Ehlers and Clark (2000) recently published a rigorous cognitive behavioural model of PTSD. Part of the model explains how the phenomenon of “affect without recollection” can emerge in PTSD. This happens when the re-experiencing phenomena occur without explicit or conscious recall of the parts of the traumatic event from whence the phenomena originated. The following paper presents a case study of a man with PTSD and head injury in which there was complete organic amnesia for the trauma but where re-experiencing of the event occurred via
implicit conditioned responses to reminders of the event. It provides elegant supportive evidence for the phenomenon of “affect without recollection” where both PTSD and severe head injury are present.
