Maladaptive negative memories underlie conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This inspired research geared towards memory modulation by direct targeting of the negative memory. However, direct modulation of emotional memories can cause substantial distress and is often ineffective. Given these challenges we aimed to modulate negative memories indirectly. We previously demonstrated indirect modulation of neutral visual memory by utilizing behavioral instructions to intentionally remember or forget verbal content in order to indirectly target an embedded neutral visual memory. Here, we examined the indirect modulation of negative visual memory. In the first experiment we applied the indirect modulation paradigm to downregulate negative visual memories. Negative visual memory showed resistance to indirect modulation, with comparable visual memory strength under instructions to remember or forget the associated neutral verbal information. In the second experiment we hypothesized that positive verbal content would overcome the dominance of negative memory, enabling indirect visual memory modulation. Participants encoded positive words embedded with negative pictures, and received an instruction to remember or forget the encoded words. Preliminary results indicate that the instructions directly modulated verbal memory, with better memory under the remember relative to the forget instructions. Importantly, negative visual memory strength was reduced under the instructions to remember the verbal memory, indicative of indirect modulation of the visual memory. This research sheds light on memory modulation mechanisms, possibly uncovering novel approaches to downregulate negative memories in psychopathologies.