers. In relation to trauma, implicit memories are highly correlated with a part of the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is the brain’s primary threat detector constantly scanning the environment assessing for threats of all types. When perceiving a threat it will trigger a stress or survival response.
Trauma and The Amygdala
In addition, the amygdala is responsible for tagging things that elicit strong emotional responses both painful and pleasurable and storing them in implicit memory. Think of smelling a favorite food your grandmother used to make that then triggers emotions you experienced from when you spent time with her. Maybe, a song comes on a station you are listening to, which reminds you of a painful breakup you endured from when the song first came out and you experience feelings of sadness and emotional pain. These are implicit memories being activated.
Traumatic events induce strong emotional reactions, which the amygdala attends to, encodes, and stores in implicit memory. Another part of the brain called the thalamus, which is a bit like a relay station that takes in five sense information and transfers it to regions of the mid and upper brain releases endogenous, or internal, opiates to block the excessive neurochemicals from reaching the upper brain and causing cellular death to the upper brain. This process is referred to as structural dissociation. This sensory data is then stored in the lower right regions of the brain and in the body on a cellular level in implicit memory.
Shame vs. Self-Compassion and Curiosity
Subsequently, the amygdala continues tracking the environment for ongoing threats and hyper vigilantly scans for any associations related to the original traumatic event. When some perceived correlation is identified the memory as activated in the body as a felt sense and sensory experience, often with all the intensity of the previous traumatic incident. However, there is usually no visual intrusion so the individual is often unaware and confused as to why they are reacting so intensely to a minor or neutral stimulus, which frequently leaves them feeling crazy or embarrassed; this is the underlying cause of trauma’s ability to make one feel irrational or like they are losing their mind.
The key to recovering from trauma is to begin with self-compassion and non-judgmental curiosity. There is a reason you are experiencing these intense and excessive responses, even if they do not match your present experience. By staying curious, you can begin to explore and identify what is being activated within the implicit memory network. Recently, one of my clients reported reacting with excessive anger to her spouse when he unintentionally threw away a drink she had not yet finished.
The Key to Healing from Trauma
She was able to recognize her emotional experience could not have been caused by what had occurred in the present. She then tracked what she was feeling in her body and childhood memories of her parents’ divorce surfaced as she recalled how she was impacted emotionally and was helpless to do anything about it. This left her with a belief that how she felt didn’t matter. In session, we were then able to use various therapeutic techniques to modulate the reactivity of the amygdala and process (feel to completion) the implicit memories and discharge them from her nervous system.
Releasing the energy and sensory information from the implicit networks results in their no longer being any implicit memory to being activated; the event will no longer affect the person or cause intrusions. In therapy, we have two sayings: everything goes to zero; and nothing that feels bad is ever the last step. These statements convey, and I can attest to the truth, that whatever you experienced, no matter how traumatic, once it is fully processed will never affect you again.
If the trauma you’ve experienced makes you feel crazy, flawed or shameful in some manner, know that there is relief and healing that is possible. You are wired to heal. Everything you need to fully recover is inside of you already. You only need support and guidance to access your innate healing capacities. If you would like to learn more about trauma and implicit memories or obtain support to recover, please contact us anytime at hawkinscounselingcenter.com
