How are Trauma and Memory Connected? And What Can We Do About It?
Have you ever wondered how it is that some painful experiences vanish completely from memory, while others stay vivid for years? Well, trauma deeply affects the way that the brain processes, stores, recalls, and integrates memory. It basically fragments the experience, and the brain stores it as such, often bringing it up in the scrambled way it was stored.
In this blog post, we will dive into the connection between trauma and memory, first explaining the types of memory and how trauma disrupts them, slowly moving toward how EMDR theory explains memory storing and how this therapeutic modality approaches that reality. In the end, we will also give some directions and practical ways to support memory integration. Read on: this blog is suitable for everyone, whether or not they have experienced a traumatic event.
Understanding Implicit vs. Explicit Memory
When we think of “memory,” most people imagine a mental “cabinet” filled with stories, facts, and images we can consciously recall. Memories have a place, a time, an event, and people included. But in reality, memory lives in two interconnected systems: explicit memory and implicit memory. Understanding how these systems work and how trauma disrupts them helps understand both the symptoms of trauma and the path to healing.
Explicit memory is what we usually think of when we think about memory and remembering. It includes the conscious recollection of events, facts, and timelines that we can explain and verbalize. This type of memory is organized and stored by the hippocampus, which is in charge of putting things into context. With explicit memories, we can recall what happened, when, and to whom. When it works as it should, explicit memories come to us coherently, and we can put things into the past, present, and future.
Implicit memory, on the other hand, is not that much connected to awareness. This type of memory holds emotional, sensory, and bodily information, i.e., things we felt and experienced, not just how they objectively seemed. Implicit memories are stored in the amygdala, which is in charge of emotions and bodily responses. The memories stored here are called “felt sense” memories. They include sensations, startle reactions, or emotional states rather than words or images.
In everyday life, these two systems function and cooperate seamlessly, so we can remember an upsetting event and feel the appropriate emotion, essentially getting a balance of both story and feeling. When trauma occurs, that integration breaks down. The hippocampus gets overwhelmed by stress hormones and shuts down. The amygdala goes into overdrive and floods with fear and alarm. Explicit memory lacks, implicit memory is oversaturated. So, the traumatic experience is stored fragmented, and sensations, smells, images, emotions, and context get all mixed up, without the full story that combines them coherently. If you want to learn more about the numerous ways trauma affects the mind, you can head over to our blog on that topic.
That’s why someone might feel panic at a particular sound, smell, or place, even if they can’t consciously remember why. The body remembers what the mind has tried to forget. This is the essence of what psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk (2014) famously summarized as “the body keeps the score.”
In therapy, the goal isn’t to force memory recall, but to help the brain re-integrate what’s been split apart during the traumatic experience. Using a set of tools and interventions, therapy aims to link the implicit “felt sense” with the explicit narrative so the experience can finally be filed in the past, where it belongs.
Dissociation and the Fragmentation of Memory
The body has created defense mechanisms for trauma. One of them is dissociation, the brain’s effort to protect the consciousness from “too much pain.” In the moment of trauma, the amygdala activates the body’s fight, flight, or freeze responses. If there isn’t a possibility to engage in any of them, the brain “disengages” from the experience to protect itself from unbearable pain, be it physical or mental. This can create a split between what is happening physically and what is processed mentally.
Over time, those disconnected experiences are stored in the brain as fragmented memories. The implicit forms (emotions, sensations, or body states), are stored as they happened, but they lack the explicit narrative or the time context. These disconnected memories remain “stuck” in the body, easily triggered by reminders (triggers) that resemble the original trauma. So, someone may feel anxiety, shame, or pain seemingly “out of nowhere” when, in fact, their body is just reactivating and reexperiencing a fragment of a traumatic memory.
Dissociation has a range. It may present itself as a mild “spacing out” or emotional numbness, or may go to the extremes of depersonalization (feeling detached from one’s body) or derealization (feeling like the world isn’t real). These responses once helped a person survive, but now make it difficult to stay present, form close relationships, or trust one’s own emotions.
Therapy doesn’t eliminate dissociation abruptly, but helps clients gradually build enough safety and regulation to stay present when triggered. When the mind and body can stay connected during emotional processing, those fragments can begin to integrate. Sensations, images, and emotions can finally find their place in the larger story of the self.
EMDR and the AIP Model
The theoretical base behind EMDR is the AIP model, developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro. The Adaptive Information Processing model, AIP, for short, explains why trauma symptoms continue to be present long after the event has passed. The core of the AIP model is simple: the brain is wired to heal if the experiences are processed in a healthy way. They get stored as memories in the brain that are resolved and in the past.
But what we previously explained about what happens during traumatic experiences disrupts this natural brain tendency. When the nervous system gets overwhelmed, it is unable to process the experience, and it stays stuck in the nervous system, maintaining its original emotional and sensory intensity.
This means that the traumatic memory is not stored just as a story, but as bodily sensations like numbness or shaking, as emotions like fear, anger, or shame, and as beliefs rooted in what the trauma brought, e.g,. I’m not safe. So even when the danger is long gone, the memory continues to feel like it’s happening now. Anything that resembles the original experience (a tone of voice, a smell, a look) can trigger the same overwhelming reaction.
EMDR was created with the aim of “unfreezing” those memories and helping the brain process them in a healthy way, so they can finally be stored as past experiences. When this occurs, the emotional charge regarding the experience lowers, and the memory becomes clearer and more organized. From this process, a new understanding and perception naturally emerge, without forcing positive thinking.
The shift that happens isn’t only psychological; it’s physiological. The brain literally reorganizes how the memory is stored. Over time, the memory loses power, and it doesn’t overwhelm the organism. The story becomes something that happened in the past and is not happening still. At the same time, integrating those experiences supports emotional regulation, reduces reactivity, and restores a sense of internal safety.
How EMDR Works with Implicit and Explicit Memories
There is a gap that EMDR helps clients bridge. As traumatic experiences are often stored in implicit memory, healing needs more than talking. Many clients understand their trauma logically, yet still feel unsafe somatically or emotionally. EMDR works by engaging both the explicit and the implicit memory, guiding clients to notice physical sensations, emotions, images, or sounds and beliefs about themselves.
At the same time, bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or alternating tones) supports the brain in creating new neural connections. This allows explicit understanding and implicit experience to come back into alignment. During a session, the client recalls a memory, an image, or a moment. Then, looks for the implicit material that comes up (sensations, emotions, and beliefs). During bilateral stimulation, the brain starts processing the memory, making it more flexible and less overwhelming. When this process occurs, clients usually spontaneously come to new perspectives about what happened, and they integrate a more realistic perspective and beliefs. If you want to gain a more in-depth understanding of how EMDR works, you can familiarize yourself with the steps here.
This process is different than the one in talk therapy, where insight alone may not touch the body’s stored fear response. EMDR allows the body and mind to update together. Over time, both the story and the felt experience of the memory shift. So, emotional intensity lowers, the body doesn’t react as the trauma is still present, and self-beliefs shift from shame and fear toward compassion and self-worth.
In other words, the memory becomes truly stored in the past, where it belongs.
Practical Ways to Support Memory Integration
There are a few practical ways to support memory integration after therapy sessions. These exercises can help the nervous system learn to feel safe, stay connected in the present, and self-regulate itself.
Grounding and mindfulness
Simple sensory anchors (feeling your feet on the ground, noticing breath, and touching a textured object)
Slow, deep and rhythmic breathing
Journaling and writing
Creative expression like drawing, movement, or sound-making
Self-compassion and understanding
Self-gentlness when triggered
These practices are not a replacement for therapy. They just support the work outside of sessions. EMDR and trauma-informed somatic therapies provide a structured, safe environment where the deeper reprocessing happens.
Trauma healing in Nashville
Trauma affects how memories are stored. It fragments them, buries them deep down, or keeps them alive and vivid in consciousness. The right support and the help of EMDR’s reprocessing can help those memories be reintegrated and stored in a way that won’t bring overwhelm.
Healing is not about erasing the past, but about processing it and leaving it where it belongs. EMDR can help you bring back your sense of safety, capacity for self-regulation, and feel connected and grounded in difficult times.
If you want to stop reliving the past and begin feeling safe in your own body, our trauma-informed EMDR therapists can help you through. Reach out to schedule a consultation, so you can begin your journey toward connection, calm, and clarity.
References
van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
Schauer, M., & Elbert, T. (2010). Dissociation following traumatic stress: Etiology and treatment. Journal of Psychology.
Solomon, R. M., & Shapiro, F. (2008). EMDR and the Adaptive Information Processing Model: Potential Mechanisms of Change. Journal of EMDR Practice and Research