Can playing Tetris help prevent the mind from reliving past trauma?
In short: A flashback is more than just a bad memory; it is a powerful, involuntary re-experiencing of the past that feels as if it is happening in real time. While traditionally difficult to treat, new research into memory malleability suggests that simple cognitive tasks might disrupt these intrusive images.
A flashback is a psychological phenomenon where an individual suddenly and involuntarily re-experiences a past event with such intensity that they may struggle to recognize it as a memory. While the term is now most frequently associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), it was originally introduced in the context of psychedelic research. In psychedelic studies, 'flashback' acts as an umbrella term for various post-acute experiences, whereas in PTSD, it specifically refers to vivid, intrusive memories with a 'here-and pre-now' quality.
Psychologists debate the underlying mechanism of these occurrences through two primary lenses. The 'special mechanism' view suggests that traumatic events trigger a unique memory process, where fragmented encoding makes conscious retrieval difficult but leaves the memory vulnerable to external triggers. Conversely, the 'basic mechanism' view posits that traumatic memories follow the same rules as everyday memories, but are encoded with such enhanced cohesion that they become more readily available for both voluntary and involuntary recall.
Recent proof-of-concept work has explored using 'imagery interference' to target these symptoms. In a case study of a 15-year-old patient named Mia, clinicians used the game Tetris as part of a protocol involving working memory taxation. The results were striking: for the specific flashback targeted, the vividness and distress dropped from 40% to 15% within a single session, and distress eventually fell to 10% one month later. Furthermore, the frequency of that specific flashback dropped from once per week to zero. This approach suggests that precisely targeting intrusive imagery with simple cognitive tasks could serve as a low-intensity intervention for adolescents.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: A Brief Technique to Reduce Flashbacks of Sexual Trauma in an Adolescent: Proof-of-Concept Case Study Using Imagery Interference.
- Also: Flashback (psychology)
- Also: Flashbacks Through Time: Historical Development and Current Use of the Term "Flashback" in Psychedelic and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Research.
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