Catatime amnesia

Catathymic amnesia (a. catathymica; from the Greek katathymeo - to lose heart, to become despondent) is a type of psychogenic amnesia in which there is selective memory loss for events that took place immediately before the traumatic situation.

Catathymic amnesia occurs as a defensive reaction of the psyche in response to severe stress, mental trauma or other difficult experience. At the same time, it is precisely those memories and events that immediately preceded the traumatic situation that are forgotten. Thus, catathymic amnesia allows a person to avoid painful memories by “displacing” them from consciousness.

A feature of catathymic amnesia is its reversibility and temporary nature. As a rule, when the root cause of the trauma is eliminated, the memories gradually return.

Catathymic amnesia is often confused with retrograde amnesia, but there are significant differences between the two. With retrograde amnesia, memories that immediately preceded the moment of receiving psychological trauma or physical trauma to the brain are lost. With catathymic amnesia, the events immediately preceding the injury are forgotten.

Thus, catathymic amnesia is a reversible type of psychogenic amnesia aimed at suppressing painful memories of traumatic events.

Catathymic amnesia.

Catathymic amnesia or catathymic unconsciousness. This is a memory disorder in which a person has trouble remembering current events. Long-term memory and reproduction of recent events are especially affected. This disorder became known thanks to Professor Beck - he identified it as a separate category in the international classification of mental illnesses. There are catathymic unconsciousness of varying degrees of severity. Research has shown that often people with this disorder also suffer from other memory disorders such as cryptolabiodisia. It is more often observed in men over 60. It usually appears in spring and autumn and rarely affects both hemispheres of the brain at once. Appears in episodes of several minutes after a stressful situation such as a threat to life or before an impending danger. Hypoglycemia has a particularly bad effect on the course of the disease. Catathymic amnesia can be recognized by symptoms such as auditory deceptions, for example, a person hears