Effectiveness of memory specificity training for cognitive-emotional distinctiveness in patients with PTSD

Memories of stressful or traumatic events constitute one source of unwanted emotional reactions. Patients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have strong emotional association with traumatic memories which results in intensity of cognitive vulnerability and symptoms. In overgeneral autobiographical memory reduction, as the severe avoidance and cognitive vulnerability decrease, the emotional cognitive distinction increases by creating an emotional exposure via reducing the connection between the emotional and event nodes. In a semi-pilot plan, 24 subjects (12 males and 12 females) with PTSD, were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. The subjects in the former group received memory specificity training, whereas the latter were placed on a waiting list, instead. Afterwards, the scores on CED, AMT, and IES-R were collected from both groups prior to and after the intervention and during the one-month follow-up period. The data were then analyzed using multivariable variance analysis statistical tests with repeated measures. The findings were indicative of effectiveness of MEST in reducing the cognitive vulnerability and increased cognitive-emotional distinctiveness in the experimental group as compared with the control group. In case the higher levels of CED turn out to be an adaptive defense mechanism in terms of negative events that protects the individuals from repeated experience of negative emotions, both memory specificity training and autobiographical memory specification in these patients are capable of improving the cognitive-emotional distinction by reducing the trauma-related cognitive vulnerability.