vicious circle of mood

1
vicious circle of mood memory
upsetting emotional state depression, social
anxiety, agoraphobia, ocd, posttraumatic stress
disorder, etc
old beliefs linked to the memories aggravate the
situation further
current life experiences trigger memories
(felt- sense, visual and shared
meaning)
facilitated access to memories of similar
negative emotional tone
upsetting memories not yet worked through from
earlier life experiences
disorganized nature of partly repressed emotional
memories means that they have no clear
date-time stamp on them
2
depression imagery research

• Kuyken W Brewin CR Intrusive memories of
  child- hood abuse during depressive episodes
  Behav Res Ther 199432525-8
• Kuyken W Brewin CR Autobiographical memory
  functioning in depression and reports of early
  abuse J Abnorm Psychol 1995104585-91
• Andrews B Bodily shame as a mediator between
  abusive experiences and depression J Abnorm
  Psychol 1995104277-85
• Brewin CR Cognitive processing of adverse
  experiences Int Rev Psychiat 19968333-9
• Brewin CR, Reynolds M, et al. Autobiographical
  memory processes and the course of depression.
  J Abnorm Psychol 1999 108(3) 511-7.

3
trauma memories depression 1

• 31 sufferers from current depression were asked
  about deaths of family or friends about other
  major life events
• questioned too about events they felt might have
  triggered the current episode of depression
  about childhood - for example harsh discipline or
  unwanted sexual experiences
• asked too about related memories these were
  defined as spontaneous visual images of
  specific scenes that had actually taken place
• 87 of these current depression sufferers said
  yes - they had experienced 1-5 different
  intrusive images (avge 2.6)

Brewin CR, Hunter E, Carroll F Tata P
Intrusive memories in depression an index of
schema activation? Psychol Med 1996261271-6
4
trauma memories depression 2

• 55 of these intrusive memory images involved
  illness or death 21 involved relationship
  or family problems 18 involved abuse and
  assault
• memories were usually associated with mixed
  feelings of sadness, guilt, anger and
  helplessness, and to a lesser extent anxiety and
  shame
• scoring these depressive memories using the IES
  showed that they had similar scores to memories
  found in PTSD
• memories of past abuse and of assault tended to
  be associated with higher IES scores and with
  severer levels of depression

5
clinical implications 1

• its common for depression sufferers to be
  troubled by significant trauma memories
• high levels of intrusion associated avoidance
  of trauma memories (high IES scores)
  are associated with more prolonged
  depression even when allowing for the
  initial severity of psychiatric symptoms
• it seems likely that asking about trauma
  memories using emotional processing methods
  that lower IES scores may well speed recovery and
  possibly may even reduce relapse

6
social anxiety imagery research

• Hackmann A, Surawy C, et al. Seeing yourself
  through others' eyes A study of spontaneously
  occurring images in social phobia. Behavioural
  and Cognitive Psychotherapy 1998 26 3-12
• Wells A. Papageorgiou C. The observer
  perspective biased imagery in social phobia,
  agoraphobia, and blood/injury phobia. Behav Res
  Ther 1999 37(7) 653-8.
• Hackmann A, Clark DM, et al. Recurrent images
  early memories in social phobia. Behav Res Ther
  2000 38(6) 601-10.
• Hernández-Guzmán L, González S, et al. Effect of
  guided imagery on children's social performance.
  Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy 2002
  30 471-483.
• Hirsch C, and Mathews A. Anticipatory imagery
  and the develop-ment of social anxiety. BABCP
  Annual Conference Abstracts pp 11-12. York,
  2003.
• Hirsch CR, Meynen T, et al. Negative
  self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates
  social interactions. Memory 2004 12(4) 496-506