Memory has been my (Eni Becker’s) first scientific interest (Becker et al.,
1994), and it has kept its fascination for me. Our memory is in a way our essence, defines and shapes us. I find the idea fascinating that memory is our past, and as thus is stable and reliable, while actually memory is quite changeable, elusive even, and thus our past is changing all the time. From the beginning I was interested in how memory might impact mental health and psychopathology. Gordon Bower's theory on mood and memory (
1981,
1987) was my scientific starting point (and I was very lucky to have him as a sparring partner, thank you Gordon), as it has been for many others. How do emotion and information processing interact, and what if there is more than an “emotion” if there is an emotional disorder, a prolonged dysfunctional state? …