Kris Van den Broeck

Trauma and autobiographical memory specificity in depressed inpatients

Research on autobiographical memory has shown that clinical depression is associated with a difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories in response to cue words. This study examined the relation between lack of autobiographical memory specificity and self-reported trauma in a group of depressed adults (N = 23). In addition to the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986) participants completed a number of questionnaires assessing the presence of traumatic experiences in the past, level of depression and neuroticism. The number of specific responses was not related to depression severity, but was significantly associated with the presence and severity of reported physical abuse. Participants who had been victim of physical abuse were less specific than participants who had not been confronted with such physical adversities. The results are discussed in the context of a functional hypothesis about the developmental relations between memory specificity, trauma and depression.

Memory specificity in borderline personality disorder: Associations with depression and self-discrepancy

Reduced memory specificity (RMS) is a robust finding in (previously) depressed patients and patients suffering from posttraumatic symptoms. It has been associated with depression severity, rumination, and--more recently--with cue content (e.g., cues referring to highly discrepant self-guides are assumed to hinder specific memory retrieval more likely than cues that match ones self-concept). In this study we have investigated the presence of these relationships in 34 patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). All participants completed the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ), the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), and the Ruminative Response Scale (RRS). First, it was observed that both rumination and depression severity were associated with RMS. However, when confounding between rumination and depression severity was considered using partial correlations, only depression severity was found to be significantly associated with RMS. Second, in the currently depressed BPD patients (n = 11), memory specificity was significantly related to cue content suggesting that, at least for depressed BPD patients RMS is related to the extent to which cues activate highly discrepant personal domains. Although our data suggest that depression severity as well as current depression (in interaction with cue content) play an important role in the occurrence of RMS in BPD, we will discuss that these findings could be moderated by posttraumatic stress and/or executive functioning.

Overgeneral autobiographical memory predicts higher prospective levels of depressive symptoms and intrusions in borderline patients

ABSTRACT Overgeneral memory (OGM), the tendency to retrieve categories of events from autobiographical memory instead of single events, is found to be a reliable predictor for future mood disturbances and post-traumatic symptom severity. Patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often report co-morbid episodes of major depressive disorder (MDD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore, we investigated whether OGM would predict depression severity and (post-traumatic) stress symptoms in BPD patients. At admission (N = 54) and at six-month follow-up (N ≥ 31), BPD patients completed the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders, the Assessment of DSM-IV Personality Disorders, the Autobiographical Memory Test, the Beck Depression Inventory—2nd edition (BDI-II), and the Impact of Event Scale. OGM at baseline predicted (a) higher levels of depressive symptoms at follow-up and (b) more intrusions related to a stressful event over and above baseline levels of borderline symptoms, depressive symptoms, and intrusions, respectively. No association was found between memory specificity and event-related avoidance at follow-up. Despite previous findings suggesting that OGM in BPD is less robust than in MDD and PTSD, our results suggest that memory specificity in BPD patients may have some relevance for the course of depressive and stress symptomatology in BPD.

Autobiographical Memory Specificity and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury in Borderline Personality Disorder

It has been suggested that patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) use a variety of maladaptive affect-regulation strategies, including non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Another, cognitive manner considered to regulate negative affect, is overgeneral memory (OGM). OGM refers to the tendency to recall categories of events, rather than specific episodes. OGM is frequently observed in depressed and traumatised patients. Contrary to the expectations, patients with BPD only inconsistently show OGM. This study investigated how NSSI and OGM relate to each other in BPD patients. Based on earlier findings (Startup et al., 2001), we hypothesized that NSSI and OGM would be inversely related. Fifty three BPD patients completed the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Disorders, the Autobiographical Memory Test to assess OGM, and the Self-Injury Questionnaire – Treatment Related (SIQ-TR) to assess NSSI. We found no significant differences in OGM between patients with and without NSSI. However, we found that participants who used more NSSI methods showed less OGM, but this association disappeared when we controlled for age. We propose a balance-model of affect-regulation as one possible explanation for the negative relationship between these two affect-regulation strategies.

The relationship between borderline symptoms and vantage perspective during autobiographical memory retrieval in a community sample

BackgroundRecent findings show that (previously) depressed and traumatised patients, compared to controls, make more frequently use of an observer perspective (as set against a field perspective) when retrieving memories. Because patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) often report mood disturbances and past traumatic experiences, it would be plausible to expect that these patients too would retrieve higher proportions of observer memories. Therefore, and given the phenotypical variance of BPD, we examined whether vantage perspective during recall is associated with one or more BPD symptom clusters.MethodsA community sample consisting of 148 volunteers (66 males) completed the Autobiographical Memory Test, the Borderline Syndrome Index, and the Depression Scale of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales.ResultsInterpersonal and anxious-neurotic BPD features were associated with higher proportions of observer memories.ConclusionsThe proportion of observer memories was not associated with the total number of BPD symptoms. Nevertheless, our data suggest the existence of substantial connections between perspective taking during recall on the one hand and interpersonal difficulties and anxious-neurotic symptoms on the other hand, especially following cues that tap into domains that are highly discrepant towards one’s actual self-concept.