Memory is one of the most important cognitive processes for human beings. It is a human function that allows us to store information about the world around us, about events that we have experienced, put into practice skills that we have acquired or recognize places or situations that we have already faced before.
Remembering does not mean remembering in detail what we keep in our memory. Although our memories are not absolutely reliable images and files of our past, memory may present some alteration. One of the most curious is ecmnesia, which we deal with in the following Psychology-Online article. Continue reading to learn more about ecmnesia: what it is, causes, symptoms and treatment.
Although there seems to be quite a consensus regarding the meaning of ecmnesia, the truth is that its classification is controversial. On the one hand, the definition of the University of Navarra Clinic defines ecmnesia as a memory disorder in which the patient presents amnesia for recent events but it is capable of remembering, especially or uniquely, remote events.
On the other hand, Portellano, JA (2005), in his definition, also emphasizes the difficulty of remembering recent events while the memory is preserved. ability to remember remote events. He also adds a characteristic that is also quite common in the literature on ecmnesia and that is that these remote facts that the patient has no problem remembering are, in addition, lived as if they were present.
According to Portellano, JA (2005), past experiences are relived with great emotional burden, especially if they are situations or memories that carry a great stress and/or emotional burden, such as having been the victim of a disaster, an attack, etc
Mesa Gil, PJ and Rodríguez Testal, JF (2007) indicate that the temporal alteration in memory occurs in such a way that the patient considers they are living in the past to which they belong. That is why he conceives them as “present.”
Classification of ecmnesia
What seems to be quite clear is that it is an alteration of memory, although it could also be considered an alteration of consciousness. Below, we show you how ecmnesia has been classified based on the manuals consulted:
- According to Baños, RM, García-Palacios, A. and Botella, C. (2014), it has been considered a type of conspiracy that consists of the modification and/or creation of certain details in memories that are altered or the complete creation of memories.
- In the chapter by Mesa Gil, PJ and Rodríguez Testal, JF (2007), it is considered hypermnesia. Hypermnesia refers, according to the psychology dictionary of the American Psychiatric Association, to an increase in the capacity for retention and memory.
- According to Portellano, JA (2005), it is presented as a paramnesia of recognition, that is, in a memory distortion in which the patient confuses representations with authentic memories.
Types of ecmnesia
Ecmnestic delirium is an alteration related to those, which are perceptual pathologies, and to those, which are pathologies of thought. This relationship is based on the patient’s experience of the memory as present. In this sense, following Mesa Gil, PJ and Rodríguez Testal, JF (2007), we can distinguish between:
- mnestic delusional inspiration: does not start from any specific stimulus. For example, saying “I already knew he was going to be a God.”
- mnestic delusional perception: old perception of a stimulus updated with a new meaning.
Ecmnesia, although in some of the definitions we have offered it is defined as a disorder, the truth is that it does not constitute a mental disorder included in the diagnostic classifications nor is it associated with a series of symptoms.
Rather, ecmnesia may be a symptom that appears in some conditions such as neurological degenerations such as Alzheimer’s disease, and epileptic disorders or become authentic ecnetic delusions or hallucinations and senile involution.
However, we collect the symptoms of ecmnesia that the definitions above provide us with:
- There is an alteration in memory for recent events.
- There is no alteration in the memory of remote events.
- Not only is the memory of these remote events not altered, but the person also experiences these memories in a delusional and/or hallucinatory way as if they were happening in the present.