The third dimension is ‘autobiographical reasoning’. According to the authors of the above-mentioned article, autobiographical reasoning is the reflection of an individual’s capacity to take a step back from memories and reflect on past experience. “This dimension is essential because autobiographical reasoning makes it possible to develop a sentiment of consistency with regard to lived experiences”, says Aurélie Wagener. It is based on ‘meaning making’ as it is known in English, which involves learning a lesson about oneself, others or the world based on the memorised event. “This process allows the memory to influence the ‘self’, that is to say the conception we have of ourselves, of our identity”, explains the psychologist.

The fourth dimension for evaluating self-defining memories is also extremely important because it involves the positive, neutral or negative emotional valence associated with them. However, before expanding on this point, let us return to the American psychologist (3) Singer who talked about the ‘general dynamics’ that self-defining memories likely respond to. “The content, form and emotional power of these memories can change in a subtle or dramatic way during our life”, he wrote. “What causes these changes is the evolution of our interests, desires and our objectives. Because we change the direction of our future, the contribution of our past experiences to this new direction we take becomes important to a greater or lesser degree”. Let us imagine the example of a Belgian general practitioner who closed his practice to join a humanitarian association in Africa. Experience shows that, in such a case, the formal structure and content of self-defining memories become altered. Their emotional valence, referred to above, is particularly sensitive to modifications in our objectives, beliefs or values.

Psychologists distinguish between two main hypothetical cases: the first of these is ‘redemption’, where the emotional valence of an event becomes shorn of the negative colour that the individual attributed to it in the past and is replaced by a positive colour when it is recalled to memory; the second is ‘contamination’ where the opposite phenomenon occurs. “Redemption is generally the reflection of a healthy adjustment and a movement towards personal growth, while contamination generally indicates poor well-being and a tendency towards neuroticism”, comments Aurélie Wagener. In a study that is currently in the process of being published, Aurélie Wagener, Marie Boulanger and Sylvie Blairy compared self-defining memories in (healthy) control subjects, bipolar patients and patients suffering from unipolar depressive disorder. What did they observe with regard to the emotional valence of these memories? That the difference could be attributed less to contamination than redemption, the control subjects were much better able to access the latter than the individuals in the two patient groups.

Overgeneralization bias

The article published by the ULg researchers in Acta Psychiatrica Belgica focusses on unipolar major depressive disorder. We know that in patients suffering from depression (*), there are different memory biases. In particular, there is an ‘overgeneralization bias’ during recollection of ‘typical’ autobiographical memories. Put another way, patients, but also euthymic individuals tend to recollect memories in a general way, these are spread over time and are somewhat blurred. However, the non-depressed individuals more often recall specific and concrete memories. What is this particular category of autobiographical memory known as self-defining memories? For the moment, no study has investigated the question but it is highly probable that self-defining memories do not escape the general rule, that they too are probably affected by an overgeneralization bias.

If a psychiatrist or psychologist asks a depressed patient to list memories that really correspond to him or her, analysis of these memories in terms of specificity, content, meaning making and emotional valence, will enable the psychiatrist or psychologist in question to understand how the patient makes sense of the world, and in particular, to understand whether the patient’s objective is to achieve success or to avoid failure and suffering.

In line with Jefferson Singer, an increasing number of authors today advocate the development of therapies centred on self-defining memories. Allowing these memories to surface should make it possible to gain access to the very frequent mental brooding that characterises the depressed state. Addressing this brooding constitutes an important therapeutic approach, particularly in the light of the fact that, according to work done by the British psychologists Edward Watkins and John Teasdale (4), it favours the overgeneralization bias which is a vicious circle that leads to more brooding.

(*) In this article, the term ‘depressed’ refers only to unipolar depression.
(**) Individuals who have lived through an episode of depression but who are not currently suffering from it.
(3) Singer J., Memories that matter: How to use self-defining memories to understand and change your life (p.23). Oakland: New Harbinger Publications, 2005.
(4) Watkins E. & Teasdale J., Rumination and Overgeneral Memory in Depression: Effects of Self-Focus and Analytic Thinking, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110(2), 353-357, 2001.