For those who learned nothing from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...

Therapeutic Forgetting

Scientists who work with patients suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are developing a new science that has been called "therapeutic forgetting."

But by erasing traumatic memories, are we changing the person? Are we erasing capacity for empathy?

Last year, the President's Council on Bioethics expressed concern that "memory numbing ... could dull the sting of one's own shameful acts ... allow a criminal to numb the memory of his or her victims.

"Separating subjective experience of memory from the true nature of the experience that is remembered cannot be underestimated," says the Council's report. "Do those who suffer evil have a duty to remember and bear witness, lest we forget the very horrors that haunt them?"

The research community is divided on this issue. "I think there's an ethical concern," says Mark Barad, MD, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. "It's hard to estimate what's important about a memory, how the memory interacts with who we are, how it affects our ability to empathize.

More Here.