Imagery rescripting is a clinical intervention aimed at reducing emotional distress associated with an aversive memory by changing the emotional meaning of the memory. This study investigated whether situational context during ImRs led to greater reductions in emotional distress over time. Furthermore, it was examined whether memory integration mediated the relationship between situational context and reductions in emotional distress. A within-subject three-day experimental design was used with N = 68 participants. 

On day 1, participants encoded neutral and aversive memories. On day 2, participants performed ImRs in both the situational context and no context condition. On day 3, emotional distress was assessed using distress ratings and memory integration was assessed using an inferential memory task. The results did not provide evidence that situational context led to greater reductions in emotional distress over time compared to no context. 

Distress ratings increased from day 2 to day 3 regardless of condition. Moreover, memory integration did not mediate the relationship between situational context and reductions in emotional distress. However, the exploratory analysis using an alternative operationalization of emotional distress showed that participants reported lower levels of distress across both conditions when explicitly asked to recall the rescripted outcome, suggesting that ImRs may still be useful to change the emotional meaning of a memory. Future research should focus on using autobiographical memories, context manipulation checks, and incorporating multiple ImRs sessions.