Writer-psychologist friend Shaun alerted me to an interesting news story: Erasing the Pain of the Past: Scientists Are Developing Drugs That Could Eliminate Traumatic Events From Our Memories. A brief quote from the three-page article:
Much about why painful memories come back to haunt soldiers and those who live through other traumatic experiences remains unknown. Scientists say that is because little is known about how the brain stores and recalls memories.
But in their early efforts to understand the way in which short-term memories become long-term memories, researchers have discovered that certain drugs can interrupt that process. Those same drugs, they believe, can also be applied not just in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event – like a mortar attack, rape or car accident – but years later, when an individual is still haunted by memories of event.
The hope is that a post-traumatic stress disorder patient can work with a psychiatrist and focus a traumatic event, take one of these drugs and then slowly forget that event. With that hope, however, comes a series of ethical concerns. What makes up our personalities – the essence of who we are as individuals – if not the collected memories of our experiences?
Multiple cans of worms opening up here. I found the timing interesting, as I’ve been wanting to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again; I commented on that movie some time ago. I certainly understand the strong desire to help a hurting individual deal with an awful event, but I do not see how erasure might accomplish that. Others won’t necessarily forget the incident; and it will almost certainly come up, again and again over the person’s life. And how can one learn and grow from that which has been banished? One can’t.
Lots more I could say, but no time today.
Pain makes us who we are
I am reminded of a line from Star Trek V where Kirk says
"I like my pain. I need my pain! Pain is something thats makes us who we are!"