Trends in Cognitive Sciences
ReviewDisruptions in autobiographical memory processing in depression and the emergence of memory therapeutics
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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