Gone but not forgotten: declarative and nondeclarative memory processes and their contributions to resilience.
Cognitive psychology research challenges traditional psychoanalytic understanding of memory. The memory of facts and events is now referred to as declarative memory. Nondeclarative memory systems, in contrast, process patterns of perception, emotion, and action without representing the past in terms of any consciously accessible content. The author examines the contributions of declarative and nondeclarative memory processes to resilience. Declarative memories can promote resilience through their capacity to evoke soothing emotional responses. Nondeclarative memory processes can foster resilience through underlying the capacity to elicit and maintain supportive relationships. The concept of nondeclarative memory has potential to inform the understanding of essential psychoanalytic phenomena, including transference, countertransference, and enactment.
Davis
J T
JT
Judge Baker Children's Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. james_davis@hms.harvard.edu
D000339:Affect; D000368:Aged; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D006184:Habits; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D011582:Psychological Theory; D011597:Psychomotor Performance