Trauma: Get Over It

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The human brain developed in layers, like a pearl, over thousands of generations. The outermost layer is the neocortex, where language and abstract thought take place. Nestled inside the neocortex is the much older limbic brain, which governs emotion and memory. Seated in the front of the limbic brain, in the temporal lobe, is the amygdala, a sensitive, almond-shaped region that sounds a warning note when we experience a threat. The source of our 'fight or flight' instinct, the amygdala is an organ of fear.

These layers are in constant communication. Suppose a fist hammering on the door startles you from an afternoon reverie. You are not expecting guests. But the hammering continues, and with it you hear shouting. Immediately, the amygdala takes control of your body. (In fact, it might even take action before the neocortex registers sound. Studies show that the amygdala can make emotional judgments using sensory data long before our minds can make rational judgments.) Your heart rate and respiration automatically increase, tensing your muscles to attack or flee.

Only then does the neocortex get involved. If you open the door to find your husband who forgot his keys and is late to work, the neocortex orders your amygdala to stand down; if you find masked soldiers with rifles cocked, the amygdala stays hyperactive. Among other things, it will signal the hippocampus, the structure in the limbic brain where memories are processed and stored, to stab this moment deep into the tissue of your brain. You will never answer a knock on the door in quite the same way again.

It is these 'flashbulb memories,' as Northwood explains, that contribute to the powerful effects of trauma on memory. Theoretically, remembering the cause of a threat can help you avoid it in the future -- a useful trick when you're avoiding predators. Unlike animals, which can literally shake off the physical response to fear, however, humans accumulate their fears. Our hippocampus can become so illuminated by flashbulb memories, in fact, that we become blinded to the difference between real and imagined threats. As a result, we tend to see predators everywhere we look.

'When people are in this state of hyperarousal, we encode memories very differently,' Northwood says. This is why the emotional memories of an extreme experience such as torture, not the actual physical pain of the moment, often leave the most stubborn and crippling wounds.

Some of the torture survivors Northwood counsels replay their flashbulb memories in nightmares, flashbacks, and unbidden thoughts triggered by, for example, seeing someone in uniform, or entering a closed-in space. People often internalize the messages the torturers have fed them. Victims also might avoid reminders of the traumatic experience, or 'dissociate,' shutting down key aspects of their personality, such as emotional function. Together, these experiences manifest themselves in what has come to be called posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

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