"Big chunks of blank memory": complex trauma and dissociative body memory.

Survivors of complex trauma often experience memory blanks that are disturbingly felt even though they cannot recall the missing events. Drawing on survivor testimonies and phenomenological methods, the author argues that these gaps are accompanied by a non-conceptual body memory that lacks propositional content and remains uncontextualized. This dissociative body memory has two features: habitual dissociation and protentive salience. The perceived gap is actually a partial gap involving pre-reflective remembering not recognized as such. Dissociative body memory prevents narrative integration, sustaining a sense of foreboding about the past. Clinically, what survivors experience as forgotten must not be disregarded; theoretically, this may be a characteristic of complex PTSD.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Research into traumatic memory has focused heavily upon re-experiencing symptoms (e.g. flashbacks). Features predominantly associated with complex trauma, such as gaps in the recollection of traumatic events, remain comparatively underexplored. In this article, I draw on the testimonies of survivors of complex trauma who participated in a survey informed by Phenomenologically Grounded Qualitative Research (Køster and Fernandez in Phenomenol Cogn Sci 22:149, 2023). I provide a phenomenological account of how survivors often experience memory blanks as inchoately disturbing, despite being unable to recount 'missing' events. Although challenging and equivocal, the notion of body memory offers one way of articulating this phenomenon. Specifically, I suggest that the troubling feelings accompanying perceived gaps in recollection arise alongside a form of non-conceptual body memory, which, lacking in propositional content, fails to be meaningfully contextualised. Drawing on the literature on body memory, dissociation, and Husserl's (Collected works. Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1991 [1893-1917]) internal time consciousness, I distinguish this as dissociative body memory and describe two central, non-exhaustive, features: (1) habitual dissociation, and (2) protentive salience. What is taken to be a gap in traumatic memory is in fact only a partial gap, involving a kind of pre-reflective remembering that is not recognised as such. Dissociative body memory additionally prevents the narrative integration required for minimising these perceived gaps, leading to an ongoing sense of foreboding concerning one's past. This has significant clinical implications, highlighting that what survivors experience as forgotten must not be disregarded. At the theoretical level, the phenomenon may be a hitherto unrecognised characteristic of complex posttraumatic stress disorder and related conditions.