Remembrance of things past : the cognitive psychology of remembering and forgetting trauma Citation for published version (APA): Geraerts, E. G. (2006). Remembrance of things past : the cognitive psychology of remembering and forgetting trauma. Datawyse / Universitaire Pers Maastricht. https://doi.org/10.26481/dis.20060616eg Document status and date: Published: 01/01/2006 DOI: 10.26481/dis.20060616eg Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Please check the document version of this publication: • A submitted manuscript is the version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. 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If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement: www.umlib.nl/taverne-license Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us at: [email protected] providing details and we will investigate your claim. Download date: 25 Sep. 2021 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST: The Cognitive Psychology of Remembering and Forgetting Trauma © E Geraerts, TONGEREN 2006 OMSLAGONTWERP & LAYOUT: designocima®, www.designocima.com COVER ILLUSTRATION: Proust remembers (Proust Series). Painting reproduced with permission of Ann Baldwin DRUK: Datawyse ISBN–10: 90 807715 6 2 ISBN–13: 978 90 807715 6 7 REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST: The Cognitive Psychology of Remembering and Forgetting Trauma PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Maastricht, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, Prof. mr. G.P.M.F. Mols, volgens het besluit van het College van Decanen, in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 16 juni 2006 om 14:00 uur door Elke Ghislaine Geraerts PROMOTORES Prof. dr. H. L. G. J. Merckelbach Prof. dr. J. van Heerden COPROMOTOR Dr. M. Jelicic BEOORDELINGSCOMMISSIE Prof. dr. C. de Ruiter (voorzitter) Prof. dr. A. Arntz Prof. dr. T. Brennen (University of Oslo, Norway) Dr. B. M. Jansma Prof. dr. R. J. McNally (Harvard University, United States) “Il y avait déjà bien des années que, de Combray, tout ce qui n’était pas le théâtre et le drame de mon coucher, n’existait plus pour moi”. Marcel Proust, 1913, p. 58 ; A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Volume 1 : Du côté de chez Swann. “Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was compromised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me”. Marcel Proust, 1923, p. 58; Remembrance of Things Past. Volume 1: Swann’s Way. CONTENTS Acknowledgments 9 Cases of Recovered Memories 13 CHAPTER I General Introduction 17 PART 1 AMNESIA AND TRAUMA CHAPTER 2 Traumatic Memories in War Veterans: Not So Special After All 35 CHAPTER 3 Retrieval Inhibition of Trauma-Related Words in Women Reporting Repressed or Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse 49 PART 2 FALSE AND RECOVERED MEMORIES CHAPTER 4 Fantasy Proneness, but not Self-Reported Trauma is Related to DRM Performance of Women Reporting Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse 63 CHAPTER 5 Dissociative Symptoms and How They Relate to Fantasy Proneness in Women Reporting Repressed or Recovered Memories 77 7 CONTENTS PART 3 OVERREPORTING AND TRAUMA CHAPTER 6 Symptom Overreporting and Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse 89 PART 4 ASSESSING PRIOR REMEMBERING CHAPTER 7 Forgetting of Prior Remembering in Persons Reporting Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse 105 PART 5 REPRESSIVE COPING AND MEMORY CHAPTER 8 Long Term Consequences of Suppression of Intrusive Thoughts and Repressive Coping 123 CHAPTER 9 Suppression of Intrusive Thoughts and Working Memory Capacity in Repressive Coping 139 CHAPTER 10 General Discussion 153 Notes 171 Summary 173 Samenvatting 179 Works Cited 185 Author Affiliations 201 Curriculum Vitae 203 List of Publications 205 8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Finally! The opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved in my PhD project! First of all, I would like to thank the team who stood behind me during my PhD project: Jaap van Heerden, Marko Jelicic, and Harald Merckelbach (in order of appearance). Jaap, I cannot top your description of our conversations as being non-worldly. Although not frequent, I really loved them. I haven’t met many people in my life who are as kind and erudite as you are. I am pleased that you let me go my way and do the things I liked to do. I owe a lot of my success as a researcher to Marko Jelicic. Marko, already as an undergraduate student, you taught me a lot about how to conduct research and write articles. As a PhD- student, I was very grateful that you instantly agreed to become my copromotor. This stimulated me to carry on and conduct the research I really liked to do. Thanks a lot! Harald, thank you for lots of inspiration. I am really happy that I could work with you and learn from so many of your enlightening ideas. Although you have always claimed that your contribution to this thesis was small, the contrary is true!! Many of the studies reported in this thesis were realized because of your instantaneously generated thoughts. Thank you so much for this! Marko and Harald, I also really appreciate that both of you were always willing to support my research and conference trips (mentally and financially). Richard McNally and Susan Clancy, your innovating research with people reporting repressed and recovered memories inspired me to conduct similar studies. Rich, thanks so much for being here today, as it means a lot to me. I am looking forward to visiting Harvard University and learning from your experience. Dragica Kozarić-Kovačić, I really enjoyed my visits to the National Psychotrauma Centre in Zagreb (and of course the NATO conference in Dubrovnik). I am really thankful that you were willing to participate in the studies with all of the war veterans. Also many thanks to the whole staff of the Centre who have spend so much time on this project. I am really looking forward to continuing our nice projects. 9 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Jonathan Schooler, it’s great working with you. I really benefited from our brainstorms about recovered (please read: discovered) memories and I am pleased that your ideas instigated me to seek the middle ground as well. Steve Lindsay and Michelle Arnold, working with you was so great. Steve, I really liked our sharp e-conversations and I can’t wait for our beautiful symposium in Sydney in a few weeks. I am grateful that I can work with such a brilliant researcher as you are. Michelle, I knew it all along that you are a great researcher and I loved our brainstorms about the FIA effect. So, Tim Brennen, it looks like you are becoming a part of the Maastricht scenery… dearie me! Besides discussions about wegomlegging, Softit, tuna guides, Roger Daltrey, and Shakespeare, I really liked the “riveting” conversations about our related studies and teaching! Bettina Sorger, Petra Habets, and Rainer Goebel, your knowledge about fMRI combined with our experience on recovered memories looks very promising. Thanks for all the time you are investing in this project. I also want to thank my colleagues at the Department of Neurocognition and the Department of Experimental Psychology. I had the good fortune of being a “mixed product” of both departments and I loved getting to know so many people. Also many thanks to all the members of the “Interfacultary Psychology & Law” (IRP) group: our retreats in the Belgian “mountains” were really pleasant and inspiring. My colleagues in the PsyLaw group, Beatrijs, Corine, Ewout, Harald, Ingrid, Kim, Maarten, Marko, Robert, Saskia, Timo and Tom: thanks for the nice coffee breaks and collegiality. Also a special thanks to Corine de Ruiter for being such a good chair of the assessment committee of my thesis. Ingrid Candel and Bettina Sorger, thanks for being my paranimfs. Ingrid, it’s great that we can share all our thoughts about so many things. I am looking forward to working with you in the years to come! Bettina, your huge knowledge on fMRI, as well as your cheerfulness make it great to work with you! I am glad you are standing next to me today. I want to thank my parents for the love and support they gave me throughout all of these years. Christophe, thanks a lot for your understanding that I wasn’t around much lately. It’s so great that you are supporting all the things I do. And thanks for so much more… Last, but so not least: the research described in this thesis wouldn’t have existed without the help from all of the people who were willing to 10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS participate and all the students who helped me with testing the participants.