The question is can you make someone, or yourself, forget something specific.
The nature of memory is that a memory is most enduring when it is associated across various sensory modalities. A fact or event memorable when is has visual, auditory and emotional components that are meaningful to the subject.
Adding to the complexity of forgetting is that a memory when reviewed becomes stronger. This creates the paradox of how do you forget a memory when you have to focus on it to forget it?
One way to forget is through hypnosis induced amnesia. This amnesia does not remove the memory but block it from conscious access. There are several ways to pose this kind of hypnotic instruction. One way is “You will now take the memory and move it so far back , back, back into the deepest part of your mind , even further, that now it doesn’t matter. Forgotten. Gone. Feel Good.”
Another way is to link confusion and anxiety to the remembering the event. The hypnotic instruction would be as follows “You will feel intense confusion when you even try to think about this event. That confusion will build into anxiety until you simple stop trying to remember. When you stop trying you feel better and better.”
Depending on the situation changing the memory might be easier than forgetting it.
