1. vicious circle of mood & memory
upsetting emotional state
depression, social anxiety, agoraphobia, ocd, posttraumatic stress disorder, etc
old beliefs linked to the memories aggravate the situation further
current life experiences
trigger memories (felt-
sense, visual and
shared meaning)
upsetting memories not yet worked through from earlier life experiences
facilitated access to memories of similar negative emotional tone
disorganized nature of partly repressed emotional memories means that they have no clear ‘date-time’ stamp on them

2. depression & imagery research
Kuyken W & Brewin CR Intrusive memories of child- hood abuse during depressive episodes Behav Res Ther 1994;32:525-8
Kuyken W & Brewin CR Autobiographical memory functioning in depression and reports of early abuse J Abnorm Psychol 1995;104:585-91
Andrews B Bodily shame as a mediator between abusive experiences and depression J Abnorm Psychol 1995;104:277-85
Brewin CR Cognitive processing of adverse experiences Int Rev Psychiat 1996;8:333-9
Brewin CR, Reynolds M, et al. Autobiographical memory processes and the course of depression. J Abnorm Psychol 1999; 108(3):

3. trauma memories & depression 1
31 sufferers from current depression were asked about deaths of family or friends & about other major life events
questioned too about events they felt might have triggered the current episode of depression & about childhood - for example harsh discipline or unwanted sexual experiences
asked too about related memories – these were defined as spontaneous visual images of specific scenes that had actually taken place
87% of these current depression sufferers said yes - they had experienced 1-5 different intrusive images (av’ge 2.6)
Brewin CR, Hunter E, Carroll F & Tata P Intrusive memories in depression: an index of schema activation? Psychol Med 1996:26:1271-6

4. trauma memories & depression 2
55% of these intrusive memory images involved illness or death; 21% involved relationship or family problems; 18% involved abuse and assault
memories were usually associated with mixed feelings of sadness, guilt, anger and helplessness, and to a lesser extent anxiety and shame
scoring these depressive memories using the IES showed that they had similar scores to memories found in PTSD
memories of past abuse and of assault tended to be associated with higher IES scores and with severer levels of depression

5. clinical implications 1
it’s common for depression sufferers to be troubled by significant trauma memories
high levels of intrusion & associated avoidance of trauma memories (high IES scores) are associated with more prolonged depression even when allowing for the initial severity of psychiatric symptoms
it seems likely that asking about trauma memories & using emotional processing methods that lower IES scores may well speed recovery and possibly may even reduce relapse

6. social anxiety & imagery research
Hackmann A, Surawy C, et al. Seeing yourself through others' eyes: A study of spontaneously occurring images in social phobia. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy 1998; 26: 3-12
Wells A. & Papageorgiou C. The observer perspective: biased imagery in social phobia, agoraphobia, and blood/injury phobia. Behav Res Ther 1999; 37(7):
Hackmann A, Clark DM, et al. Recurrent images & early memories in social phobia. Behav Res Ther 2000; 38(6):
Hernández-Guzmán L, González S, et al. Effect of guided imagery on children's social performance. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy 2002; 30:
Hirsch C, and Mathews A. Anticipatory imagery and the develop-ment of social anxiety. BABCP Annual Conference Abstracts : pp York, 2003.
Hirsch CR, Meynen T, et al. Negative self-imagery in social anxiety contaminates social interactions. Memory 2004; 12(4):