Trauma can have a profound impact on a person’s
memory . . .
. . . and traumatic memory can affect not only the brain, but also the body and nervous system as well.
But conceptualizing how trauma can impact the different types of memory can be challenging, so we created a free tool for practitioners to use with clients that breaks down this process.
Click the image to enlarge
Explicit Memory
A conscious, intentional recollection of factual information, previous experiences, and concepts.
- Semantic Memory – the memory of general knowledge and facts
- Episodic Memory – the autobiographical memory of an event or experience – including the who, what, and where.
Implicit Memory
A recollection acquired and used unconsciously that can affect thoughts and behaviors
- Procedural Memory – the memory of how to perform a common task without actively thinking about it.
- Emotional Memory – the memory of the emotions you felt during an experience.
- Semantic Memory
- Episodic Memory
- Procedural Memory
- Emotional Memory
You remember what a bicycle is.
You remember the sights and sounds and how scary it was to hit the rock and fall.
You can ride a bicycle automatically, without having to stop and recall how its done.
Next time you see your bike, you’re flooded with embarrassment because people saw you at an awkward and vulnerable moment.
Explicit Memory
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Semantic Memory
How Trauma Can Affect It Trauma can prevent information (like words, images, sounds, etc.) from different parts of the brain from combining to make a semantic memory.
Related Brain Area The temporal lobe and inferior parietal cortex collect information from different brain areas to create semantic memory.
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Episodic Memory
How Trauma Can Affect It Trauma can shutdown episodic memory and fragment the sequence of events
Related Brain Area The hippocampus is responsible for creating and recalling episodic memory.
Implicit Memory
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Procedural Memory
How Trauma Can Affect It Trauma can change patterns of procedural memory for example, a person might tense up and unconsciously alter their posture, which could lead to pain or even numbness.
Related Brain Area The striatum is associated with producing procedural memory and creating new habits.
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Emotional Memory
How Trauma Can Affect It after trauma, a person may get triggered and experience painful emotions, often without context.
Related Brain Area The amygdala plays a key role in supporting memory for emotionally charged experiences.
If you’d like to print a copy for yourself, just click here:
Part 1: Color or Print-friendly
Part 2: Color or Print-friendly
Part 3: Color or Print-friendly
(Please be sure to include the copyright information. We put a lot of work into creating these resources for you. Thanks!)
If you’d like to learn more about how to work with traumatic memories, have a look at this short course featuring Bessel van der Kolk, MD, Peter Levine, PhD, Pat Ogden, PhD, Ruth Lanius, PhD, Joan Borysenko, PhD, and more.
Now we’d like to hear from you. How could this help you in your work? Please leave a comment below.
This looks like an interesting course. I live in Australia so is it available here and if so, what is the cost in Australian $$$? Cheers, Abby
Extremely helpful infographic!! I think a lot about memory, as I have a trait called Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory, but it is not caused by emotional trauma or physical brain trauma. It is a glitch in the ability to recall episodic memory. Very few scientists are working on researching this trait, but the field is growing as it is fairly recently named and identified.
Thank you very much 👍
Are there restrictions on the use of the infographics?
Hi Sandy! You may use our infographics as long as NICABM is properly credited. To use the graphic on a lager scale (such as a class or training) please submit a formal request for permission to respond@nicabm.com.
As a professional in mental health, I am grateful for these resources. I can’t wait to show my patients what actually happens when there’s trauma.
Hi I am developing an app to assist people that suffer trauma
If I sign up for your training can I become credited please
These have been very helpful for clients to understand what happens to the brain and memory when trauma is involved.
Thank you!
Marie C.
Really enjoy these graphics! Very helpful in working with the material!
Thank you so much for all you do!
I am a therapist, and work with trauma. I see here lots of people are sharing their trauma experiences. I hear your pain, and strongly suggest sharing those stories with someone who can sit by you on your healing journey. We need to let people know about our pain – people who care, and have the skills and compassion to assist us on this journey of healing. Sharing that pain publicly will not make it go away. It might make it worse because of that re-living experience that happens sometimes when we talk about it. Take care and be gentle with yourselves.
I work in Adventure Therapy and this information is very useful in increasing my awareness of trauma. With our clients we are dancing with “stretching (challenge) and rest (reflection)” constantly. This information helps me to understand why individuals may need a different balance of this dance and how to better understand their behaviour. Anna Li, New Zealand/ Aotearoa.
♥️♥️♥️♥️
Thank you for such a wonderful resource to help people understand ‘why and how they are, who they are’ so they can begin a healing journey, to ‘move beyond limitations.’
Karelynne Randall – MBL Consultancy – ‘Moving Beyond Limitations.’
thank you!!! Very Helpful.
I use these with clients and in my personal life. Thank you. The Pictographs are so much
more helpful than just words.
I love this. Thank you.
Wonderful thank you! So many people are visual learners, and tools like this can really give a great framework for assisting clients to understand how and why they react after trauma.
Thank you so much. Very useful. That you share this material for free is very much appreciated by professionals in the cash-strapped Public Sector
Thank you so much! this will help a number of my client understand why they react to certain stimuli.
Much appreciated!
Thank you! These are very useful to show clients what is actually happening in the brain. Often talking about it, is not enough for understanding.
Thanks for sharing this Ruth et al. It’s really useful. GO raibh maith agat.
Thank you very much for sharing. I will use these prints with my clients to explain the limbic memory and to help them understand why Brainspotting helps to heal. I appreciate your newletter very much with all the given info concerning trauma
Thank you very much for producing and sharing. I DO use these infografics with my clients. They find them helpful; putting into simple context what they are experiencing, which in turn helps them to appreciate how they experience themselves now – which leads to greater understanding, compassion and self-regard and an improved capacity to regulate themselves.
Much appreciated!
Penny Firth-Eagland, R.P.
I am a facilitator with Atlas Assistance Dogs. We work with client/dog teams getting them ready for Public Access and refining the dog’s disability tasks. I am dog trainer. I am taking this free course to help me work with people with disabilities. I have shared your infographics, with credits, to help other facilitators. Thank you
Thank you. always appreciated.
Thank you, Ruth and NICABM Team!
I teach law makers and policy influencers about human trafficking. The courses and content you so generously provide has been a great help to me in my work. I appreciate you so much!
Sure hope you’ll let us know if there is any way to help you in your work. Of course, other than sharing on social platforms.
Thank you so much for this learning tool.
nice to have a overview on print
thanks a lot
H.Samson Netherlands
Thank you! This is super useful! It makes a great teaching tool that I will use for trainings with lawyers and court personel too — who are dealing with trauma survivors testifying in court.
Thank you so much for these graphics. They help me organize the information in my brain in a way that reading alone cannot. I will be better equipped to teach my clients about their brain in trauma with these!
Thank you! This puts a “visual” to what we are explaining to parents, teachers, and school administrators.
Thank you so much for the comprehensive layout, and for your generosity
in sending this to us.
A wonderful resource to help explain trauma and the brain to our clients. Thank you !!!
Many thanks for this clear, simply reproduced training info graphic .
It has helped me enormously with assessment of traumatized clients.
Thank you for sharing this clear helpful information that underpins or trauma memories.
Cheryl
How is the cerebellum effected by traumatic memory? Parkinson’s and MSA-C are similar but MSA-C is more progressive. My friend who served in Vietnam has Ptsd with flashbacks regularly. He has Parkinson’s I would assume caused by his brain being offline and disregulated most of the time.
Thank you all, those with the wisdom and those with the ability to make it simple to have it all at a glance. I’m preparing workshops within an official program to be conducted in a lot of marginal settings in Mexico City. I’m sure I’ll take advantage of all this valuable information.
Thank you. This is so helpful when giving clients psycho- education
Thank you for the graphic. It is helpful to conceptualize and use with clients!!
Marsha M., LCSW
I cannot tell you enough how phenomenal these trainings are. Finally, information that will be so useful to many of my clients, who may suffer from trauma or that ever so prevalent, disorganized attachment. The attachment piece in your trainings has finally allowed me to understand dissociative states in my clients who do not report any trauma related to physical or sexual abuse. I can now help them understand their symptoms in better context. It may not be so frightening.
really excellent infographic. Thank you so much!!
Really useful, many thanks indeed, both for my own learning and those I work with.
The way you are presenting and sharing this info is generous, timely, valuable and well-executed! Cannot thank you enough for making traumatic memories easier to understand for my work with pre-natal twin loss clients. Of course, any sharing will include your credit/copyright. Thanks Ruth & NICABM! – Monica Hudson, Twindividual + Womb Twin
I will share this infographic with my twin who has chosen a different path in life from myself and although interested in psychology and often asks me about my work, has not had any therapy, rather chosen to go down the surgery route for some of her physical problems that I believe are probably the outcome of very early trauma pre-birth. We survived a home attempt to abort the pregnancy. It was in 1943 and my father had just been posted to fight in the Western Desert and was killed in action. before she died our mother told me that she was so relieved that she had not succeeded as she had been glad to have us after all.
Fiona, I’m glad your mom was unsuccessful too! SO glad that you are alive.
It’s very encouraging to see you in this forum, learning to help others with trauma.
Prosperity and peace to you all ways.
This is a great visual for myself to understand how trauma effects the brain and can hijack things.
Thank you,
Marquelle Brown, MS
great memory aides
Thank you , thank you for resources , I really appreciate the time and effort that was put in to developing these resources and the amazing act of generosity in sharing them , Pat ( Pat Kelly Counselling WA)
Thank you. Very clear and helpful.