Intrusive Memories

Intrusive memories are characteristic of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and occur in other mental-health disorders. Their features suggest a potentially important, under-explored, class of memories. I consider a classification puzzle arising from intrusive memories, which is generated by tensions between features of “standard” forms of remembering and features of intrusive memories. I argue that widely accepted features of episodic memory—a plausible form of memory on which to focus when classifying these memories—cannot easily figure in a satisfactory explanation of intrusive memories. This raises the possibility either of deviant forms of episodic memory, or of substantive revisions to standard memory taxonomies. I develop an alternative solution—an explanation of the features of intrusive memories in terms of recognition memory, which avoids the explanatory deficits of focusing on episodic remembering and affords additional explanatory benefits.