Pros And Cons Of Repressed Memory

The seriousness of this problem is exemplified in the cases of individuals creating false memories of sexual abuse as a result of therapy. These types of events caused vast amounts of research to be done on the topic. The Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm has been one of the most popular in false memory research and it continues to be a topic of interest today. A search of “DRM” in all text and “False Memory” in subject terms, using PsycINFO, gave results of 560 peer-reviewed articles published in research journals within the last five years (2011-2016).

One controversy is Children's testimony. Several high profile cases suggested that children's testimony about abuse is not always accurate. The child may have been brainwashed by the mother or someone else. Therefore, it is not always accurate. Another controversy is recovered memories of abuse. Some believe repressed memories are not valid, others believe they typically are. It does seem that some recovered memories are suspect, as are sometimes non-repressed memories. Recovered memories are usually revealed through hypnosis and it has been found that those are not always true memories although some may true.

1) The problem of a witness recall of memory based on psychiatric intervention- the evidence of which is unreliable

When people think of memory repression, people think of child sexual abuse scandals, parental abuse, traumatic injuries, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Memory repression is thought by some to be a defense mechanism of the brain in the event of extreme distress. The memory of the event is pushed back into the corners of the unconscious, and is only recovered after a long period of time has passed. According to the American Psychological Association, both memory researchers and clinicians who work with trauma victims agree that memory can be forgotten and then remembered, and a ‘memory’ can be suggested and remembered as true (APA, n.d.). However, some believe this is not the case. Instead, they believe that these repressed memories are the result of over-eager therapists planting ideas in their clients’ heads. In a recent study, Harrsion Pope tried to find a case of memory repression in works of fiction and nonfiction prior to 1800, and didn’t find any cases which matched their definition of a repressed memory. They concluded from this that “the phenomenon is not a natural neurological function, but rather a ‘culture-bound’ syndrome rooted in the nineteenth century” (Pettus, 2008). Memory repression is an extremely controversial subject in the field of psychology. Further research into this topic could lead to better treatments for patients

False memories are often an issue that comes up in the courts, when a witness testifies. Loftus conducted a study on members of the military. These members were being trained in handling interrogations in the event that they were captured by the enemy. They underwent a very stressful physical interrogation.

A false memory is a memory of an event that did not actually occur. This is something that is very common and happens to everyone. It can affect a person’s life daily and sometimes leads to psychotherapy. When memories are stored, they can change due people’s personal lives. The more people think about things, the more they change. For example, if a girl really likes a guy’s eye color and thinks about it constantly, eventually her recollection of his eye color

Four hypotheses were given in this experiment. Results from each were consistent with its hypotheses. 1) The recovered memory group attained higher scores on the false recall and false recognition test than the control. These results are consistent with the only other experiment that measures memory distortion. This previous study dealt with memory distortion of victims of childhood sexual abuse (Clancy et al., 2000). People who are more prone to exhibit false recall and false recognition in the laboratory are more likely to do the same in real life. 2) Repressed memory and recovered memory participants exhibited more false recall and false recognition than the control group. 3) The recovered memory did score higher than any group in both false recall and false recognition.

The need for understanding the phenomenon of repressed memories is also very important from a legal standpoint. In recent years there has been numerous cases of people suing their parents or other authority figures for abuse that has been recalled many years after the abuse was said to have occurred. The rulings in these cases have often been controversial considering there is often not enough concrete or collaborative evidence to prove the accused to be guilty or innocent. The judge and jury are often forced to make a ruling that relies heavily on the testimonial of the accuser. This is very contentious considering there is not an accurate and reliable test to determine the validity of the accuser.

Repressed memories are memories that have been unconsciously hidden due to the memory being associated with a high level of stress or trauma. Repressed memories may later come out, however it may not be for years. Many repressed memories don’t come out for years and happen quite often with childhood sexual abuse cases. People believe that repressed memories may still effect people subconsciously.

One of the most controversial topics that researchers, psychotherapist, and professionals have debated over the years is recovered and false memory. Recovered memories have focused its research on recovered memories over childhood sexual abuse; Recovered memories states that individuals “forget” the sexual abuse, and then recovered at a later time. The controversy over recovered memories is that in the majority of the cases very difficult to prove or disprove a recovered memory. On the other hand, the term false-memory perspective states that the vast majority of the recovered memories are faulty memories. Researchers claim that the majority of the recovered memories are created rather than experienced.

“victims find themselves reliving the traumatic event, often to the point of being completely unaware of their current surroundings”

Do you think an experience can be so traumatizing that the brain pushes it into an inaccessible corner of the unconscious to later recall it years later? This concept on the mind is expressed as repressed memories. These are types of memories that are blocked unconsciously due to the high levels of stress experienced during the event. This theory on memories are based on the idea that even though the memory is repressed it is still affecting the individual in their conscious aspects of life. Repressed memories are often associated with childhood sexual abuse. This relies on the idea that these memories of sexual abuse can be brought up either in therapy or by the victim themselves years after the abuse. The concept of repressed memories has been a huge controversy in psychology from the beginning of time. Many people believe that repressed memories in regards to childhood sexual abuse are possible while others believe they can’t be as accurate as some people believe.

I agree with the authors on how memory is reconstructed, i think most of my memories reconstructed when i am doing make connection to myself and let my mind navigates through my thoughts. Most of the time my memories are reconstruct on a linear order which is from the beginning to the end,but sometimes for some reason is hard to me to remember the beginning of a memory,i just end up remembering the effect without knowing the causing. Reconstructing memories can be dangerous when it comes to a memory that really hurted you in the past and you willing to never remember the circumstance again. it might make the person revive those feelings,to the point

While these studies do not fully exemplify the harmful reality of false memories, they take a step towards understanding how these false memories might occur in real-world settings. As Loftus (1997) discusses, it is only natural to wonder whether or not this research is applicable to real-world situations such as being interrogated by law officers or in psychotherapy. What researchers have learned, and can apply to this practical problem is that there are social demands on individuals to remember and come up with detailed memories. Not only that, but memory construction through suggestion and imagining events has been shown to be explicitly encouraged when people are having trouble remembering events (Loftus, 1997).

Brown and Kulik discovered that these flash bulb memories were consistent over time. They did research on the death of Princess Diana and found that many people could remember a lot more than usual such as what time it was, who was with them etc. Such emotional events as September the 11th are very large scale and so many people will have flashbulb memories of the event making it easy to do a study and find proof of flashbulb memories. There is also evidence for forgetting as a result of repression. The main sort of evidence for repressed memories is a victim of crime. Many people who have been a victim of a crime can remember very little of it because emotion actually caused the memory to be repressed and forgotten. Freud helped to prove that people have repressed memories by using hypnosis that caused people to bring forgotten memories to light.