TAZ,
I understand your need to want to understand why you are unable to talk about a certain situation and why it seems your brain has a block to that information! It can be very frustrating. The need to know and understand is perfectly normal and healthy. I know that sort of urgency and it compelled me to read all I can about PTSD and how I came to have that diagnosis. I know the brain is all about preserving life and if something happened to cause it to feel severely threatened it will do all it can to preserve life and sanity. It will block information that is too traumatic for the person's mind to handle at the time.
Take the rest of this with a grain of salt, I am no expert, but here is how I understand it.
If you are hoping a brain scan will show you why you have the mental block, I doubt you will find what you are looking for. Unless, you have suffered some sort of prefrontal lobe brain injury that could effect the storage or retrieval of memories. But from what I have read, the majority of people with a block to information in their life have suffered some sort of psychological trauma and that trauma set up how the neural pathways will receive, store and retrieve information. I have never had a brain scan but I would think it could confirm some sort of damage to the brain and identify where that damage is located and its impact on the person. I would think it could also be used to measure the size of certain parts of the brain as well. There are things that can interrupt the growth and development of the brain, such as trauma at a very early age, that would effect how the brain receives and stores memories. For me, memory is stored in fragments instead of in whole pieces and that is why I barely have any autobiographical memories. I don't think a brain scan can be used to identify the neural pathways effected by trauma. I could be wrong, of course. I would ask your T or P to answer your questions. That is the best I can do to explain what I know about a very complex system. As you can tell, I barely have a grasp of it.
As for changing neural pathways: Part of what happens in therapy is learning new ways to respond to situations that activate emotional arousal and changing the learned neural patterns of the past. I have to let myself see the roots in the past that have led to present responses. As I slowly make those connection and understand them, I am slowly able to catch my responses and change them, thus creating new neural pathways. This is difficult work for everyone but especially for those with PTSD. As for remembering or overcoming a memory block...I only know it takes a long time and it takes paying attention to every type of memory(sensory, image, behavior, affect, beliefs)that is retrieved until there are enough pieces to form a picture with meaning.
I hope this makes sense and is of some help.
deeplyrooted
