Retrieval Inhibition in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

There is considerable debate concerning the nature of memory for traumatic events in people affected by trauma. This study investigated memory inhibition in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using the retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) paradigm. Fifteen trauma survivors with PTSD, 15 participants who had recovered from PTSD, and 14 trauma survivors who had never developed PTSD learned two categories of trauma-related words and two categories of neutral words. They then practiced half of the words in one neutral and one trauma-related category before being tested on their memory for words from all categories. The results indicated an RIP effect for trauma-related words in the PTSD group, while the two non-PTSD groups did not show this effect. These results suggest that repeated focus on certain trauma-related information may impair retrieval of other trauma-related information in individuals with PTSD.