Trauma and Autobiography

The relationship between trauma and autobiography can be understood in different ways. A growing field of literary criticism on the nature of personal trauma as it is expressed in literature addresses how trauma is expressed in fiction and narrative nonfiction (including autobiographies) and the influence of personal trauma on the creative writing process. Additionally, writing about personal trauma, or jour-naling, has been shown to have therapeutic effects.

Another aspect of the relationship between trauma and autobiography is how exposure to trauma results in a disruption of the normal narrative of one's own life. A number of studies have shown that individuals with the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depression with a history of trauma exposure have impairments in their ability to recall autobiographical information. Studies have shown that traumatized patients have difficulty generating personal memories in response to word cues. As tested with measures such as the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), specific cue words will generate generic responses, rather than specific responses that incorporate autobiographical events. These findings have been shown in traumatized individuals with a range of psychiatric diagnoses, including PTSD, depression, eating disorders, and complicated grief. PTSD patients with a history of childhood abuse were found to have impairments in the construction of coherent autobiographical memories of childhood. Furthermore, severity of PTSD symptoms was correlated with reduced memory specificity, and problems with memory specificity were in turn associated with poor long-term prognosis for recovery from PTSD symptoms.

Several theories have been proposed for the impairment in autobiographical memory associated with trauma. One hypothesis is that reduced specificity of memory represents a cognitive strategy to avoid distressing traumatic autobiographical events such as traumas. Individuals for whom the trauma caused more distress would have greater reductions in specific memories. Alternatively, problems with executive function could result in an inability to find specific autobiographical memories in response to [Page 683]cue words. PTSD patients have been shown to have cognitive deficits that could account for problems with retrieval of memory.

Trauma can also influence autobiographical memory through the mechanism of dissociative amnesia. Dissociative amnesia is defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) as gaps in memory that are not the result of ordinary forgetfulness. In World War I, soldiers with the diagnosis of “shell shock” (which was similar to the current diagnosis of dissociative amnesia) were described as forgetting their names or who they were and wandering off the battlefield with no memory of what had happened to them. Because of the close proximity of exploding shells, this disorder was originally conceived as being secondary to the physical impact of the explosions, although this idea was later revised.

In the early part of the 20th century, U.S. psychiatrists published case reports of individuals who wandered away from their homes, forgot about their past identities, and developed new lives in another city. This became known as fugue states.

The strong relationship between dissociative symptoms and psychological trauma is indisputable. Additionally, the dissociative symptoms, which cluster together and include amnesia, disruptions of perception of self and the environment, and identity diffusion, are intimately related to aspects of the self that are important for the development of autobiographical narratives. These symptoms are highly correlated. For instance, following a car accident, many individuals report looking down on the scene from above (depersonalization); however, when they are doing so, things look strange or unreal (derealization), and they may have gaps of memory for the event (amnesia). The identity disturbance of dissociative identity disorder is really related to a series of amnestic episodes, which when extreme can lead patients to feel as though there are distinct, multiple facets of themselves that are imperfectly connected with one another. Again, the different personality states are often experienced in a dreamy, dissociative state.

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