reexperiencing

Reexperiencing refers to the subjective reliving or vivid recall of past events, often accompanied by sensory details, emotions, and a sense of immediacy. It can involve personal memories, imagined scenarios, or events from trauma. Reexperiencing can be voluntary in some contexts, but it is frequently involuntary, especially when triggered by cues or stress.

In clinical psychology, intrusive reexperiencing is a core symptom in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related conditions. Symptoms include distressing memories, distressing dreams, dissociative reactions such as flashbacks, and intense psychological or physiological reactions to cues. The distress or impairment caused by these experiences informs diagnosis and treatment planning.

The underlying mechanisms involve memory processes such as retrieval and reconsolidation, with emotional processing linked to brain regions like the amygdala and hippocampus. Therapeutic approaches—such as exposure therapy, cognitive processing therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)—aim to reduce the frequency and intensity of reexperiencing and help integrate traumatic memories into a coherent narrative.

In nonclinical contexts, reexperiencing can also refer to vivid reminiscence or mental rehearsal of past events and is not inherently pathological. The distinction between adaptive memory recall and clinically significant reexperiencing rests on factors such as distress, impairment, duration, and the degree to which it interferes with daily functioning.