Repressed Memory Syndrome

It is known, with conclusive evidence, that it is possible to create false memories. In fact some psychology teachers demonstrate this in class.  It also is relevant to the criminal justice system, and there has been some great experiments done that help clarify what can happen, and changes that needed to be made.

 

Whether it is possible to repress traumatic memories completely, and retrieve them pristinely is more contested.  It has been reported that it has happened, and the memories were reported to be verified with parents, so it may be possible, but actual genuine cases seem to be rarer than once thought.  Even if it does happen, there is some debate as to the benefit and the actual healing power.

 

Further examination of repressed memory therapy led to data that showed many of the repressed memories were often created in the therapist’s office (and primed in books). In some cases the abuse was impossible for some reason, for example they checked to see if they could find verifying evidence, and it became obvious it was impossible.  The main evidence came from the patients themselves, many of which retracted their stories after they realized what had happened in therapy. ( For retractor stories see: http://www.fmsfonline.org/retract1.html ).

 

It is important to raise the question, maybe many of the memories people recover in primal therapy are confabulated to varying degrees, depending on the clarity of the real memory.  Research on memory has shown that memory is not like a photo, it is more of a reconstruction and open to reinterpretation and mistakes.

 

Check out the work of Elizabeth Loftus, this is a well documented phenomena, it is not just opinion.  The link below takes to a page with links to articles on the subject.

 

Websites:

This link does a far better and more detailed job of explaining the problems with repressed trauma type therapies: http://skepdic.com/repress.html .  This is a must read, it also addresses the lack of scientific validity of ‘repression,’ and much more.  It is advisable to read the whole article, even if one thinks some parts of it is not directly relevant to primal therapy (as a whole it is).

 

Important article by Elizabeth Loftus: http://www.csicop.org/si/9503/memory.html

 

Another excellent explanation of repressed memory from the site mentioned above: http://skepdic.com/repressedmemory.html

 

Elizabeth Loftus’ website with good links on it: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/

 

Here is an excerpt of one of these articles on available on Elizabeth Loftus’ website:

                 

“Planting False Memories

Could one create an entire memory for an event that never happened? My first attempt … used a procedure whereby participants were given short narrative descriptions of childhood events and encouraged to try to remember those events. While participants believed that all of the descriptions were true and had been provided by family members, one was actually a pseudo-event that had not occurred. In this study, approximately 25% of participants were led to believe, wholly or partially, that at age 5 or 6 they had been lost in a shopping mall for an extended time, were highly upset, and were ultimately rescued by an

elderly person and reunited with their family (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995). Many added embellishing details to their accounts.

The method of using family members to help plant false memories has been dubbed the familial informant false narrative procedure (Lindsay, Hagen, Read, Wade, & Garry, in press), but it is probably easier to call it simply the lost-in-the-mall technique. Many investigators have used the lost-in-the-mall technique to plant false memories of events that would have been far more unusual, bizarre, painful, or even traumatic had they actually occurred. Participants have been led to believe that they had been hospitalized overnight or that they had an accident at a family

wedding (Hyman, Husband, & Billings, 1995; Hyman & Pentland, 1996). They have been convinced that they had nearly drowned and had to be rescued by a lifeguard (Heaps & Nash, 2001). They have fallen sway to the suggestion that they were once the victims of a vicious animal attack (Porter, Yuille, & Lehman, 1999).

Most studies find that a significant minority of participants will develop partial or complete false memories. In a set of studies reviewed by Lindsay et al. (in press), the average false memory rate was 31%, but in individual studies, of course, the figures can vary. Sometimes people have been resistant to suggestions, as they were when investigators tried to plant false memories of having received a rectal enema (Pezdek, Finger, & Hodge, 1997). Conversely, sometimes false memories have been planted in the minds of more than 50% of exposed individuals, as they were when investigators tried to plant false memories of having gone up in a hot-air balloon ride (Wade, Garry, Read, & Lindsay, 2002).

Particularly striking are the complete false memories, or what might be termed rich false memories, which are experiences about which a person can feel confident, provide details, even express emotion about made-up events that never happened (Loftus & Bernstein, in press).” E. Loftus <http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/>