Scientists find way to erase bad memories

I think bad memories are a part of who we are and unless they are so traumatising that it paralyses us entirely, then it is best to have them incorporated into our psyche.  I think facing our darkest hours is better than erasing them, but then I am not 100% sure of that either.  It is something that deserves a lot of thought and discussion and perhaps can only be dealt with on a highly individual basis. 

I wouldn't want to erase my bad memories - although like you said Ellie, I haven't had any really horrifically bad memories.

:-))  

Mllemass, most bad memories fade. Not all, and especially in cases of PTSD. The memory is as clear as a bell in those cases, completely painful, and you're unable to stop it from consuming your life. I do think that with proper psychotherapy (which can be difficult and also painful), the memories are reduced so they don't cause suffering anymore.

At least, that has been my experience with it. I had PTSD after finding my fathers suicide. I worked so hard with my therapist on it for two straight years just to get the images out of my head. They're still there, but they don't hold the same punch they used to. I actually wouldn't give up that memory for the world. I learned so much about myself, my father, aging, humanity, and society in general from that horrible experience that I couldn't have gotten in any other way. Yes, it was awful, but I think in the long run it made me a kinder person with more compassion.

I think what we need is not ways to erase experience, but help from others for the courage to face ourselves and our human-ness.

That's a wise post there, Queen Zod. That experience must have been terrible. I don't want to even imagine such a thing, but it sounds as if you've done really well to have learnt to see it in perspective now.

In the psychotherapy you had, did they use any NLP? It doesn't seem to be used as much as it should because it is extraordinarily powerful in the hands of someone who really knows what they're doing. And it seems to me that that would be better more widely used, than by actually erasing troublesome memories as per that article. There are usually exceptions to most rules, though, and it could be that in relatively rare and extreme cases (as a last resort) the actual erasure of memories could be an answer. Some psychological problems seem unimaginable to those who are fortunate enough not to have the problem, like those who want limbs amputated for instance. In some ways that's not a bad analogy, in that a "wrong" solution could be the better option than letting someone take a chainsaw to their own leg in their distress.

But NLP is really good! And it's based on common sense in many ways, just not common sense that one would ever think about. In essence it's about recognising the particular building blocks by which something (it might be a difficult memory) is perceived and then noticing the differences between that and the way other memories or events are perceived and then changing the habitual way the bad memory is processed from the way that causes difficulty to a way that doesn't. Re really bad memories that cause distress, one of the big differences is that those are invariably recalled as if out of one's own eyes, whereas with memories that may have been bad but which have been "dealt with" and no longer cause the same distress, the probability is that there is disassociation (as in you see yourself in the memory rather than as if through your eyes). So by changing the perception of something, you're not erasing it, but you can eliminate much of the negative effect.

I suppose it depends on what a person has been through, although I do think that there is a reason for therapy to be able to wrap one´s head around problems and then work through them by discussing them. Although at times I suppose that is not always enough. But what if those memories are so horrific that the person wants and decides to erase them and then changes her/his mind afterwards? *Shudders.* That is big problem with this as a whole in my opinion.

I agree with the poster who said that bad experiences are what make the person who she is. Bad experiences in certain cases do help people understand things about life and about themselves, but again, it depends on background and everyone copes individually. This is an interesting and thought provoking question.