Research finds repressed memories don't exist(abc.net.au)
abc.net.au
Research finds repressed memories don't exist
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/06/3003364.htm?section=world
12 comments
If anything it seems to suggest that repression would be a
successful strategy if it could be managed.
That argument can go both ways. If the pain of the memory is causing you to be hurt more, then repressing it is to your benefit.
Given what depression does to people, based on that argument alone, I'd say evolution strongly favors repression of any rare trauma.
Given what depression does to people, based on that argument alone, I'd say evolution strongly favors repression of any rare trauma.
I think it would be more like adrenaline, which masks pain so that you can continue to function.
Interesting observation. Though it demands what exactly is considered repression and the degree to which it is done. Person's memories are malleable over the time. A memory of an event 10 years back will be modified over the course of 10 years based on other events during that period. Rashomon Effect is not just among people or in a society, it also applies to a person and his internal loop. Also - correct me if I am wrong here - degree of repression if any also depends on the age (and thus mental setup of the person then) of person involved. There may be memories of trauma a 4 year old may have endured and long forgotten by his conscious mind but may surface in the form of unnatural phobias/fears. But as mentioned before, it is not hard for someone to plant an idea into someone else's mind or tamper with his/her memory and inject false ideas, particularly in a patient-doctor relationship.
Conclusion: Basing legal judgements or decisions purely on a person's memory is wrong. Our insight into memory is not deep enough to be making such decisions. Diagnosing a person who may be experiencing depression/fears purely based on his own memories sounds absurd.
Conclusion: Basing legal judgements or decisions purely on a person's memory is wrong. Our insight into memory is not deep enough to be making such decisions. Diagnosing a person who may be experiencing depression/fears purely based on his own memories sounds absurd.
Article headline is misleading, but so are the comments on here.
Repressed memories, by definition, are memories that you block. As the article states, the research showed it's simple to overcome so-called "repressed memories" and therefore the traumas associated with them.
The solution assumes that all people block the memories, because of their adult-perspective on the events and what that event means to them now that they're adults.
I think we should take away one thing and one thing only: Majority of the population can be coerced into changing how they perceive a situation, depending on how it's explained to them.
Exxageration--
DR: Oh Sally, you're saying that because you were raped as a little girl, that's why you sleep around so much? Well, you're an adult now. What happened when you were little no longer matters. What matters is how you respond to what happened to you.
Sally: Oh. That's a good way of putting it, doc.
Repressed memories, by definition, are memories that you block. As the article states, the research showed it's simple to overcome so-called "repressed memories" and therefore the traumas associated with them.
The solution assumes that all people block the memories, because of their adult-perspective on the events and what that event means to them now that they're adults.
I think we should take away one thing and one thing only: Majority of the population can be coerced into changing how they perceive a situation, depending on how it's explained to them.
Exxageration--
DR: Oh Sally, you're saying that because you were raped as a little girl, that's why you sleep around so much? Well, you're an adult now. What happened when you were little no longer matters. What matters is how you respond to what happened to you.
Sally: Oh. That's a good way of putting it, doc.
I wonder what results a study into the differences in brain function (eg fMRI scans etc) between recalling normal memories and "fake" memories, perhaps using machine learning, might turn up? I wonder if such techniques could distinguish between real memories and fake repressed memories...
They've had success with "mind reading" already http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-mechani...
They've had success with "mind reading" already http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-mechani...
I'm pretty sure that there is no actual difference. Reconstruction is how memories work. To find the difference you have to look at the content of the memories.
If anyone's interested in another analysis of the problem of repressed memory (particularly in legal context) I would recommend checking out some of Robyn Dawes' work.
This is a good starting point: http://books.google.com/books?id=LvbnRn78ywsC&lpg=PP1...
This is a good starting point: http://books.google.com/books?id=LvbnRn78ywsC&lpg=PP1...
Even better is Elizabeth Loftus's Myth of Repressed Memory from the late 1990s (http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Repressed-Memory-Memories-Allegat...). Loftus specializes in memory research and has been an expert witness, Witness for the Defense http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Defense-Accused-Eyewitness-Exp... about legal cases she was involved in and Eyewitness Testimony http://www.amazon.com/Eyewitness-Testimony-new-preface-autho... which was originally written in 1980.
What a shitty headline and article itself.
The much better idea to consider is that people are re-creating (re-constructing) their traumatic memories again and again, unable (or unwilling in some part) to let them go. So, what they get is a recollection stored on top of recollection and so on. When we re-construct the memory we re-create it and then store (alter) the result.
I think I can remember my own childhood traumas (I had many) but what I actually can fetch from my memory is the reconstruction I used to have.
The cognitive therapy is working exactly because I can alter (re-frame) my memories, by reconstructing them, altering them and storing back. In particular I can reduce the intensity of the emotional "color" attached to my reconstruction. I had such and such crap. Ok, no problem. It's done and it's gone.
In Buddhist terms it sound as "the karma is already applied" - your past personality was already changed by those events, but since then you got a lot of another changes. Actually, any thought alters you, and that is why Buddhist people says that thought and deeds are the same. Your thought actually is a your deed.
The much better idea to consider is that people are re-creating (re-constructing) their traumatic memories again and again, unable (or unwilling in some part) to let them go. So, what they get is a recollection stored on top of recollection and so on. When we re-construct the memory we re-create it and then store (alter) the result.
I think I can remember my own childhood traumas (I had many) but what I actually can fetch from my memory is the reconstruction I used to have.
The cognitive therapy is working exactly because I can alter (re-frame) my memories, by reconstructing them, altering them and storing back. In particular I can reduce the intensity of the emotional "color" attached to my reconstruction. I had such and such crap. Ok, no problem. It's done and it's gone.
In Buddhist terms it sound as "the karma is already applied" - your past personality was already changed by those events, but since then you got a lot of another changes. Actually, any thought alters you, and that is why Buddhist people says that thought and deeds are the same. Your thought actually is a your deed.
I'm not sure that anything you're saying there contradicts what was in the article (or the headline), though thank you for detailing what the article calls just "new therapies that work".
The article seems to have been written in the context of the numerous people who have been sent to jail solely on the testimony of people who thought they had repressed memories which psychotherapists were able to recover. See wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse
The article seems to have been written in the context of the numerous people who have been sent to jail solely on the testimony of people who thought they had repressed memories which psychotherapists were able to recover. See wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse
I don't see how this contradicts the notion that there could be people who would repress memories. If anything it seems to suggest that repression would be a successful strategy if it could be managed. By their argument there could be a substantial population or 'successful repressers' that never seek therapy and could resist all efforts to stimulate memory of repressed events. It would only be the population of 'unsuccessful repressers' that they would ever get to see. That could, of course, then be further confused by a population of people who, for whatever reason, experience faked memories.