Autobiographical memory in acute stress disorder.

Harvey, Allison G., Bryant, Richard A., Dang, Suzanne T.·1998·Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology

Abstract

Survivors of motor vehicle accidents with acute stress disorder (ASD) or with no ASD participated in a study on autobiographical memory within a week of their trauma. In Experiment 1, participants were provided cue words to elicit autobiographical memories of both an unconstrained time period and their trauma. Participants with ASD reported fewer specific memories to positive cue words than did non-ASD participants, even when the influence of depression was controlled. In Experiment 2, the same participants were assessed for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 6 months posttrauma. Poor recall of specific memories of the trauma in Experiment 1 accounted for 25% of the variance of PTSD severity. Accessibility of trauma memories in the acute posttrauma phase may have significant implications for longer term adjustment.

Cites (3)

  1. Autobiographical memory in suicide attempters.
    Williams, J. Mark, Broadbent, Keith · 1986 · Journal of Abnormal Psychology
  2. Emotional Dissociation in Response to Trauma: An Information-Processing Approach
    Foa, Edna B., Hearst-Ikeda, Diana · 1996 · Handbook of Dissociation
  3. Autobiographical memory across personalities in dissociative identity disorder: a case report
    Bryant, Richard A. · 1995 · Journal of Abnormal Psychology

Show all 3 references

Cited by (17)

  1. Autobiographical memory specificity and emotional disorder.
    Williams, J. Mark G., Barnhofer, Thorsten, Crane, Catherine, Herman, Dirk, Raes, Filip, Watkins, Ed, Dalgleish, Tim · 2007 · Psychological Bulletin
  2. A meta-analysis of structural brain abnormalities in PTSD
    KARL, A, SCHAEFER, M, MALTA, L, DORFEL, D, ROHLEDER, N, WERNER, A · 2006 · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
  3. Chronic pain and posttraumatic stress disorder: Mutual maintenance?
    Sharp, Timothy J, Harvey, Allison G · 2001 · Clinical Psychology Review
  4. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduces overgeneral autobiographical memory in formerly depressed patients
    Williams, J. Mark G., Teasdale, John D., Segal, Zindel V., Soulsby, Judith · 2000 · Journal of Abnormal Psychology
  5. Self-defining memories, scripts, and the life story: Narrative identity in personality and psychotherapy
    Singer, Jefferson A., Blagov, Pavel, Berry, Meredith, Oost, Kathryn M. · 2013 · Journal of Personality

See all 237

How to cite

Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.

This page
CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Autobiographical memory in acute stress disorder. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0022-006x.66.3.500
The paper
Harvey, A. G., Bryant, R. A., & Dang, S. T. (1998). Autobiographical memory in acute stress disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-006x.66.3.500

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.