Disruptions in autobiographical memory processing in depression and the emergence of memory therapeutics

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.06.010

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Volume 18, Issue 11, November 2014, Pages 596-604

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2014.06.010 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Autobiographical memory disturbances drive the onset and maintenance of clinical depression.
•
Core difficulties comprise biases in favor of negative memories, impoverished positive memories, lack of specificity in recall, and rumination and avoidance around personal mnemonic themes.
•
Reversing or normalizing difficulties with autobiographical memory has great clinical potential.
•
Memory therapeutics is the development of cognitive interventions, translated from basic research, to ameliorate autobiographical memory disturbances in emotional disorders.

Depression is characterized by distinct profiles of disturbance in ways autobiographical memories are represented, recalled, and maintained. We review four core domains of difficulty: systematic biases in favor of negative material; impoverished access and responses to positive memories; reduced access to the specific details of the personal past; and dysfunctional processes of rumination and avoidance around personal autobiographical material. These difficulties drive the onset and maintenance of depression; consequently, interventions targeted at these maladaptive processes have clinical potential. Memory therapeutics is the development of novel clinical techniques, translated from basic research, that target memory difficulties in those with emotional disorders. We discuss prototypical examples from this clinical domain including MEmory Specificity Training, positive memory elaboration, memory rescripting, and the method-of-loci (MoL).

Section snippets

The four mnemonic horsemen of depression

Sufferers of depression remember the past differently to their never-depressed peers. Their autobiographical memory processing is compromised in at least four distinct but interrelated ways that combine and interact to help maintain depressive episodes once they have begun, and to confer vulnerability to new episodes when sufferers are in remission (Figure 1).

The CaR-FA-X model of autobiographical memory processing in depression

The CaR-FA-X model [3] (Figure 2) operationalizes the core disruptions in autobiographical memory processing associated with depression that we have outlined above. Within the model, difficulties accessing specific episodes from the past are characterized as resulting from the capture (Ca) of memory search efforts by highly consolidated categorical depressogenic themes, which then form the focus of maladaptive cycles of rumination (R). The likelihood of such capture is exacerbated by ingrained

Memory therapeutics and depression

These advances in our understanding of the key roles that maladaptive aspects of autobiographical memory processing play in depression, and the CaR-FA-X framework that integrates them together, have prompted practitioner-researchers to explore new avenues of therapeutic intervention which focus on changing patients’ processing of, and relationship to, their personal past. These emerging interventions sit against a broader backdrop of cognitive approaches to the treatment of depression and other

Concluding remarks and future perspectives

Cognitive theories of depression 62, 63 emphasize the key role played by biases and perturbations across core cognitive faculties in the onset and maintenance of the disorder. Central to these is maladaptive processing of the emotional autobiographical past. We have reviewed four domains of such autobiographical memory dysfunctionality: systematic biases in favor of negative material, impoverished access and responses to positive memories, reduced access to the specific details of the personal

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Trends in Cognitive Sciences

ReviewDisruptions in autobiographical memory processing in depression and the emergence of memory therapeutics

Highlights

Section snippets

The four mnemonic horsemen of depression

The CaR-FA-X model of autobiographical memory processing in depression

Memory therapeutics and depression

Concluding remarks and future perspectives

Behav. Res. Ther.

J. Affect. Disord.

Clin. Psychol. Rev.

Clin. Psychol. Rev.

Behav. Res. Ther.

Conscious. Cogn.

Cogn. Psychol.

J. Behav. Ther. Exp. Psychiatry

J. Behav. Ther. Exp. Psychiatry

J. Behav. Ther. Exp. Psychiatry

Behav. Ther.

J. Behav. Ther. Exp. Psychiatry

Behav. Res. Ther.

Psychiatr. Clin. North Am.

Behav. Res. Ther.

Clin. Psychol. Rev.

Clin. Psychol. Rev.

Lancet

J. Affect. Disord.

Behav. Res. Ther.

Behav. Res. Ther.

The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system

Psychol. Rev.

Cognitive approaches to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): the evolution of multi-representational theorizing

Psychol. Bull.

Autobiographical memory specificity and emotional disorder

Psychol. Bull.

Cognition and depression: current status and future directions

Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol.

Memory deficit in clinical depression: processing resources and the structure of materials

Psychol. Med.

Effect of depression on the speed of recall of pleasant and unpleasant experiences

Psychol. Med.

Interpretation of ambiguous information in girls at risk for depression

J. Abnorm. Child Psychol.

Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders

Beyond mood and social judgment: mood incongruent recall and mood regulation

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol.

Retrieving positive memories to regulate negative mood: consequences for mood-congruent memory

J. Pers. Soc. Psychol.

Memory accessibility, mood regulation, and dysphoria: difficulties in repairing sad mood with happy memories?

J. Abnorm. Psychol.

Mood regulation in depression: differential effects of distraction and recall of happy memories on sad mood

J. Abnorm. Psychol.

Autobiographical memory characteristics in depression vulnerability: Formerly depressed individuals recall less vivid positive memories

Cogn. Emot.

Characteristics of self-defining memory in depression vulnerability

Memory

Mood repair and processing mode in depression

Emotion

Autobiographical memory in suicide attempters

J. Abnorm. Psychol.

The structure of past and future lives in depression

J. Abnorm. Psychol.

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity predicts depression and posttraumatic stress disorder after recent trauma

J. Consult. Clin. Psychol.

Rumination and overgeneral memory in depression: Effects of self-focus and analytic thinking

J. Abnorm. Psychol.

The effects of suppressing a negative autobiographical memory on concurrent intrusions and subsequent autobiographical recall in dysphoria

J. Abnorm. Psychol.

Vantage point in episodic memory

Psychon. Bull. Rev.

Remembering as an observer: how is autobiographical memory retrieval vantage perspective linked to depression?

Memory

Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought

Psychol. Bull.

Reduced specificity of autobiographical memory and depression: the role of executive control

J. Exp. Psychol. Gen.

Whither cognitive bias modification research? Commentary on the special section articles

J. Abnorm. Psychol.

A meta-analysis of the effect of cognitive bias modification on anxiety and depression

Psychol. Bull.

Review
Disruptions in autobiographical memory processing in depression and the emergence of memory therapeutics