What Are Involuntary Memories?

As a trauma therapist, I help clients to overcome unresolved trauma by using various trauma therapy modalities, so working with memories related to unresolved trauma is an essential part of my work. As a result, memories are very much on my mind most of the time.

What Are Involuntary Memories?

Whereas voluntary memories are deliberate efforts to recall the past, involuntary memories come unbidden.  

Involuntary Memories

Involuntary memories are often evoked by everyday occurrences and they're usually sudden and unexpected.

Involuntary memories are more intense than voluntary memories and they can have a major impact on you how you feel physically, emotionally and mentally.

These types of memories often have the following characteristics:

• They are related to cues in the environment. They can also involve a person's thoughts or emotions as well as their embodied sense of themselves from an earlier time.

• They come spontaneously and unbidden.

• They occur effortlessly at any time and any place.

• Some people experience involuntary memories while they're grieving such as when they're listening to music or smell a scent closely related to the deceased person, like a particular perfume.

• These type of memories can cause a chain reaction of thoughts, feelings and embodied sensations.

• They are more likely connected to specific events or people.

• They can provide a strong sense of yourself from a long time ago, including a sense of who you were when you were a child (or any other time) that you might have forgotten.

• They can transport you back to happy times in your life.

• They can transport you back to unhappy times in your life.

• Recurrent involuntary memories related to PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) where thoughts and emotions are intrusive and disturbing are a subcategory of involuntary memories (see my article: What Are Emotional Flashbacks Related to Trauma?).

Involuntary Memories in Proust's In Search of Lost Time

Involuntary memories are actually more common than most people think. 

I recently started rereading In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust.

This novel offers one of the most famous examples of an involuntary memory.

Involuntary Memories in In Search of Lost Time

As an adult, the novel's narrator remembers long-forgotten childhood memories when he tastes a madeleine cookie dipped in tea. He wasn't trying to evoke any memories. He was just enjoying his cookie and lime-flower tea and when these memories came back to him spontaneously.

From there, he experienced a cascade of childhood memories he had not thought about in a long time.

Aside from the famous madeleine cookie, the narrator had several other experiences with involuntary memories through ordinary everyday experiences, including stumbling on an uneven paving stone which transports him back to memories of Venice.

Experiencing Yourself the Way You Were at an Earlier Time in Your Life

When people experience an involuntary memory, they're not just recalling the facts about the memory. They're usually experiencing themselves the way they were at that time.

I had an experience with an involuntary memory about 20 years ago. 

It was an ordinary day and I was walking down the street in my neighborhood. Suddenly I detected a strong pleasant sweet scent, which brought up wistful feelings in me. 

I had to stop walking in order to figure out what was happening. 

Even though, at first, I couldn't identify the smell, that sweet scent transported me back to a time when I was five or six years old and I was sitting on the living room couch with my father in our old apartment.

It wasn't just that I was remembering sitting in the living room with my father--I was feeling how I felt back then when I was a child.

Involuntary Memories

Within seconds I realized that the sweet scent was the same as my father's cherry blend pipe tobacco and this scent was transporting me back to an early memory.

All of this happened within a matter of seconds and the experience was so fleeting that it was gone just as quickly as it came.

The narrator in In Search of Lost Time was also transported back to his childhood experiences of family visits to his Aunt Leonie's home in Combray, a small town just outside of Paris. 

He had an embodied experience of that time, including how he felt when, as a child, he was waiting for his mother's good night kiss.

Conclusion

Involuntary memories allow you to experience yourself as you were in the memory that is being evoked.

These memories can be evoked spontaneously by what you see, hear, smell, taste and feel (tactile sensations) and they can be transformational experiences.

Although you can attempt to bring back voluntary memories based on sensory experiences or through auto-suggestion, due to their involuntary nature, involuntary memories come unbidden.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adult and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

 

Movies: "45 Years": An Old Secret Haunts a Loving Long-Term Marriage

In the movie, 45 Years, an old secret, which is suddenly thrust upon them, haunts an older married couple, who were, seemingly, happily married for many years (for 45 years, hence, the name of the movie).  They face the emotional challenge, both alone and together, that could ruin their relationship.

An Old Secret Haunts a Loving Long-Term Marriage*

Until this old secret surfaces, the couple, Kate and Geoff Mercer (portrayed beautifully by Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtnay) seem to have an ordinary, serene life in their retirement in the beautiful English countryside.

Suddenly, their world is upended by a letter that Geoff receives about a deceased girlfriend, Katya, who died during a mountaineering accident when Katya and Geoff were very young, and whose body was just found intact in a glacier after all of these years.

Geoff's short-lived romantic relationship with Katya preceded his relationship with Kate, and he told Kate about it many years before.

But as he starts to ruminate about Katya and he sinks into a depressed state about this old loss, Kate begins to realize that he never revealed to her how important that past relationship was to him.  They never talked much about it, and the news about finding Katya's body is now threatening their marriage.

It haunts both Geoff and Kate in different ways.

For Geoff, the power of memory has overtaken him.  He can't sleep.  He starts smoking again.  He is preoccupied and lost in thought about his short, youthful romance with Katya.  He wants to immerse himself in pictures and mementos of her.  When he speaks about his old romance to Kate, he calls Katya "my Katya."

Initially, Kate comforts herself by telling herself that Geoff's youthful romance with Katya was very brief and a long time ago, especially compared to the many years that he and Kate have been married.  After all, Kate and Geoff have had a whole lifetime together, and it's been a good life.

She reasons to herself:  A brief romance from many years ago with a woman who is long dead can't compete with their 45 year marriage.

And, yet, it does in ways that gradually unfold in this movie.

Kate makes her own secret discoveries into Geoff's past romantic attachment to Katya.

As Kate becomes more aware of the effect of this old romance, she wonders how she can compete with the memory of an attractive, young lover who is deceased, but who is still very much alive in Geoff's memory.

Over the course of only one week, with the backdrop of Kate planning a big party for their 45th wedding anniversary, it gradually dawns on Kate that all of her assumptions about her husband and their marriage might be wrong:

• How does Geoff really feel about Kate and their marriage?
• How well does she understand Geoff's romantic history with Katya? 
• Has Geoff been secretly harboring unspoken feelings for Katya all along throughout their long marriage? 
• How can she be jealous of a ghost from the past?
• Would Geoff still have married her if Katya was still alive?
• Now that these secrets have come to light, what does all of this mean for their marriage?
• What is the truth about about their marriage?

Far from being melodramatic, 45 Years, is a the story of a very ordinary couple and the devastating effects of time and memory, which can change everything.  This is what makes it so haunting:  It could happen to anyone.

Without giving too much away, the expression on Kate's face, which is so dissonant from the all the revelry around her at the anniversary party, says it all.

Time seems to stand still for Kate and her expression tells us everything there is to know about how she feels and her dawning emotional awareness.

But there are no easy answers for this couple--just as there are no easy answers for any couple faced with this emotional dilemma.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about it, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.



*The couple in this picture are not from the movie.  The picture is from Shutterstock.

Letting Go of Unrealistic Expectations in an Unhappy Relationship

In his book, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves, psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz has a chapter called "On Mourning the Future" in which one of his clients, Jennifer is trapped in a lifeless relationship.

As he listens to Jennifer describe a long-term relationship with a man who can't commit to getting married or having children, he writes that he thinks about what he would want a therapist to tell his own daughter if his daughter was trapped in a relationship like this.

Stephen Grosz says he would want a therapist to tell his daughter that breaking up means not just giving up the present but also letting go of the hopes and dreams of the future with this person.

Letting Go of Unrealistic Expectations of in an Unhappy Relationship

While this might seem obvious, many people who are caught in lifeless relationships maintain an unrealistic sense of hope that there will be a future at some point that will include all the things they're not getting now in their relationship.

These hopes and dreams of the future can be so powerful that a person in an unhappy relationship can remain focused on these future fantasies to the exclusion of what's actually happening in the here and now.

Meanwhile, time keeps passing, and this person remains stuck and unhappy, relying on fantasies to get through the present.

The Past is Alive in the Present and the Future is Alive in the Present
As Stephen Grosz says in his book, the past is alive in the present and the future is alive in the present.

Let's look at an example of this phenomenon in the following case, which is a composite of many different psychotherapy cases with all identifying information changed to protect confidentiality:

Susan:
When Susan came to see me in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC, she was in her  mid-30s and she was in a 10 year relationship with her boyfriend, Mike.

Susan said she loved Mike very much, and she knew that Mike loved her.  She wanted to get married and have children, but Mike kept saying that he wasn't ready.

Susan told me that every time she raised the subject of marriage during the last several years, Mike kept putting it off because of whatever stressful situation was going on in his life at the time.

There was the time that he was having problems with his boss.  After that, there was time he was starting his own business.  And, after that, his mother began having health concerns and he was too overwhelmed by this to talk about getting married and having children.

Susan tried to be compassionate and understanding, but she was concerned that Mike might never be ready to commit to marriage and children.

Whenever she tried to talk to him to tell him that she was concerned that if she waited much longer, she might not be able to have children, he became annoyed with her and told her she was selfish to overwhelm him when she knew he was already overwhelmed.

As Susan talked about this dynamic in her relationship, I could tell that she already knew that Mike would never make this commitment, but she wasn't ready to let go of the relationship or her fantasies of her future with him.

She was very emotionally invested in her fantasies of the future with Mike.  She imagined what her wedding would be like.  She thought about having children with Mike and buying a house together in the suburbs.


The problem was that these thoughts remained nothing more than fantasies in Susan's mind.  Thinking about them helped her during the times when Mike brushed off her concerns that time was passing and her biological clock was ticking.

When I asked Susan how she thought she would feel if, somehow, she knew for sure now that Mike would never be ready to make a commitment to getting married and having children, she thought about if for a long time and then she became tearful.

Over the next couple of months, Susan began to acknowledge to herself that she really knew that Mike was never going to be ready to make a commitment and she had been kidding herself all this time.

Knowing that someone you love will never make the commitment that you want and actually doing something about it are two very different things.  But Susan was at a point where she was no longer in denial.

She talked about her sadness about letting go of Mike and letting go of her dreams about a future with him.  As Stephen Grosz might say, she was in the process of mourning her future dreams with Mike.

It took a lot of courage and the willingness to go through the emotional pain of a breakup with Mike for Susan to leave her relationship.  It also took a sense of hope that there could be a future with someone else.

Even after she broke up with Mike, Susan was plagued with doubts about whether she made a mistake.  She feared being alone for the rest of her life and never meeting anyone else that she would love as much and who would be willing to make a commitment.

She thought: Would it have been better to stay with Mike, who loved her and whom she loved so much, than to wonder if she would ever be in a loving relationship again?

Fortunately, several months later, Susan began a new relationship with another man who was able to make the kinds of commitments that she wanted.  Eventually, they got married and, since her doctor advised her that if she wanted to have children, she shouldn't wait much longer, she got pregnant soon after that.  And both she and her husband were happy.

Fear of Letting Go of Unrealistic Fantasies of a Happy Future When You're in an Unhappy Relationship
Not everyone is as fortunate as Susan. Many people remain in unhappy long-term relationships as time passes and their fantasies about the future get dimmer and dimmer.


Many of these same people really know deep down that their fantasies about the future are just that--fantasies that will never materialize with the person that they're with.  But denial can be very powerful, and letting go is difficult.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're stuck in a lifeless relationship where you really know that your partner or spouse isn't going to change, it's important to allow yourself to realize that time is passing.

You owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed mental health professional who has experience helping clients with this issue.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many psychotherapy clients to have more fulfilling lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also see my articles:  
Your Relationship: Should You Stay or Go?

Overcoming the Fear of Falling In Love and Getting Hurt Again

The Benefits of Writing Down the Milestones of Your Life

Often, when people feel stuck with where they are in their lives, their disappointment has a way of coloring their perspective about all of their life--not just their current state.  Usually, this is a distorted view based on how they're feeling about themselves now.  

The Benefits of Writing Down the Milestones of Your Life

When I'm working with a psychotherapy client whose self perception is distorted in this way, I often recommend that she write down the milestones of her life to help her gain a better perspective.

What Are Milestones in Your Life?
Milestones are memorable markers in a lifetime.  Milestones can be memorable events or accomplishments.  Whether they're happy or sad occasions, they represent important events in your life.

Why Write Down the Milestones in Your Life?
Milestones usually serve to give you a perspective on how your life has changed over time.  So, if you're struggling at the moment because you're feeling stuck and you feel that nothing ever changes in your life, writing down and reviewing the milestones in your life, can give you a different perspective.

Whether you view the important milestones in your life as being positive or negative or some combination of the two, you can see how your life has changed over time.

You can also gain a perspective that your life will continue to change over time.  This can be a useful perspective if you're currently feeling stuck.

Usually, I recommend that clients write down the milestones on a timeline starting with the earliest memories on the left and moving forward to the right on the timeline.

Which Events Should You Choose to Write About?
It's completely up to you which events you choose.  There's no wrong way to do this exercise.  Even two people who seem to have similar lives, at least from an external perspective, will usually have very different feelings about what's important to each of them, so they'll focus on different milestones.

One of them might include milestones about memorable birthdays, anniversaries, and the first time she fell in love. And the other might include certain accomplishments, like graduating college, getting an article published in a magazine and the death of a parent.

The Milestones That Seem Important to You Often Change Over Time
What's interesting to see, if you do this exercise at various times in your life, is that some of the milestones that you choose will be different at various stages of your life.

For one thing, there are new milestones as time goes on.

But, even more interesting is that, often, when you look at the same events at different points in your life, different events will seem more important at any given time.

Time as a Factor in Choosing Milestones
This makes sense when we realize that what's important to us changes over time, so what stands out at any given time as a milestone is likely to change with the passage of time.

Time as a Factor in Choosing Milestones 

That's why writing down milestones at various points in your life can be such an eye opener in terms of how you see yourself and your life.

Milestones to Accomplish Your Long-Term Goals
Writing down milestones can be done retrospectively or as a way to set long-term goals for the future.  So, if you have a particular long-term goal that you would like to accomplish, you can write down the milestones that you would need to accomplish in order to achieve your goal.

Feeling More Empowered in Your Life

Whether you use milestones retrospectively or to set goals for the future, writing them down and looking at them over time can help you, especially when you feel stuck in your life, to realize that life is always changing over time.

And when you recognize that life changes over time, you can also feel empowered to take steps to make the changes you would like to see in your life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Clinical Hypnosis and Perception of Time

There was an article in the New York Times' Science section called, "Where Did the Time Go? Do Not Ask The Brain" by Benedict Carey that discussed our perception of time (http://www/nytimes.com/2010/01/05/health/05mind.html). 

Clinical Hypnosis and Perception of Time

The article reminded me that our perception of time is also different when we experience clinical hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy.

As a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist in NYC, clients, who experience clinical hypnosis in my private practice, will often tell me that they experience time differently in hypnosis.

Even though clinical hypnosis clients maintain a dual awareness (meaning that they are in a relaxed state and they are aware of everything going on in the here-and-now around them as well as what they are experiencing in the hypnotic state), they often experience a certain timelessness in hypnosis.

This is essentially because clinical hypnosis helps to access the unconscious mind, and there is no time in the unconscious. The unconscious is timeless. Whether we're experiencing what happened 20 years ago or what happened yesterday, the unconscious doesn't make a distinction.

The other phenomenon that occurs in clinical hypnosis is that, whereas it might take weeks, months or even years to resolve certain problems (phobias, smoking cessation, anxiety, depression, and other problems) in regular talk therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), very often, issues are resolved in 1-3 sessions in clinical hypnosis, depending upon the complexity of the issue.

This is is because, through clinical hypnosis, our unconscious minds can access the answers to our problems. We often don't know exactly how it happens, but it's not unusual, after a clinical hypnosis session, for the answers to our problem to come to us, seemingly, out of the blue. Of course, it's not really out of the blue or magical at all. It's the power of our own unconscious mind to access the solution through clinical hypnosis.

Getting Help in Therapy
Remember, when considering clinical hypnosis, there is a big difference between a lay "hypnotist" and a hypnotherapist with regard to training, skills, clinical expertise, and licensure. 

Always choose a licensed mental health professional who has advanced training in clinical hypnosis.

About Me

I am a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist in NYC. I have helped many clients overcome problems through clinical hypnosis.

To find out more about me, visit my web site: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.