Repressed Memories Research Paper

Avoidant behavior among victims of sexual abuse may be understood as attempts to cope with the chronic trauma. Among the dysfunctional activities associated with avoidance of abuse-specific memories and feelings are dissociation, substance abuse and various tension-reducing activities. Unfortunately, although sometimes immediately effective in reducing distress, avoidance and self-destructive methods of coping with child abuse experiences may lead ultimately to higher levels of lower self-esteem and greater feelings of guilt and anger.

False memory refers to a phenomenon that makes an individual believe that they remember events in their lives but in real sense, these events have never occurred. In most cases, these events are traumatic, and relate to sexual abuse. False memory syndrome was postulated in 1992 in an attempt to explain the theory of adult childhood memory. Adults who remember sexual abuse events when they were young may be creating an occurrence that never happened or information that is not correct.

The sudden recovery of repressed memories from a traumatic event such as childhood sexual abuse can be both validating and confusing for clients that are seeking help with various problems. These new memories might be able to help client identify the cause of their feelings and issues that are affecting their life. However for others it can be a very difficult time because of the conflicting emotions about the abuser. Worst of all when dealing with the recovery of repressed memories they may be all together false. The accuracy of recovered memories in regards to sexual abuse is low and can come with significant consequences. These false memories can be very harmful to the client as

The individual who experiences these awful memories will forever hold that pain into adulthood. Memories and negative past experiences are big factors of trauma. Trauma is a distressing experience psychologically, and can last for a lifetime, that may keep an individual from executing certain activities successfully. Lin Shi and Jason Nicol from Dekalb, Illnios are specialized in Family Therapy, and have observed a criminal through the experimental process. Shi and Nicol have announced that, “In the stabilizing sessions that followed aggressive episodes, regardless of what set him off, he frequently referred back to his unpleasant experiences with his parents which often involved a strong physical reaction” (par. 10). The pain coming from an unpleasant experience had resorted out into violence every time the brain conjures up a past memory that was agonizing. A negative reaction is usually shown when the individual had been hurt physically and/or emotionally from any past events. These painful childhood memories make an individual rash out into anger followed by the offenses committed (Shi and Nicol par.10). When a sixteen year old male was analyzed by a treatment center, the clinic had been told that the boy’s mother walked out of the child’s life at the age of two and had been living with the father (par. 5). Children who are left by the main nurturer in the family effects the decisions carried into adulthood. Negative consequences are the

Two of the consequences of sexual abuse that interest me the most is posttraumatic stress disorder and repressed memory. PTSD is known as an anxiety disorder that occurs in response to experiencing extreme stress (McCoy & Keen, 2014). The rates of PTSD vary among the type of sexual abuse that has occurred (McCoy & Keen, 2014). Victims of sexual abuse usually have to deal with PTSD. They have flashbacks of the terrible indicants, could happen randomly or be triggered by anything. Since the triggers could happen any time, it could prevent the person from prevent the person from being able to move on, which could stop them from living a successful and happy life. Another consequence of sexual abuse is repressed memory. Repressed memory is when the brain forces unacceptable thoughts, desires or memories into the unconscious (McCoy & Keen, 2014). This is done so the brain can protect itself. It takes a lot of energy for the brain to hide these memories and they can reappear caused by a trigger (McCoy & Keen, 2014). It makes

Post-traumatic amnesia is confusion or memory loss that occurs immediately following a traumatic brain injury. The person that was injured is usually disoriented and is unable to remember the events that occur after the injury like their name, where they are, and the time. They may experience retrograde amnesia (loss of memories that were formed before the injury) and retrograde amnesia (problems with creating new memories). They may regain their memory. When they experience anterograde amnesia they memories are never regained because they were not encoded completely. Memories from just before the trauma are often gone forever, due to repression, also because the memories may be incompletely encoded, if the injury interrupts the encoding

Teaching About Repressed Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse - This article describes an undergrad 3 credit hour course taught in the fall at Rollins College. It examines human memory and its role in two applied issues which include repressed memory of childhood sexual abuse and eye witness testimony. The course content includes four components: 1) the instructor introduces students to the subject matter, 2) students review the nature of science, 3) learn about the extensive literature on the nature of human memory, and 4) learn about the anecdotal and scientific literature (for and against) on repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse and the literature on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and identification. Freud and the notion of repression is discussed both in this article and in

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.

Since this is a huge problem in the legal system, there has been a huge debate on whether or not the reports of recovering memories of abuse can be authentic, since human memory is susceptible to distortion. These types of memories can either help or hurt people in the system for example prosecuting an innocent person who was accused of being an abuser. However, very few studies have been done on the population of at risk children such as those in foster care or adoption.

Researchers, J. Douglas Bremner, Katherine Krause Shobe and John K. Kihlstrom establish in their study on the repressed mind of victims that the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that women of childhood sexual abuse exhibited poorer memory for words that had been recently studied and increased insertions of alternative words other than critical lures (Bremner, Shobe, Kihlstrom, 2000). Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) according to the Mayo Clinic, "Is a mental health condition that 's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event" (Mayo, 2016).

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.

Throughout false memory cases, many people create a false memory and later suddenly remember the truth. By saying this false memory, several people are wrongly prosecuted for a crime they never committed. In 60 years of research on memory and trauma, 14,000 people are victims of rape or sexual abuse. Within these 14,000 cases, no evidence is present that people have repressed memories that is entirely forgotten.

Serious false memories like child abuse are often mistaken as repressed ones which were recalled through therapy sessions with the help of a professional. This, however, brings around the controversy about whether repressed memories truly exist and if they do, whether they are accurate enough to be taken into consideration.

      Why would anyone want to erase a part of their memory? No one would want to remember being raped or tortured, witness a shocking, scary, or dangerous event. People simply want to forget these memories because they want to stop it hurting and haunting them. Trauma can greatly affect our memory. We may use our natural ability to dissociate to avoid awareness of a traumatic experience while the trauma is happening and however long it may occur. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition that develops in some people who have experienced any of events I have mentioned (NIMH). It is normal for us to feel afraid during and after a traumatic situation. Fear is a powerful trigger for the changes in our body to help defend against danger or avoid it. Most people will experience a range of reactions after trauma, yet many will recover from initial symptoms naturally. Those who continue to suffer may have PTSD and they may feel

If we can create false memories for other people and ourselves, this could cause potential problems in therapy sessions, in which the therapist and patient think they are bringing to light a painful situation that happened in the past but it could actually be a false memory. False memories could also have a potential impact on eyewitness accounts. Dale, Loftus, and Rathbun (1978) conducted an experiment to hypothesis that witnesses would give false information when asked questions. In one experiment they had a person stand before the class of students and proceeded to talk to the students. The person was wearing a hat but while talking to the students never once held his hat or took it off. After this person left the class, the teacher asked the students to recall if the person’s left or right hand was holding the hat. Out of the 20 children questioned, 17 students said the teacher held it in his right hand, 7 in the left, and of all these children only 3 said he was wearing it the whole time. This experiment could suggest that there is only a small number of people that are reliable sources and that children could very easily be susceptible of false memories more so than adults. Through research and further testing, we may find better ways for eye witness accounts, sexual abuse cases, and help therapists find better ways to help their patients recall traumatic