The Recovered Memory Controversy: The New Perspective, By Graham

The repressed and non-repressed unconscious tends to function side by side. The repressed unconscious buries traumatic events and the non-repressed unconscious receives and deals with the non-traumatic events. According to Freud, Anna transferred her repressed unconscious on to Breuer while Breuer received transference of the unconscious from Anna and returned them back to her. (Campbella & Pile, 2010).

In Susan Farrell, the author of “Just Listen”: Witnessing Trauma in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, mentioned “...all theorists agree that the process of recovery from trauma must involve a narrativization of traumatic event--putting a sensory images into words in order to integrate trauma into a person 's life story” (186). However, without reading Cathy Caruth’s Trauma, readers will not understand that not only integrating trauma into a narrative will help them recover but it also allows the witness apprehend their flashbacks into meaning. Flashbacks, although are taunting, has the most vivid images compared to narrated memories. For one to remember a highlight or a significant moment, one must preserve it as a flashback. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien convert his flashbacks into narrative memories allowing himself and readers to comprehend his experiences, but O’Brien also added flashbacks into his memories create the most graphic images for the readers.

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

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.

In contrast with repression theory, which asserts a special nature to traumatic memories, false-memory theory argues that trauma encoding and recall is no different from other emotional memories. Given that traumatic events such as CSA are highly memorable, people who claim to be unaware of it for so long must be mistaken. In particular, false-memory theorists are skeptical of memories that emerged through hypnosis, guided imagery, or suggestive interview questioning – all of which are methods used by repression theorists in order to recover the “repressed memories.” Instead of attributing the lack of recall to repression due to trauma, it is possible that these memory problems are due to typical forgetfulness, failure to encode an experience, or deliberate avoidance and reluctance to recall the event, all of which could be easily confused with an inability to remember the trauma. (McNally et al)

The practice of recovered memory has been used for centuries among mental health patients to resurface the repressed memories of a patient past in order to help heal them of a disease or disorder. Despite psychologists preaching its effectiveness many of the memories recovered have otherwise been proven false. Psychologist have even been known to embed false memories of child abuse, sexual abuse, and satanic ritual abuse. Although most of these claims are proven false, many court systems have allowed patients to sue their believed abusers, ultimately tearing apart families and jailing innocent

Ringel and Brandell introduce Ornstein’s suggestion of treating trauma in with self-psychology. When keeping sense of stability is necessary to the establishment of a cohesive self. Through time the cohesive self-assist with development sense of identity. Trauma can actually jeopardize the continuation of self. Pieces of traumatic memory can appear in the form of flashbacks or within a dream jeopardizing the existence of cohesive self (p. 173). Ringel and Brandell add Ornstein’s explanation on the difference between childhood and adult trauma. The difference between them is within the attendance of a united nuclear self (p. 173).

Understand Memory Recovery Repressed memory is always compared to false memory syndrome, but there is a distinctive difference that set these two apart. Skeptic dictionary quotes that “A repressed memory is the memory of a traumatic event unconsciously retained in the mind, where it is said to adversely affect conscious thought, desire, and action. It is common to consciously repress unpleasant experiences.” (Carroll, Robert 1994). A repressed memory is caused by disturbing occurrences involuntarily recalled in the mind, where it is said to unfavorably affect someone mind set, desire, and actions. This is where a person can have a memory that was so traumatizing that they make themselves forget about it. Because the situation was so traumatizing

Memory repression is considered to be a survival technique by psychologists. When a traumatic event happens to a child, it is often the case that they dissociate from their own body. In other words, memories of trauma as a kid are repressed through the very defense

Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT) was quite popular during the 1980s and 1990s but is now rarely used. It is a therapeutic technique based on the

The topic revolving traumatic memory recovery through therapy is one that is still being heavily debated amongst many psychologists. The first step to take in determining whether or not a repressed memory caused by a trauma could be recovered through therapy is to first understand what repressed memories are. Repressed memories are said to be memories that have been unconsciously “pushed to the inaccessible corner” of the mind due to something shocking or traumatic (Loftus, 1993). However, due to how memories are created and how subjective memories can be, the idea of having repressed memories lacks evidence and fails to exist thus explaining that memories cannot be recovered through therapy.

The neuroses of defence: In this case study, frued speaks about the four types of defence. These are characterized by the results of hysteria, obssesional neurosis, paranoia, and acute hallucinatory amentia. This study is actually connected to sexuality and ifantilism. Freud says that “The precipitating cause must be of a sexual nature and it must occur at a time before sexual maturity has been reached.”1 Freud, in this study, is talking about how having bad experiences makes you defensive. He also says that these bad experiences are remembered as “unpleasrable”2So, this is not constant unpleasurable feelings, but rememberence of feeelings that were unpleasurable. Therefore, we remember

The first and most striking bit of evidence for dissociation out of William’s study is that out of 129 women with documented cases of sexual abuse, 38 percent had no recollection of the abuse 17 years later (Williams, 1994, p. 1167). The fact that the 129 cases were reported to a city hospital at the time the abuse occurred gives validity to the research because it takes the false memory debate out of the picture. As Williams (1994) stated, “The finding that such a high proportion, 38% of the women, did not tell the interviewer about the child sexual abuse that was documented in the hospital records from the 1970s was quite dramatic…this is a significant proportion of the sample” (p. 1170). Some may argue that this number could be flawed due to the possibility that some women did not want to tell the interviewer about the abuse; however, as stated by Williams (1994), “although some of these women may have simply decided not to tell the interviewers about the abuse, additional findings discussed later suggest that the majority of these women actually did not remember the abuse” (p. 1170). These additional findings include the willingness of subjects to disclose many other personal matters to their interviewer, including other experiences of childhood sexual or physical abuse; in fact, 68 percent of the women who did not recall the documented abuse reported other sexual assaults (Williams, 1994, p. 1170). The second piece of evidence for repression introduces a new support in line with Fryed’s theory of betrayal trauma, which is that recollection is higher in cases where the sexual abuse was committed by someone they

There has been debate on whether repression exists. The debate mainly focuses on if an individual remembers or forget trauma. “Sigmund Freud observed repression as the foundation stone on which the whole structure of psychoanalysis rests.” (Rofe, 2008) However, notwithstanding incredible research efforts, the psychology community is divided concerning the legitimacy of this idea. Nonetheless, in the same side with unforgiving criticism against psychoanalysis overall, several investigators request the legitimacy of repression, appealing that it needs to be abandoned.

Freud’s mentor and colleague, Josef Breuer, once had a "cathartic" treatment of “hysterical symptoms,” a condition that was observed to vanish when a patient reminiscences a traumatic incident when under hypnosis and was able to demonstrate the initial response that he had “repressed and forgotten.” Freud spent several months in France experimenting on this idea by studying