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Memories of traumatic experiences are impacted by many factors, including our feelings about the experience.

Research finds that it is inaccurate to make blanket claims that traumatic memories are inherently fragmented.

Evolution would have favored humans having better memories of traumas in order to improve survival.

One familiar explanation of trauma goes like this: overwhelming fear disrupts the brain’s ability to store an experience, leaving scattered images, sensations, and emotions instead of an organized memory. It sounds plausible. But how well does the evidence support it?

In a recent article in The Conversation, psychologist Michele Patterson Ford describes traumatic memories as frequently fragmented. She explains that intense stress can overwhelm the hippocampus, disrupting memory storage, while heightened emotional activity contributes to vivid sensory recollections. Her practical message is compassionate: people should not dismiss survivors because their accounts seem disorganized or their behavior seems unexpected.

That message deserves attention. However, the proposed explanation of memory is more contested than her article suggests. Harvard psychologist Richard McNally’s review, Are Memories of Sexual Trauma Fragmented?, challenges the idea that trauma typically breaks memories into disconnected pieces. His question is straightforward: fragmented compared with what?

All autobiographical memories are incomplete. We remember some details and forget others. We reconstruct experiences when........

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