Can we get better at forgetting?
For the longest time, forgetting was seen as a passive process of decay and the enemy of learning. But as it turns out, forgetting is a dynamic ability, crucial to memory retrieval, mental stability and maintaining one’s sense of identity.
That’s because remembering is a dynamic process. At a biochemical level, memories are not pulled from the shelf like stored videos but pieced together — reconstructed — by the brain.
“When we recall something, the act of recalling activates a biochemical process that can solidify and reorganize the memory that is stored,” said Andre Fenton, a neuroscientist at New York University.
This process can improve memory accuracy in the long term. But activating a memory also makes it temporarily fragile and vulnerable to change. This is where intentional forgetting comes in. It’s less about erasing than editing: incrementally revising, refocusing and potentially dimming the central incident of the memory.
To intentionally forget is to remember differently, on purpose. Importantly, for scientists and therapists, intentional forgetting also may be an ability that can be practiced and deliberately strengthened.
A concentrated effort to forget an unwanted memory does not help dim it, nor does mentally looking the other way. Rather, there seems to be a sweet spot — neither too little mental attention, nor too much — that allows a memory to come to mind and then fade, at least partially, of its own accord. You have to remember, just a little, to forget.
The idea that memories have to be strengthened before they can be weakened is surprising in that it’s not how we presume memory works.
The linear model of forgetting contends that less mental attention means less remembering. This model appears to hold for some kinds of memories; deliberate ignoring is central to the forgetting strategy known as suppression.
Other strategies are not strictly linear, in that they require some engagement with the memory. One is substitution: deliberately linking an unwanted memory to other thoughts, which help alter the unwanted content when it is later retrieved. For instance, a humiliating memory could be diminished by focusing less on the feeling of shame and more on the friends who provided subsequent support.
Scientists have not yet worked out which strategies are best suited to particular kinds of unwanted memories. But any clearer understanding would be a gift to therapists working with people with disabling memories of trauma, shame or neglect. Such memories don’t fade; they remain, either as vivid recollections or as subconscious or partially conscious sources of dread and despair.
Forgetting is protective, too.
Carey, B. (2019, March 22). Can we get better at forgetting? The New York Times. www.nytimes.com
