Treating Trauma Memories Reduces the Distress of Related Memories

Trauma therapists must make clinical judgments about what order to target memories for treatment. Study 1, of 146 self-identified trauma therapists, found a variety of reported strategies for deciding which trauma memory to treat first, including letting the client choose, treating the memory that caused the symptoms, or working in chronological order. Study 2a, of 159 therapists in eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) or progressive counting workshops, examined the impact on the distress level of a later memory after treating an earlier related memory. Study 2b, of 114 therapists in EMDR or progressive counting workshops, examined the impact on the distress level of an earlier memory after treating a later related memory. In each condition, the distress of the untreated memory was reduced; the effect was greater when treating the earlier memory. In study 3, 3 therapy clients rated the distress level of each trauma memory at the beginning of each session, as the trauma memories were being resolved in chronological order. The distress level of many (but not all) later memories did go down following the resolution of earlier memories, and this effect persisted over time. These findings suggest that treating trauma memories can reduce the distress level of related memories, with a greater effect when treating earlier memories.