repressed memories

"Repressed memories" are dangerous.

I have read several cases where someone will get charged with child sexual abuse, years after the abuse is supposed to have happened, because the so-called victim "remembered" it happening.
They claim that a smell, or a sound brought it all back.

Im sorry, but thats pure BS.
In one instance, the accused proved that he was out of the country when the alleged abuse took place.

Here is some interesting reading on the subject...

http://www.fmsfonline.org/pope95.html

2 Replies

@mysteryman,

Quote:

I have read several cases where someone will get charged with child sexual abuse, years after the abuse is supposed to have happened, because the so-called victim "remembered" it happening.
They claim that a smell, or a sound brought it all back.

I've read these accounts as well.

I really do NOT think that all such accounts are accurate.

Let's note, however, that this does NOT indicate that all such accounts are inaccurate.

Get it?

0 Replies

@BorisKitten,

BorisKitten wrote:

Oh, my dear Joe, you poor thing! Your claims of open-mindedness seem weak indeed, to me.

My claims are what they are. No need to extend your sympathies.

BorisKitten wrote:

Do you actually think that my troubles, at this age and in the early 1970's, were due to "False Memory Syndrome," which took another 30 years to be "Invented?"

I have no clue what caused your problems. I am, however, pretty clear on what didn't cause your problems.

BorisKitten wrote:

To deny that our childhoods were full of horrific abuse, in my opinion, is sort of like viewing a burned-out city from a sci-fi movie, and saying, "Oh, Nothing Happened Here. This city was idyllic and joyful."

Let me just repeat, for what I hope is the last time: I am not denying that you suffered abuse. I am simply disputing that your memories of that abuse were ever "repressed."

BorisKitten wrote:

I know I'll never convince you of the veracity of my statements.

BorisKitten wrote:

I do, however, wish you to think one thought: WHAT IF all that I am claiming to be true actually IS true?

How would you feel then?

The same as I feel now.

BorisKitten wrote:

I guess now I posted all this for people who are still suffering. You've no idea, Joe, of the suffering involved.

Actually, I have a pretty good idea. I represented a very nice couple whose adult daughter sued them when she suddenly "remembered" that they had subjected her to satanic ritual abuse when she was a child. It tore that nice couple up to know that their daughter was suffering so terribly from mental illness and that she was in the hands of an incompetent charlatan of a therapist who was making matters worse. Ultimately, we obtained a copy of the daughter's diary from the time that she claimed that she was being daily subjected to rape, torture, and abuse. The diary revealed nothing outside the experience of any normal little girl. Shortly thereafter her lawyer quit the practice and became a chef -- which was probably a pretty smart move -- and the daughter dropped the lawsuit. I can only hope that the daughter went on and got some real psychiatric help -- she was a very messed up woman. So yes, I have some idea of the suffering involved.

0 Replies

@joefromchicago,

LOL Stolen by fairies! That's a hoot! Seriously though, somewhere about my mid 20's I had a friend ask me why I never talked about my mother and memories I had with her as a child... I thought about it and said, "Hum... maybe because I don't have any memories to talk about?" I never questioned until that point that my memories... or lack there of... might be "abnormal". After a while though it dawned on me that I had zero memories except for two for the entire two years my mother was married to a particular man.

Long story short there was abuse involved brought back to life by a reoccurring nightmare that started in my early 20's and continued until the point I actually dealt with the abuse that happened at that time . Long story short on the rest of the time there was severe neglect involved from my mother. You really don't think it's possible that some things in life could be so traumatic that a person could completely block it out until a point at which they could emotionally, physically, mentally deal with it? Obviously you must have spent your life walking on the REALLY green side of this fence! Lucky man that you are!

1 Reply

Whatever sanctuary you got, keep it. Do they have somthing better? No. Tell them that if they have such a need to cure PTSD so thay can feel good about there own life style to go back and explain what happened in Vietnam and why we did it. Why did/do we put innocent men in the roll of a psychopath? And then when they come home were going to "make it all good".

It's not good and it will never be good and the veterans carry the FULL weight in there mind and that is why we are not like them and can not tell them what to do.

Thay know more then us about PTSD.

Veteran Specific Highlights:
23% of homeless population are veterans
33% of male homeless population are veterans
47% Vietnam Era
17% post-Vietnam
15% pre-Vietnam
67% served three or more years
33% stationed in war zone
25% have used VA Homeless Services
85% completed high school/GED, compared to 56% of non-veterans
89% received Honorable Discharge
79% reside in central cities
16% reside in suburban areas
5% reside in rural areas
76% experience alcohol, drug, or mental health problems
46% white males compared to 34% non-veterans
46% age 45 or older compared to 20% non-veterans

http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm#facts

0 Replies

@mysteryman,

I do agree that repressed memories can be dangerous depending on how or what they are used for. Sadly there are many people in this world looking to make a quick buck or pay back someone for feeling wronged by them. Abuse is wrong. No doubt about it. The thing is, to do something like what you are talking about mysteryman does not change what happened. It doesn't take away the scars abuse leaves on a persons life, heart or mind. Once violated a person will always feel violated until they choose to move on with their life.

One thing I've come to realize about abuse is that it puts a person living in the victim mentality. A person in that state of mind claiming to have repressed memories is perhaps the most dangerous kind. They are looking for someone to blame for how bad their life came out. Looking for a reason not involving any responsibility on their part. Things don't start changing though until the person can take responsibility for their actions and choices that came as a result of the abuse that happened to them.

The abuser did not follow that person around the rest of their life messing up their relationships, reminding them of what happened, causing them to blame everyone else for the things that happened through-out their life. That's an emotional reaction that comes out of the victim mentality, but the fact is that person made the choices they made that led them to where ever they are right now. That person is the only one who can start learning to make better choices to get them to a place they'd rather be. No one can make those choices for them.

2 Replies

@Treya,

Good post, Treya. Maybe the issue of using recovered memory in a court case should be separated from the use of recovered memory in therapy. A competent, empathetic therapist would need to give consideration to repressed memory (even if he disagrees with Freud).

1 Reply

@wandeljw,

Thanks wandel. I honestly don't understand how they could use a "recovered memory" years later as evidence in any court case. Seriously! Why isn't that considered hearsay? There's no actual physical proof left of anything! I do believe in repressed memories, as I have had them in my own life's situations. However, I would also like to say that repressed memories are not always what we think they are. Once emotions get involved it is easy for situations to grow much bigger in our mind than they actually may have been. That's where a competent, empathetic therapist is most important. They, being on the outside of the situation, have the ability to really help someone sort through what's real and what's become exaggerated.

0 Replies

@Treya,

Quote:

Things don't start changing though until the [abused, repressed-memory] person can take responsibility for their actions and choices that came as a result of the abuse that happened to them.

You hit that nail right on the head, Treya, and I thank you for it.

People who really do have "repressed memories" (no matter what one might call them) tend to be very destructive in their lives to both themselves and others.

In cases like this, I think it can be really important to work through this destructiveness with a competent therapist until the destructiveness is cleared. Once that has happened, nobody gets hurt: Not the abused person, and not their friends or relatives (at least in my experience). Makes the world a bit of a better place.

I also think it's wrong to use recovered memories in court cases, for the record. Such things belong in a therapist's office, not in a courtroom.

0 Replies

@Treya,

Treya wrote:

You really don't think it's possible that some things in life could be so traumatic that a person could completely block it out until a point at which they could emotionally, physically, mentally deal with it?

No.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Wow Joe I'm impressed... well I think... How in the world is it that you can't even give an inch of room for "the other side" of life people to live and be comfortable with who they are even if their entrance into this world wasn't quite as "flowery" as someone else's? Have you ever had anything traumatic happen to you?

1 Reply

@Treya,

Treya wrote:

Wow Joe I'm impressed... well I think...

Thanks ... I think.

Treya wrote:

How in the world is it that you can't even give an inch of room for "the other side" of life people to live and be comfortable with who they are even if their entrance into this world wasn't quite as "flowery" as someone else's?

What?

Treya wrote:

Have you ever had anything traumatic happen to you?

Yes.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Treya wrote:

Wow Joe I'm impressed... well I think...

Thanks ... I think.

Your welcome... I think... lol

Treya wrote:

How in the world is it that you can't even give an inch of room for "the other side" of life people to live and be comfortable with who they are even if their entrance into this world wasn't quite as "flowery" as someone else's?

What?

I was trying to put that nicely... didn't work so well for me apparently... Hum... How can I be more frank... Well basically Joe, how could you be so closed minded as to think that perhaps just because you don't "think" you have any repressed memories (or perhaps are lucky, or unlucky enough not to have any) that no one else could have them?

2 Replies

@Treya,

Quote:

...no one else could have them?

Now THAT is the question!

0 Replies

@Treya,

Treya wrote:

Well basically Joe, how could you be so closed minded as to think that perhaps just because you don't "think" you have any repressed memories (or perhaps are lucky, or unlucky enough not to have any) that no one else could have them?

My conclusions aren't based on my own personal experiences. After all, I've never seen Mt. Everest, but I'm pretty confident it exists. Likewise, I am very confident that there are no such things as "repressed memories" because everything we know about memory and the way the brain works excludes the possibility of such things existing -- and not just for me but for everybody. I don't have to have personal experience with "repressed memories" to be able to say that such things don't exist, just as I don't need to have personal experience with ghosts to be able to say that they don't exist either.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Treya wrote:
Well basically Joe, how could you be so closed minded as to think that perhaps just because you don't "think" you have any repressed memories (or perhaps are lucky, or unlucky enough not to have any) that no one else could have them?

My conclusions aren't based on my own personal experiences. After all, I've never seen Mt. Everest, but I'm pretty confident it exists. Likewise, I am very confident that there are no such things as "repressed memories" because everything we know about memory and the way the brain works excludes the possibility of such things existing -- and not just for me but for everybody. I don't have to have personal experience with "repressed memories" to be able to say that such things don't exist, just as I don't need to have personal experience with ghosts to be able to say that they don't exist either.

Well, considering there is proof of Mt. Everest through pictures and what not it's not some extraordinary thing that you would consider it actually exists. No one said you necessarily had to have a personal experience with repressed memories in order to believe they could exist. If I had never been physically touched by the wind because I spent my entire life locked up in a building I would find it hard to doubt it's existence merely because of my lack of personal experience with it. All I'd have to do is look out the window and I could see the evidence of it's existence around me even if I couldn't feel it. Learning to look out the window at possibilities outside of our own personal box we live in is difficult.

It seems like for the most part we want to base our beliefs on experience. That is the root of Christianity among other religions. Training people's brains to believe they feel something they can't see and calling it faith. Though I've never studied memories or even the brain for that matter I do know that it is a very powerful tool every human is equipped with. I find it hard to believe that the brain would not be equipped with some sort of coping mechanism like the rest of the body is. When something physically traumatic happens to our bodies there are different coping mechanisms that kick in aren't there? And you really think the brain wouldn't have some similar sort of reaction? I'm curious who this "we" is you are talking about?

1 Reply

@Treya,

Treya wrote:

When something physically traumatic happens to our bodies there are different coping mechanisms that kick in aren't there? And you really think the brain wouldn't have some similar sort of reaction?

Certainly the brain reacts to traumatic events. It reacts by remembering those events, far more vividly than much more mundane ones.

Treya wrote:

I'm curious who this "we" is you are talking about?

All the folks who have actually studied memory and the brain and who haven't bought into this Freudian nonsense about repression and the unconscious.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Treya wrote:
When something physically traumatic happens to our bodies there are different coping mechanisms that kick in aren't there? And you really think the brain wouldn't have some similar sort of reaction?

Certainly the brain reacts to traumatic events. It reacts by remembering those events, far more vividly than much more mundane ones.

Treya wrote:
I'm curious who this "we" is you are talking about?

All the folks who have actually studied memory and the brain and who haven't bought into this Freudian nonsense about repression and the unconscious.

Where is your proof for any of this Joe? Where is your proof that in every traumatic instance every single person remembers the incident more clearly than day to day life? Where did my memories go of the abuse I suffered as a five year old? I have one very brief memory right before it happened. (no need to go into vivid details about the prelude) Are you saying that because I don't actually remember the whole incident start to finish it surely must not have happened then? If so, then please explain how I can have physical scars come from something I don't remember in it's entirety? How does amnesia fall into your whole theory about the brain?

3 Replies

@Treya,

Quote:

How does amnesia fall into your whole theory about the brain?

Curious about this as well, Treya; I'm glad you brought it up.

Many years ago, when "The Internet" consisted of AOL & CompuServe (early 1990's), we could all read a speech from the daughter of Elizabeth Loftus, who profusely apologized for the misled work of her own mother. This speech is no longer available anywhere on the Internet, strangely enough.

This daughter had accused Ms. Loftus of childhood abuse, which was denied so vehemently by Ms. Loftus that it apparently spurred her (E. Loftus) to embark on a career of denying "false memories."

This choice proved very monetarily beneficial to Ms. Loftus, and still, today, colors our beliefs about Repression in a most unfortunate manner.

Clearly others have done much more work/research than I have myself, as evidenced by this link:

http://www.rememberingdangerously.com/

0 Replies

@Treya,

Quote:

Certainly the brain reacts to traumatic events. It reacts by remembering those events, far more vividly than much more mundane ones.

Replying to "joefromchicago" here. Apparently my quote removes your font-focus on "remembering," sorry for that.

Children are often not capable of dealing with things that happen to them. Thus they do not "remember" events which they're not capable of processing at the time.

Years later, oh yes, the brain can recall these events in graphic detail. Do you remember those studies done of people having brain surgery, recalling verbatim conversations (trivial ones) that had happened many years prior? A simple applied electrode recalled those memories.

2 Replies

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