I dont think that this approach is a good idea at all.
Our brains are complex entities, this treats it as a simple one.
I think it will leave a hole in continuity and it may well be
helpful, but residual awareness that something horrible has occurred
will linger and it will be harder to resolve.
I guess what I am trying to say is that the body remembers, even if
we manage to pluck out one simple way the body goes about remembering.
This may trigger reactions to certain stimuli which will make less sense
when the person cannot relate it to remembered trauma.
I think PTSD is something you have to work on, and get help for.
I did eventually for mine but years and years of not having any
treatment.
This is the McDonalds solution.
A terrifying branch of this is the military's interest in using it in
war zones.
It fills my mind with images of soldiers getting "reset" on a frequent
basis. What would they be like after a year or two of that?
(I have also read ideas on preventative drugs to help a soldier not remember).
Humanity, whatever someone is able to retain in a war zone, is the last defense
against atrocities. The remembrance of atrocities is the only way to bring
them to light later.
Is there anything to back up these ideas. Admittedly, I haven't read the article and am not familiar with the science.
That said, these aren't things that can be figured out based on gut feeling or how something "seems". Your body doesn't remember anything, what are you talking about?
There's no reason to think that it would be impossible to create a pill to mitigate some trauma. This seems like a dangerous obsession with "therapy", that our modern society seems to have. "Taking pill bad. Must work through"
It's been observed for a long time that some people handle trauma way better than others. Who says we can't get to a place where everyone can have that, or that we can never find medicine that helps?
That neglects all the other ecosystems in your body that lead you to behave the way you do.
Have you ever been hangry? How about the experience of chronic intestinal irritation worsening your depression? How do you feel in your head when you can’t stop your heart from racing after a stressful day of work? Those are all examples of the inverse.
I made a very deep PTSD syndrome once... The kind which get you homeless in matters of months.
I was having non-stop flashback of traumatic events... When I was deep in these memories(what i think they call intrusion), It was like having taken cocaine with 10e5 effect flooding my frontal lobe, a lot of anger and depression at the same time. I was enable to get out of bed except once in a week to buy some food... When I ran out of food I could stay +48h without anyintake...
I googled something about memory improvement or trauma... I don't remember well... and came to read about an hormone, sold in most dieterary shop on the internet. I decided to give it a try.
It was life saving. Instant effects. In a month of self prescribed cure, I was coming back to life. It had unfortunately a few side effect, the most dominant was burst of anger. So I stopped it. But it was enough to get me in track.
What would have been the alternative solution ? Therapy ? Which one? Most of them (if not all) are either pseudo-science gibberich when it is not plain mystical or "spiritual" bullocks, like the one that says you want to fuck your mother but you don't know it until you spend 7 years, 100$/week, on a couch telling whatever come to your mind to a guy which could as well be emulated by an 60's version of therapist bot.
I'm not sure the product I ordered was what was advertised. Years latters, I ordered it again (an other brand) and it had no the same effect if any at all.
I just want the option. I was a child. I never signed up in the business of dealing death and trauma unto others and myself. I would have loved to have had a doctor offer a hit of something to dull the imprinting of my worst day into my memories, emotions, and thought processes.
Am I supposed to live my life warning others about risks they don't care they are taking? I sometimes just want to be normal and forget what happened, and join the others in not thinking about people getting killed as part of my every day life.
The study mentions that there is no degradation in "voluntary memory", only in "intrusions", which they define as "Persistent, distressing involuntary memories".
This study specifically measured only the first week after watching a trauma film, so I'm sure you're right that the extension of this to actually treating PTSD will be a lot more complicated, but it doesn't sound like the treatment is expected to cause complete forgetting of the event.
I am entirely in agreement with you. That said, humanity has never been a defense against atrocities. If anything, it is the opposite. Humanity has for as long as I've learned history been gleefully and willingly committing atrocities in war. This is a rule, not an exception.
Our brains are complex entities, this treats it as a simple one. I think it will leave a hole in continuity and it may well be helpful, but residual awareness that something horrible has occurred will linger and it will be harder to resolve.
I guess what I am trying to say is that the body remembers, even if we manage to pluck out one simple way the body goes about remembering. This may trigger reactions to certain stimuli which will make less sense when the person cannot relate it to remembered trauma.
I think PTSD is something you have to work on, and get help for. I did eventually for mine but years and years of not having any treatment.
This is the McDonalds solution.
A terrifying branch of this is the military's interest in using it in war zones.
It fills my mind with images of soldiers getting "reset" on a frequent basis. What would they be like after a year or two of that? (I have also read ideas on preventative drugs to help a soldier not remember).
Humanity, whatever someone is able to retain in a war zone, is the last defense against atrocities. The remembrance of atrocities is the only way to bring them to light later.