"Sometimes I think having all these computational enhancements makes trauma worse," he said. "Files are more detailed than memories and you never run out of space."

It wasn't a new insight - not even the first time he had said something similar. "Do you find your memories as easy to access as files?"

He shrugged. I almost did the same. Repression hadn't really disappeared as a psychological mechanism yet what broke modern journalists was the opposite. Lovecraft Syndrome: an AI-enhanced ability to perceive, correlate, and summarize large scale atrocities and disasters coupled with a very human inability to not be devastated by this knowledge. Everybody has suffered from it to one degree or another ever since the earliest social networks. Not like journalists, though. To do their job they had to have specialized training, implants, and software that amplified it. Not very adaptive for a century that's "a planetary chorus of horrors drowned by a superexponential cacophony of lies."

The phrase was neither his nor mine. I had read it on an uncharacteristically poetic suicide note from a patient. Not my worst case; and I had been luckier than most of my colleagues.

I had yet to suggest therapeutic data deletion. At least videos, photos, audios, satellite imagery. The data with the most direct emotional impact. It was a measure of last resort — the guilt of deliberate deletion was almost as dangerous as the memory itself — and I thought in his case the likelihood of damage was too high. Every journalist had a sense of responsibility that made the trauma of knowledge that much worse; his was stronger even than the average for the profession. Deleting files would feel to him an unforgivable betrayal. I doubted he could let himself survive that. I also doubted he would survive long as things were now.

I encouraged him to talk about his sense of responsibility. Then I did my best to strengthen it. What else could I do? I was making his neurosis worse and pushing further away any chance of emotional well-being, but it was the only thing that might keep him from taking his own life. Give psychologists time to figure out a way to help. I would have suggested quasilegal drugs if they hadn't been forbidden by his neural implants' lease contracts.

After he left I made myself a cup of tea with hands I didn't trust would be steady without my constant attention. I didn't need my own implants to know how unlikely I was to save his life. He had no choice except quitting and he wouldn't quit, not without encouragement and support I couldn't give him. My contract wasn't with him but with his employer and it came with its own priorities and constraints.

I reminded myself that it was better than nothing. At least he had some monitoring, some care. Help with the worst of it until the rest became bad enough. My own guilt-induced nightmares weren't yet so bad that I could avoid my own responsibilities.

I drank my tea, hands still skillfully steadied, and waited for my next appointment.