Dissociation : Vol. 7, No. 3, p. 153-166 : Somatic to psychological symptoms and information transfer from implicit to explicit memory: a controlled case study with predictions from the high risk model of threat perception
Loading...
Date
1994-09
Authors
Wickramasekera, Ian E.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Ridgeview Institute and the International Society for the Study of Dissociation
Abstract
This is a case study of a patient presenting a variety of somatic symptoms in the absence of any identifiable pathophysiology or psychopathology. Testing with the High Risk Model of Threat Perception (HRMTP), autonomic monitoring and psychophysiological psychotherapy are associated with the retrieval and transfer of unconscious or implicit memories of sexual abuse (independently supported by court records) into explicit or conscious memory. This transfer of
"repressed" memory appears to be associated with several powerful and theoretically salient consequences. First, an abrupt correlated remission of multiple somatic symptoms. Second, a correlated large increase in baseline negative affectivity, and third, large correlated
changes in involuntary measures of physiological reactivity (e.g., heart rate, EDR, etc.) documented on 4 pre post stress profiles. This inverse relationship between somatic and psychological symptoms plus the marked autonomic shift from a relatively parasympathetically dominant to a highly sympathetically reactive status raises profound theoretical questions regarding the nature and stability of the psychophysiological mechanisms implicated in the transduction of information and memory from physiological to psychological systems. Based on observations in this case study, several experimentally falsifiable predictive hypotheses derived from the HRMTP are presented.
Description
p. 153-166