Posted by alan on June 17, 1999, at 2:23:54
In reply to Re: Drugs used to aid in memory loss, posted by saintjames on June 3, 1999, at 23:03:55
> > My wife is suffering from a horrible experience that she desperately needs to forget. This experience is hindering her treatment for depression. She is looking to find a drug that would aid in lonngterm memory loss so that eventually this horror can come to an end. Please reply if possible I need some help P.Sibley
>
> James here....
>
> She need to deal with it not forget it ! Even if she could forget the event probably has ingrained
> itself in her personality so forgetting it will not help. Dealing with it will. Thearpy will help.
>
> james
I dont want to start any battles, so let us just say that I am not aware of any reason to believe that one cannot relieve present psychic pain without dredging up memories of past traumas.It may be the case that while past traumas do cause psychological problems, they do so by doing actual brain damage and/or setting up conditioned responses which can be extinguished without any process of "dealing" with dredging up memory. I think a lot of this way of thinking derives from Freud (Breuer, Charcot, etc.), who at least had the intellectual integrity to try to develop a full theoretical explanation of how and why; but the approach now seems barren. (Grand theories are never proven wrong; they just peter out) 'Dealing with" therpies may benefit patients for reasons that have nothing to do with bringing up and dealing with traumatic memories. How DO you deal with such memories? As I said, Freud had an answer, but its part of a nearly dead theory; yet much of the spirit of that dead theory lives on. Wwll, all I really want to claim is don't feel that you MUST go thru some memory dealing. Drugs, CBT, support may well be enough. As for forgetting medication, I wish I could find some for me!
poster:alan
thread:7025
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990601/msgs/7473.html