A patient cannot recall one specific painful episode from her past. Before revealing the answer, decide how you would explore whether this is catathymic amnesia.

Establish precisely how circumscribed the memory loss is, since catathymic amnesia is specifically limited to a particular painful or traumatic memory rather than affecting personal identity or memory more broadly, which should otherwise remain fully intact. Ask how long the gap has persisted, since it can persist for a very long time, sometimes years, before, if ever, becoming accessible again. Ask whether the memory has ever become available to consciousness, whether through a specific trigger or through psychotherapeutic exploration, while bearing in mind that the underlying explanatory mechanism and the reliability of any later "recovered" memory are both genuinely disputed in the field, which is worth approaching cautiously, especially in any legal or forensic context.