[ChickenNoodleSoup]

Recently, I've had a flashback about something that has happened in my childhood. Before this flashback, I knew that something like what I saw might have happened from stories my parents told me. However, I didn't remember anything about it up until about a week ago.
I have had flashbacks before, but mostly to things that I knew about already in detail and could have remembered on my own. I just chose to not think about it.

Now, I know that memories are something rather complicated, and that people can have false memories of things that never actually happened. And for this specific thing, there's no way of me actually knowing whether it happened, nor could I somehow find out.

I am wondering whether in such a situation you guys would still talk about the content of the flashback? There are some things in my life which I think would be rather well explained if it actually did happen, so there might be some benefit. However, since I can't actually know whether the memory is correct, I also feel that it might be more fruitful to talk about things I actually know have happened. I do feel affected by the flashback to some degree, but not much more than by other flashbacks, so I'm just not sure I should talk about this one...

[maybeblue]

I don't think there is any harm in talking about it with your therapist, especially if you tell him/her that you don't know for sure if it actually happened or was a dream or for some other reason didn't "really" happen.

I think I would be most cautious about it if it involved someone in my life currently, and if the memory turned out to be true, or even if I believed it to be true it would affect that relationship.

[satsuma]

I have flashbacks and I do talk about them in therapy.
I think that it's worth talking about because:

- the experience of having a flashback can be distressing ime and so I find it helpful to talk about it with T
- the emotions that go with the flashback are certainly real.

I do get what you're saying about memories and the uncertainty that goes with them. I don't think that talking about flashbacks would make them more or less true, or in my experience it wouldn't pursuade you of something as a result of speaking about it.

I have heard of this thing about "false memories" but I'm sure that nowadays Ts would be aware of these things and would know how to take care not to "pursuade" a client about a particular memory or story.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

Originally Posted by satsuma

I have flashbacks and I do talk about them in therapy.
I think that it's worth talking about because:

- the experience of having a flashback can be distressing ime and so I find it helpful to talk about it with T
- the emotions that go with the flashback are certainly real.

I do get what you're saying about memories and the uncertainty that goes with them. I don't think that talking about flashbacks would make them more or less true, or in my experience it wouldn't pursuade you of something as a result of speaking about it.

I have heard of this thing about "false memories" but I'm sure that nowadays Ts would be aware of these things and would know how to take care not to "pursuade" a client about a particular memory or story.

I have talked about some of them before as well (actually I wrote a journal for some weeks and my T read everything, plus we discussed some of them in addition). I think the emotions that go with it are probably the thing that I'd like to discuss most, I haven't even thought about that!

I don't believe that my T would try to tell me anything is true or false, I just sometimes struggle to see what the benefit of talking about certain things would be (which I believe I found now, since I'd really like to talk about my emotions going with it).

[Middlemarcher]

Maybe you can start by talking about your hesitance in talking about memories/flashbacks you’re unsure of, and why you’re hesitant? I discussed that sort of thing a lot with my T before I decided that I was ok with talking about flashbacks that I felt I couldn’t be sure really happened. I tend to do a lot of “talking about talking about things” before I launch into new territory, and I think it has worked well for me. My T has always been patient with it.

But they are real to you.

[MobiusPsyche]

I'm in the same position as OP and I appreciate the responses here. For me, I've always been upfront with T about what is a memory and what is something else (partial flashback or body memory or whatever) but I still talk about them because they can really affect me and destabilize me.

[feralkittymom]

I found that certainty was not the most helpful barometer to use in trauma work. The objective reality of memories is inherently misleading: multiple people experiencing the same event together will usually have different memories of the event. Memories are a mix of perceptions colored by inner experience as much as by external experience--maybe more so. I think anything your mind produces is worthy of discussion, not in order to determine a degree of objective certitude, but to increase self-perception. There's always emotional truth to memories, regardless of the source. The only caution I think is to not treat any one memory as somehow more defining of your life or self or relationships than other memories.