Flashback (psychology)

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A flashback (English, lightning (like) back , roughly translated as reliving or reverberation ) is a psychological phenomenon that is caused by a key stimulus. The affected person then has a sudden, usually powerful reliving of a past experience or previous emotional state . These memories can be of any kind of emotion imaginable.

The term is mostly used when the memory occurs involuntarily and / or when it is so strong that the person relives the experience, unable to fully recognize it as memory. The strength of an emotional state that is unsuitable for the current situation can also help to recognize it as a flashback.

Flashbacks occur as a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder . Recurring, intoxicating states after a drug-free interval are sometimes referred to as flashback or echo psychosis, echo intoxication (also echo intoxication), late intoxication or reverberation psychosis .

According to the AMDP system, flashbacks are subsumed under the paramnesia in the psychopathological findings. As a further possibility for documentation in the sense of the AMDP system, it is proposed to include the designation flashbacks at the end of the finding, together with the remaining special symptoms that have not already been covered by the operationalized terms of the AMDP system.

Natural flashback

Flashbacks can occur, for example, with a fragrance from childhood, when listening to old favorite songs or perceiving a place known from the past. The person feels for a short time, usually a few seconds and rarely longer than three minutes, put back into the situation or experiences it again. So this kind of flashback is just a special kind of intense memory.

In traumatized people, key stimuli such as uniformed people, news, noise and crowding or anniversaries can act as a signal for a threat and lead to flashbacks.

Flashback related to disease and drugs

Flashbacks are also called intrusions in psychotraumatology . They can be symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), acute stress reactions , hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD) or obsessive-compulsive disorder . Flashbacks have also been observed in depression , homesickness , near-death experiences , epileptic seizures, and substance abuse .

Strong hallucinogens such as mescaline or LSD can trigger a psychosis ( drug psychosis ). In the drug context, the term flashback is now considered informal and scientifically imprecise and out of date; today we speak of persistent perceptual disorders or HPPD .

Nabilone , a synthetic cannabinoid , can help reduce the incidence of flashbacks in people with PTSD.

Flashback and fitness to drive

The Federal Constitutional Court dealt with the issue of flashback in connection with cannabis use and driving licenses and came to the conclusion on June 20, 2002:

“A lack of aptitude that exists in everyone, including the one-off or occasional hashish consumer, cannot be justified with a relevant risk of later occurrence of unpredictable echo noises (flashbacks), as can be recorded with users of some" hard "drugs. In this respect, the controversial question in the literature does not require clarification as to whether the consumption of hashish is associated with a flashback risk at all. Even if this were to be the case, the risk of an unforeseeable sudden loss of ability to drive would have to be assessed as very low (see e.g. Krüger, Expert Opinion, loc. Cit .; Geschwinde, loc. Cit., Rd. 136; Kleiber / Kovar, loc. Cit., P. 73 fmwN). According to the information from the federal government, the state governments and expert third parties, so far only very few cases have become known in which there was reason to assume that a traffic accident or a traffic hazard could possibly be traced back to the hashish consumption-related echo noise of a road user; only in individual cases could the possibility of an echo noise not be completely ruled out, but this could not be proven in any case. "

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: Flashback  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ C. Brewin, J. Gregory, M. Lipton, N. Burgess: Intrusive Images in Psychological Disorders: Characteristics Neural Mechanisms, and Treatment Implications. In: Psychological Review. (2010); 117 (1), pp. 210-232.
  2. ↑ Tom Bunn LCSW (2014). Is What You Are Feeling A Flashback? https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/conquer-fear-flying/201408/is-what-you-are-feeling-flashback
  3. ↑ a b Michael Zaudig, Rolf Dieter Trautmann-Sponsel, Peter Joraschky, Rainer Rupprecht, Hans-Jürgen Möller: Therapielexikon Psychiatrie, Psychosomatik, Psychotherapie . Springer-Verlag, 2006, ISBN 978-3-540-30986-4 , pp. 491 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ Burkhard Madea: Forensic medicine: assessment, reconstruction, assessment . Springer-Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-662-43500-7 , p. 731 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ↑ Jürgen Margraf, Silvia Schneider: Textbook of behavior therapy, Volume 2: Psychological therapy for indications in adulthood . Springer-Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-662-54909-4 , pp. 597 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ Working group for methodology and documentation in psychiatry (AMDP): The AMDP system: Manual for the documentation of psychiatric findings . Hogrefe Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8444-2707-3 ( google.de [accessed on May 8, 2019]).
  7. ^ Stieglitz Rolf-Dieter, Haug Achim, Kis Bernhard, Kleinschmidt Silke, Thiel Andreas: Practice book AMDP: Psychopathological assessment - basics and application examples . Hogrefe Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8444-2852-0 ( google.de [accessed on May 8, 2019]).
  8. ^ Information sheet from REFUGIO Munich (counseling and treatment center for refugees and victims of torture): "Traumatization as a consequence of political processes". 2009.
  9. ↑ H. Ribhi, JL Cadet, MY Kahook, D. Saed: Ocular Manifestations of Crystal Methamphetamine Use. In: Neurotoxicity Research. 2009 February; 15 (2), pp. 187-191. doi: 10.1007 / s12640-009-9019-z .
  10. ↑ J. Suzuki, JH Halpern, T. Passie, PE Huertas: Pharmacology and treatment of substance abuse: Evidence- and outcome-based perspectives. (Monograph) 2009.
  11. ^ GA Fraser: The use of a synthetic cannabinoid in the management of treatment-resistant nightmares in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In: CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics . 2009 Spring; 15 (1), pp. 84-88. PMID 19228182