Repressed Memories.

by Englishman 60 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Lady Lee

  larc I have read this referenced somewhere but cannot think right now where. If I find it, I will let you know.

  It might be found though in some of the anti-Loftus material regarding the comparison of traumatic and non-traumatic memory in some of the studies on memory. The two seem to be encoded into the brain in very different ways. And due to the unethical nature of traumatizing people for a study, I doubt we will every find this out by studying it. Hmmm Just a thought - Lenore Terr did a study on the Chowchilla kidnapping and found some interesting things about memory in her longitudinal study of the child victims. They were buried alive in their school bus a few years ago. Terr studied the children shortly after the trauma and again I believe after 5 years. Her book is called

  Too Scared To Cry: Psychic Trauma in Childhood.

  A fascinating read.
• 

  WildHorses

  Children who see someone murdered do not repress the memory, so why should they repress other traumas?

  Larc, there was a woman a few years back, who said she had repressed a memory of her father killing a friend of hers when she was a small child. The man was convicted of murder because of it.

  Do you think she was mistaken? I'd hate to think her father went to jail for a false memory.

  Shari

  Edited by - Lilacs on 13 October 2002 23:46:57
• 

  JanH

  Adherents of repressed memory theory sometimes point to the single supporting case study of "Jane Doe", put forth by psychiatrist David Corwin in 1997. Elizabeth Lofthus and Melvin Guyer decided to investigate this case study more carefully, and came up with some quite interesting facts that Corwin had not found it convenient to include in his original work.

  I remember this quite well, since I wrote about it in my blog two weeks ago.

  - Jan

  ---

  Blogging at Secular Blasphemy
• 

  Beck_Melbourne

  I have a repressed memory of a fine english gent being unduly criticised and attacked and now see that his assailant gallantly posts like an intellectual as though no harm was done. What's up with that? Or was there an apology and I missed it??

  ~Beck~
• 

  Big Tex

  So, the theory that severe trauma makes the human mind repress horrible memories as a form of self defence is not supported by fact.

  I think there is a difference between severe trauma making the human repress hideous memories and the fact that the human mind can repress hideous memories. Perhaps you're saying this JanH, but I wasn't clear reading your post. I'm sure you'll agree that while the mind functions in generally the same fashion, it is also capable of behaving differently based on the individual person. Whereas one person might experience a traumatic event and not repress the memory, another every easily could repress. I think it depends greatly on the individual. What is their mental makeup? How old are they when the event happens? What kind of support structure do you have around you? Can you talk freely with someone? I believe all of these factors come into play.

  My father-in-law was a sailor during WWII. He saw quite a lot of action in the Pacific including Leyte Gulf and Iwo Jima. He said the most frightening thing was the kamakazie (sp) planes. Interestingly, he did not remember much about Iwo Jima for years after. Not until he saw a movie about WWII that evidently had the sound of guns that, to him, sounded just like the gun noises in the battle. He told me that the memory and feelings associated with it were so strong, it felt as if he were back on that ship again. He suffered from repressed memories and this was in the 1950s.

  I have dealt with recovered memories. I was in therapy for major depression when I began, on my own, experiencing memory blips of being raped when I was 3 and/or 4. I did not believe them at all. And for two years I kept having more and more memory blips, some very graphic and others quite violent. I finally found a good therapist who kept working with me. She never did say if she believed what I was remembering or not, but again and again she would tell me that it is possible to repress a traumatic event. Finally I began to investigate it for myself. I talked with relatives (both grandmothers and an aunt were extremely helpful), I talked with doctors my family saw back then and I read through old newspapers. I discovered that what I was remembering was not only accurate, but I heard even more shocking stories from my grandmother. There were some things I couldn't uncover. To this day I don't know how many different rapists I had (6? 7?), nor do I know if I really did witness a murder. But I found out what I really needed in my recovery and that was something happened to me. I wasn't delusional and I had a reason for my depression.

  Is it possible for a psychologist/therapist/counselor to implant memories? Yes. Is it possible for a psychologist/therapist/counselor to screw around with your head? Oh yeah. I think there are more incompetent or unscrupulous people in that field than people realize. Lord knows I saw a few of those kind. And I agree that memory is not absolute. It is definitely maleable and can easily be altered. If it were like a tape recorder, I would have pressed PLAY a long time ago. But it doesn't change the fact that the human mind has the ability and can repress traumatic events. It doesn't have to nor will it every time a traumatic event occurs. But it is possible and it does happen.
• 

  larc

  Big Tex,

  You bring up a good point regarding therapists. There are some bad ones out there. A person seeking therapy, should shop around. Ask friends about their experiences. Interview several therapists and choose one that makes you feel comfortable. In the course of therapy, if the therapist presses you too quickly for traumatic information or attempts to stear you in a pariculare direction, that should raise a red flag. A therapist should be warm and supportive. They should allow you to proceed at your own pace. If they don't have these characteristics, you should find someone else.
• 

  Farkel

  I probably have repressed memories. I can't remember what they are, though. They're repressed.

  Farkel
• 

  larc

  I just checked a new edition of a general psychology text. It makes a distincion between psychogenic anmesia and repression. The distinction my seem like spliting hairs, but it is not. Psychogenic amnesia is well known, docuemented and researched. Psychogenic amnesia is the forgetting of unpleasant experiences. In its mild forms it allows us to have nicer memories of high school than what actually happened. We tend to look back fondly on pleasant events and forget the less pleasant ones. Sometimes, the unpleasant ones to pop back up but we tend to forget them again, unless we choose to dwell on them. With traumatic events, the amnesia is more complete, but the memory is not completely buried. In the examples given by others posting to this thread, many expressed the fact that they fealt uneasy and little flashes of memory returned. If a person chooses to dwell on these glimpses of memory, more of the memory emerges gradually. If they choose not to dwell on these glimpses, more of the memory will not emerge. Now, the concept of repression is quite different. Repression means the entire memory is buried completely in the unconscious and not subject to retrieval at will. No glimpses are there. Furthermore, it is believed that through free association, hypnotism, dream analysis and other methods, that the repressed memory can emerge full blown from the unconscious to the conscious level. According to the text, there is no support for the concept of repression as defined above.
• 

  Lady Lee

  Hmmm larc I'm not sure I agree with your textbook.

  You tell me how you might classify this one.

  warning - a bit graphic

  I have a scar on my ankle. It is small. Hardly noticeable really. But I know it is there. I know how I got most of my scars; the one on my wrist from a piece of glass thrown my way by the kids who used the lane on their way to school, the one on my lip from a farming accident, another on my foot from a sprained ankle. But this one scar has always been a mystery to me.
  
  I remember going swimming with my brother at Rice Lake in the summer when I was 11 years old.

  The first time I noticed the scar it was still a fresh wound. My brother, Larry, and I had been swimming in the shallows of the lake and searching for minnows to use later when we went fishing. As we were getting out of the water Larry asked, "Whats that on your leg?" I looked down and saw a small oval wound, red and bleeding. I had no idea where it came from. Guessing I said, "I dont know maybe I scrapped it on a nail or rock on the bottom or maybe a blood-sucker got me." Even as I said that I knew that is not what happened. But I could not come up with any better answer.
  
  The sore healed, slowly, and left a perfectly oval clear scar. It was as if all the tissue in the first layers of skin had been scrapped off leaving a clear overcoat of skin to the flesh below. Mostly I forgot about it. But every now and then I would sit and wonder about a nail or a blood-sucker. I knew that was wrong but no other explanation came to me through the years.
  
  However, my dreams gave me another explanation. The summer we were at Rice Lake there was a man who offered rides on his horse for twenty-five cents. The kids would line up in the morning and take turns riding high in the saddle of this beautiful black mare. In my dreams I had my turn on the horse. What a glorious feeling, sitting taller than everyone and seeing the world from a different perspective. Unlike the other kids I got to ride bareback, the smooth back of the horse against my legs. But I had no reins and as the horse moved forward I invariably moved backwards, only to fall off and onto the ground below. Every time I had the dream I fell. It never deviated.
  
  It got to the point where the dream was so vivid, the feelings so strong that I became confused. Was this real? Did I ride the horse? Or was it all a dream, just a silly dream. Over the years people would ask me whether I had ever ridden a horse. Sometimes I would say "Yes, but I fell off" and in the moment of saying that I would feel the confusion in my mind. Other times I would say "No" and wonder if I should have said yes. Either way, my answer always felt false.
  
  Through the years the dream remained the same as did my confusion about the cause of the scar. Maybe I got the scar falling off the horse. Occasionally, I would mindlessly finger it, round and round. Other times I would try to fit the scar in with my dream of the horse. The two seemed connected but I had no idea how.
  
  In my 30s I did a lot of recovery work about the abuse in my early childhood. I worked my way through many memories in therapy. This one remained illusive. As far as I knew this was the only memory unaccounted for. I spoke to a friend, Sandi, about it one summer night. We often spoke about our childhoods, trying to fit the pieces of her memory together.
  
  We were outside, talking, enjoying the cooler air. She sat on the steps and I stood in front of her on the sidewalk - the cool cement a relief to my feet. As we talked she lit a cigarette and I stood there watching the glow as she inhaled. I could not move or breath. I watched as she inhaled again, the tip glowing bright red in the night air.
  
  I felt an explosion of knowing and a scream "No" inside of me, one side fighting the other. I asked her for a cigarette. Hesitantly she passed me the pack and I removed one cigarette. I placed one foot on a step and reached down to place the tip of the cigarette on the scar. A perfect match. I felt sick. I slid the cigarette along the scar and it matched. He burned me. He scarred me. I knew. The confusion was gone. No nail. No bloodsucker. No horse. Just me and my father in the cabin. And his cigarettes.
  
  I felt peace, and calm, and shock, and rage, and denial.
  
  There was a horse. My father gave Larry the money for a ride on the horse and told him to have a good time. I had to stay and do some work and so my father would have time to sexually abuse me) so Larry would be gotten out of the way and would have to go alone.
  
  I still dont know how or what happened in that cabin. I believe my mind was out on the horse with Larry and nowhere near that cabin. But my body was there. My leg was there. My ankle was there. And I got my scar there. I knew just the same way you know that you know someones name but cant think of it until 3am. My knowing is sure. I just havent woken up to remember it yet.
  
  And Im not really sure I want to. I have never had the horse dream since then. I can answer with conviction that I had never ridden on a horse as a child. I can look and feel my scar and know when and how it came to be. I know.

  So my question larc is this psychogenic amnesia or a repressed memory?
• 

  larc

  Lady Lee, frankly I don't which it is. I have one question. How long was it from the incident in the cabin until you noticed the fresh injury? Just one other thought - your many dreams about riding a horse indicates that your mind was sure working on some material. But again, whether is this inicates psychogenic amnesia, with thoughts wanting to get out, or a full blown repression, I can't say. It seems to me that either phenomena would feel the same subjectively.