How people remember – and forget – traumatic experiences is a highly controversial issue in psychiatry and psychology. At the moment, the field of trauma and memory is dominated by several controversies (for a review, see Brewin, 2007).

The purpose of this special issue is to highlight studies examining remembering and forgetting in people who report having experienced traumatic events. Moreover, this issue will also focus on research manipulating memory functioning, thereby providing us important information regarding the status of traumatic memories. This research on trauma and memory may provide important clues to the architecture and characteristics of both abnormal and normal memory functioning.