Sexual Memories

The underlying psychopathology, if present, is also important. For example, undergraduates with PTSD reported more sensory details of a traumatic event whereas undergraduates with depression recorded fewer details Age also seems to matter. For example, children sometimes dissociate during trauma and as a consequence, may have difficulty remembering what happened We only tested women who had experienced SV during or after puberty. Their responses suggest a strong detailed memory for their most stressful life event, which is consistent with some studies in adults 45 , Ruminations generate intrusive memories which can extend the persistence of PTSD 58 , These women also reported significantly more depressive, brooding and reflective ruminations.

Rumination was further associated with posttraumatic cognitions, which are indicative of PTSD symptomology. These data are consistent with meta-analyses, indicating positive relationships between rumination and posttraumatic symptoms, even years after the trauma 57 , 60 — The mechanisms through which ruminative and posttraumatic thoughts interact are unknown. In one study, individuals with PTSD described their ruminations as uncontrollable thoughts about critical life events Therefore, PTSD symptoms are associated with a greater tendency to ruminate but exposure to SV on its own is sufficient to increase rumination.

Of course, we cannot determine whether the tendency to ruminate predates trauma exposure and consequently exacerbates the development of trauma-related symptoms later in life, though other studies suggest this may be the case In general, participants who reported one outcome in this study were more likely to report another outcome Table 1. Strong correlations among responses may not be especially surprising because the questions on the various questionnaires do overlap.

But even so, the correlations were strong and pervasive. For this study, we focused primarily on the relationship between rumination and stressful life memories Figure 3.

To our knowledge, no study to date has reported a positive relationship between rumination and autobiographical memory detail in women with sexual trauma exposure but not necessarily experiencing PTSD. These learning processes in the hippocampus can interact with stress as well. In one study, people watched a stressful film and later were exposed to cues, which reactivated the memory for the film.

Those who did so under stressful conditions high cortisol reported more intrusive memories than those who did so under unstressed conditions A similar process may be occurring in women with SV history. According to their self-report surveys, they often rehearse trauma memories. The rehearsals are likely done under stressful conditions because the women are experiencing moderate levels of depression and anxiety. We propose these involuntary rehearsals generate new memories with new contextual details in the brain, which become more difficult to extinguish.

The positive relationship between rumination and memory reported here is different from other reports. Kleim and Ehlers 68 observed less detail for autobiographical memories in individuals with acute stress disorder Moreover, the correlation between memory detail and rumination was negative. There are some key differences between studies. Also, their assessments were within weeks of the trauma and ours were generally much later.

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But interestingly, they conclude that an overgeneralized memory is not necessarily the result of trauma, per se , but rather a predisposition to depression, which arises as a result of trauma. The literature connecting trauma with autobiographical memory is extensive and implicates other factors such as avoidance behavior and executive control 17 , 18 , Others studies propose even more complicated relationships 70 — It is difficult to directly compare our results with these because of the methodological differences and because most of our participants did not have PTSD.

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Rumination is considered a risk factor for depression, in part because women tend to ruminate more than men do and are more often diagnosed with depression 75 , However, rumination per se does not necessarily account for the high incidence of depression in women In one of our recent studies, both men and women with high numbers of depressive symptoms reported more ruminative thoughts, but there were no sex differences in the relationship.

With that being said, because women are more likely to ruminate and more likely to experience sexual violence, it is reasonable to assume that these ruminations may exacerbate the symptoms of depression, as previously suggested Of course, not all ruminations are maladaptive and some degree of reflection is necessary in order to learn how to recover from trauma However, participants without trauma history also had relatively high PTCI scores These differences are easily explained.

Importantly though, women with SV history reported more trauma-related thoughts than women without SV history. Most women with SV history did not meet diagnostic criteria for a depressive or anxiety disorder, as diagnosed by the SCID. As a group, their BDI scores were consistent with a mild mood disturbance 39 and BAI scores were consistent with mild anxiety Overall, these data indicate a significant yet moderate elevation of anxiety and depressive symptoms in response to SV history.

Others report similar findings in college students with violence history 78 , These results likely reflect low level activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis, both of which are associated with the persistent expression of symptoms of depression and anxiety 80 — We concentrated on women and not men for several reasons. First, women are four times more likely to experience SV compared to men, and women between ages 12 and 34 are most likely to experience sexual assault 2 , 6.

And third, women are more likely than men to develop assault-related and stress-related disorders such as PTSD, presumably because they are more frequently exposed to sexually violent events, but also perhaps due to biological differences in stress-related systems 86 , The impact of SV on the human brain is difficult to study, in part because studies must be retrospective and variability between individual experiences is substantial 86 , 88 — During this procedure, a young female rat in puberty is exposed to an adult sexually-experienced male each day for 30 min.

As a result, female rats produced high levels of stress hormones and did not learn as well in standard laboratory training tasks. They also retained fewer new neurons in the hippocampus, a part of the brain necessary for many types of learning These data suggest that the experience of sexual aggression can affect neuronal processes related to learning and memory, even neurogenesis.

However, these results must be interpreted with caution; it is not possible to directly compare results from laboratory animal studies to women with SV history because the conditions surrounding the stressful events are different in many ways and levels of organization. Sexual violence against women is an all too common occurrence and recent attention from the media is long overdue 1 , 3. But this problem will not go away soon and we must keep our attention focused on prevention and justice for survivors. We must also find new ways to help women learn to recover.

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The most accepted course of treatment is Prolonged Exposure Therapy PET 12 , 16 , 24 , 92 , during which the client recollects the trauma memory during interviews, story-writing and even revisiting the traumatic location. After repeated exposure, the strength of the memory often lessens and the conditioned responses of fear and anxiety begin to extinguish 93 , Theoretically, the memory becomes less accessible in part because it has been updated and reconsolidated with other safer memories Effective as it is, PET is time-consuming and can be expensive.

Also, clients often drop out because it is emotionally painful to rehearse and relive the memory. We recently developed a novel intervention to help women recover from the trauma of SV 26 , 27 , Each session combines 30 min of mental training with silent meditation followed by 30 min of aerobic exercise. After 6 weeks of training, twice a week, women with SV history reported significantly fewer trauma-related cognitions and ruminative thoughts than women with SV history who were trained with meditation alone or exercise alone.

Women who completed MAP Training also reported greater self-worth than the other training groups It is unclear how this intervention works to reduce rumination and trauma-related thoughts. Women in the study completed the AMQ as well. Interestingly, scores did not change in women who completed training but increased in women who did not train. These data may suggest that fewer trauma-related and ruminative thoughts lessen the likelihood that the memory will strengthen over time. Women who experienced SV as adolescents or young adults reported intense memories for stressful life events, irrespective of PTSD.

The strength of these memories was highly related to ruminative and trauma-related thoughts within individuals, as were symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Theoretically, these data support the idea that ruminative thoughts and vivid memories of stressful life events coexist and are especially prominent in women who have experienced sexual violence. Thus, rumination may be an especially effective target for trauma recovery, because fewer ruminations would produce fewer vivid memories of trauma in the brain. This study was carried out with written informed consent from all participants.

IRB approval was obtained from Rutgers University for the study. EM and HC carried out the study. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. World Health Organization J Clin Psychiatry PubMed Abstract Google Scholar. Sex Offenses and Offenders. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Department of Justice Association of American Universities Sinozich S, Langton L. Schema-driven construction of future autobiographical traumatic events: J Exp Psychol Gen. Mental imagery and post-traumatic stress disorder: Front Psychiatry 6: A basic-systems approach to autobiographical memory.

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Overgeneral autobiographical memory and traumatic events: Memory in posttraumatic stress disorder: Autobiographical memory for stressful events: Reliving, emotions, and fragmentation in the autobiographical memories of veterans diagnosed with PTSD. Trait rumination predicts onset of post-traumatic stress disorder through trauma-related cognitive appraisals: Cognitive vulnerabilities to the development of PTSD: Cognitive changes during prolonged exposure versus prolonged exposure plus cognitive restructuring in female assault survivors with posttraumatic stress disorder.

J Consult Clin Psychol. A comparison of cognitive-processing therapy with prolonged exposure and a waiting condition for the treatment of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder in female rape victims. Transl Psychiatry 6: The role of rumination in elevating perceived stress in posttraumatic stress disorder. J Interpers Violence Nadel L, Moscovitch M. Memory consolidation, retrograde amnesia and the hippocampal complex. Moscovitch M, Nadel L. Consolidation and the hippocampal complex revisited: Functional neuroanatomy of remote episodic, semantic and spatial memory: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Belief and recollection of autobiographical memories.

A memory-based model of posttraumatic stress disorder: Shortened complex span tasks can reliably measure working memory capacity. Do sex differences in rumination explain sex differences in depression? Rumination as a mechanism linking stressful life events to symptoms of depression and anxiety: An inventory for measuring clinical anxiety: Is the Beck Anxiety Inventory a good tool to assess the severity of anxiety?

Is the Beck Depression Inventory suitable for screening major depression in different phases of the disease? Nord J Psychiatry Common and specific dimensions of self-reported anxiety and depression: Dissociation and the fragmentary nature of traumatic memories: J Trauma Stress 8: Unwanted memories of assault: Working memory processing of traumatic material in women with posttraumatic stress disorder.

Memories of sexual abuse, trauma remain accurate into adulthood

Neuropsychological function in college students with and without posttraumatic stress disorder. The organization of autobiographical and nonautobiographical memory in posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD. The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system. Quality of memories in women abused by their intimate partner: J Trauma Stress The impact of depression and PTSD symptom severity on trauma memory.

Vivid memories remain long after sexual assault

The nature and significance of memory disturbance in posttraumatic stress disorder. Annu Rev Clin Psychol. Birrer E, Michael T. Rumination in PTSD as well as in traumatized and non-traumatized depressed patients: Rumination and posttraumatic stress symptoms in trauma-exposed adults: Anxiety Stress Coping Dissociation and post-traumatic stress disorder: Psychological predictors of chronic posttraumatic stress disorder after motor vehicle accidents. Posttraumatic stress disorder after motor vehicle accidents: Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amygdala for reconsolidation after retrieval.

Reconsolidation of episodic memories: Hippocampal complex and retrieval of recent and very remote autobiographical memories: The role of stress during memory reactivation on intrusive memories. Kleim B, Ehlers A. According to the study, the more traumatic the event is to the individual, the more likely a person is to accurately remember it. Also, in general, children who are older at the time of an event are more likely to accurately remember.

However, there is evidence that sometimes even those who are young at the time of a sexual assault can also accurately recall parts of that event decades later. Further, researchers found that victims' memories are more accurate if they suffered from post-traumatic stress and if they received a higher level of maternal support. Researchers from FIU and University of California, Davis made the findings after interviewing adults from two groups — people who were abused as 4- to year-olds and were involved in the prosecution of their abusers, and people who were removed from their homes between the ages of 4 and 17 because of suspected maltreatment.

Although people might delay coming forward or forget some details in cases where trials are decades after the alleged abuse took place, that is not grounds for dismissing a victim's complaint outright, researchers said. Often, there's a reason why people delay in filing a complaint. Goldfarb is an attorney and assistant professor of psychology at FIU. Her research analyzes the effect of time on memory for legally relevant events.

She has published several articles on child sexual abuse allegations, children's eyewitness memory and testimony and delay in disclosure of child sexual abuse. An overview of the findings, which were based on longitudinal studies of participants and 30 participants, will be published in a forthcoming article in Child Development Perspectives , a journal of the Society for Research in Child Development. Sexual assault among adolescents: Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.