Are repressed memories real?

Question

Why or why not?

Answer 1

Yes...it is my understanding that they are real, but that they are nowhere near as common as some psychologists would have you believe.

I am saying this as an abuse survivor who has *always* been able to recall the physical violence, the beatdowns, and the verbal abuse, the putdowns, my father put me and my sisters and my mother through....but who didn't recall the sexual side of the abuse fully until his mid-20s or so.

It took me nine months of half-incoherent flashbacks, often only involving one or two senses at a time and being provoked by seemingly everything and nothing, nine months of feeling like I was about ready to lose it entirely before I sought counseling, after which I went through nearly two years of hell as I got challenged on *every* detail I recalled and was able (with some help) to piece back together into a more coherent picture.

So yeah, in short I can say I am the real deal in terms of repressed memory, but....

I also understand there have been some high-profile legal cases where it was fairly clear the therapist or counselor was following an agenda or three that *was not* their client's. Like in any other profession, there *are* dishonest and unscrupulous people in counseling and mental health professions. Which is a shame as people really don't need to have to *worry* about whether or not someone is going to manipulate them, and use them as a means to an end. (not that I disagree with the end--drawing more attention to child abuse and molestation issues so that something is *done* about them--but the *using* of survivors and manipulating them into making their own memories of suffering worse, that is just atrocious).

But yeah....sorry to digress, my point is:

--Repressed memories are real, but you have to be careful about how you define the term. The nature of the problem is such that the person with the hidden recall *does not* by and large have singular, coherent recall of the pain and suffering they had to *hide* to survive....so the memory *does* have to be reconstructed. And as such it needs to be challenged and held against the context of the person's *other* non-reconstructed memories to see if things make sense. Repressed memories of sexual abuse make *more* sense coming from someone who clearly remembers being physically and verbally abused in non-sexual ways....it also makes more sense in the context of "is this coming from someone who already shows some signs of a) dissociation, to the point of time or memory loss, and also b) shows signs that the personality or identity of the person is already compromised?" In other words: How likely is it that this reconstructed memory is *true* of *this particular person*?

In other words: Fact check whenever possible, even if it is only against the *rest* of an individual's memory or mind as presented. Ask the hard questions--it's more work, and more unpleasant early on, but it's better to *know* your reconstructed memories are the real deal, as opposed to having to deal with the uncertainty later.

--Also understand that the abuse of children, and the survival of those children as they become adults (whether those adults are healthy or disturbed), is one HUGE political hot-potato. There are agendas all around. There are, in my humble opinion, at least three sides folks *admit to* and one side *nobody dares* admit to. You have your well-meaning but only half-honest "means and ends" people in counseling and mental health, who are willing to make individual clients worse off if it means drawing more attention (and funding) to a problem that *really is* generally *criminally* under-funded and not paid attention to...these are the folks who get openly and publicly schooled in courts of law over the reconstructive nature of memory recovery. You have your "anti-false memory" advocates, who generally swing hard the opposite direction--they think that *all* repressed memory is fake, that *all* counseling is therefore morally bankrupt, and that nobody's children ever get abused...problems with those ideas are a) children die daily from abuse that goes unnoticed because nobody intervenes until too late, and b) there is the whole idea that you *do* have to ask, "Ok, and how many abusers *are* supporting your agenda to stay hidden?" Seriously, perpretrators of the abuse of their children, the ones who don't get caught and sent to prison, they tend to *not* be stupid people...they tend to be smart enough to find and *exploit* whatever they can to keep their little denial games going.

Those are the two agendas people usually think about. Then there is a third one, coming from political feminists, who claim sensitivity on the issue, but only with the kids....with the adults, on issues of domestic violence, the agenda becomes clearer: It's *always* the man's fault. Which may hold some truth to it on the level of statistics, but it isn't the kind of thing you need to take to heart, simply because, *HALF* of your abuse survivors are going to be male, all other things being equal. Do you really want to have a double standard like that just because HALF of your survivors had the misfortune of being born *presumptive* enemies, courtesy of their Y chromosomes and anatomy?

Then there is the fourth agenda...the one nobody thinks about and nobody admits to.

The Do-Nothing Agenda. The Agenda of the Accomplice.

Every time a teacher, minister, adult friend of the family, turns a blind eye to a *black eye* on a kid, they risk being an accomplice to abuse....but it is more subtle than that usually.

It is about established religions, political systems, workplaces, and schools all holding to an outdated, agrarian standard of "spare the rod and spoil the child" and "break his will" and willfully turning a blind eye and a deaf ear when kids suffer needlessly.

After all, one of the lessons of life is *obedience* to brute force, isn't it? :) Really. Children who grow up forced to tolerate being abused by parents, bullies, jocks, teachers, and other authority figures....they'll *bow their heads* like good little apes, stay on the plantation, and *obey* brute force as adults when managers, CEOs, suits, policemen, politicians, and religious zealots browbeat them as well, right...?

Nice theory. :) It did get civilization off to a start. I'll grant you that. But that was over 5000 years ago. And these days, the stakes are higher, so much higher that we literally *cannot* afford to let one *single life* go to waste from the pain and madness that being *the dog that gets beat* brings in life. To a HUMAN life. Letting kids suffer like that *now* in the 21st century leads to school shootings, kids being talked into becoming suicide bombers, the continued existence of prostitution and slave trades....

It leads to whole generations not only being *lost* to society, but also to becoming *enemies* of society. And don't we *have* enough enemies, enough perpretrators of abuse on a societal level, as it is?

Just saying, sorry to get sidetracked. Just my nickel.

Answer 2

When u used the term memory it's self explanatory memories are past experiences or events which took place and they r not just made up by our mind coz if u had made up some fake story in ur past it wud b just remembered too clearly or totally erased from the memory bank coz it was a fictitious part created by u.

When u say repressed it means that u have tried hard to forget these events in ur past that affected u somehow and when suddenly u think bout it it's very hazy and thus u think it must not b real but infact it is real all u have to do to recollect it to think bout that situation giving it some time or by asking the people who were present at the time too for eg. if in this event ur memory has some witnesses say ur mother in it or ur brother or sister or friends u may just try to ask them and c wat they have to say and gradually u will realise things did happen only thing was with time they got away and now u think they have taken a repressed form.

Memories are real only fiction isn't. When u make up something it catagorises into fiction mode.

Answer 3

The actual repressed memory must be true, because in the act of storing and retrieving the memory, there is (hopefully) no way the memory could be changed.

Elaboration may be the process you refer to, but this occurs after the memory is retrieved. Many people have been tested with polygraph equipment and seem to truly believe things they have been coached to "remember." This has been proven even in cases where there is no possible way the events "remembered" could have possibly occurred.

Answer 4

Maybe they are. A lot of the time they are repressed when the
person is very young and the trauma of it is too much to bear.

So it could be like any memory, the longer back it goes the hazier it is to see when you finally remember it.

Answer 5

I believe they they are false memories, not repressed. But, these false memories may be real for the subject. The subject is debated. Research Elisabeth Loftus at Stanford Univerity, California.

Answer 6

This is a very controversial question, and a tough one to answer. Wikipedia has a good section about the real/fake discussion...

Answer 7

My mom had aims for years of a monster crawling into her mattress till now she asked her sisters approximately it. seems that their dad could sexually attack the oldest sister. whilst she finally all started speaking lower back at 13, he went after my mom and her next youthful sister in mattress (they shared) whilst they have been asleep. the actual monster become my grandfather... specific, they are actual. yet confirm that, in case you notice a therapist, s/he would not attempt digging TOO perplexing. It has occurred that they dig so deep that they start to make you think of issues might have occurred that on no account did. various circumstances, those repressed ideas resurface once you come back to the area that they occured after an prolonged absence, or in case you finally end up in a topic close to comparable to that interior the ideas. My mom first remembered those issues approximately her dad whilst my father labored late for each week. He snuck into mattress once you have domicile at 2 am one evening and my mom got here unglued.

Answer 8

I think its entirely possible for someone to go through something so terrible that they block it from their memory. Why would you want to remember something so obviously devastating?