Repressed Memories: Debunking Myths and Exploring Reality in Psychology

This is an assertion that has given rise to one of the most spirited debates as far as modern psychology is concerned and has caused a split among psychologists. The 1990s is considered by psychology professionals to have been the culmination of interest in repressed memories. The controversial recovered memory debate nearly reached its clamorous height in 1995. More people recovered child sex abuse (CSA) memories mainly through therapy, memories that resulted in criminal proceedings (Loftus, 1994; Loftus & Ketcham, 1994) and, in some instances, even prosecutions. For students grappling with these complex issues, seeking psychology dissertation help can provide the most valuable insights and support. Whereas some scholars believed in the repression of memory only to recover it later on through therapy, others such as (Loftus, 1993; McHugh, 2003; Paris, 2012; Barden, 2016) questioned the validity of the concept and whether those recovered memories should be unreservedly accepted as the true representation of past occurrences. Those who were skeptical of the concept argued that these might be false memories unintentionally implanted by the therapists themselves. Most researchers today largely accept that memory may not always be a precise copy of the past but are more often put together to form believable narratives (that may not be entirely accurate) following beliefs, intuitions, memory fragments, and guesses.

The memory wars debate (Travis, 2019) is critical to the general population, judges, therapists, and academicians owing to its grave political, social, and personal ramifications. This paper will review the belief of various people about memory (its permanence, whether it is possible to repress and recover repressed memory accurately). Further, the paper will present converging experimental evidence from multiple sources showing that it may not be prudent to wholly or unreservedly rely on the accuracy of recovered memory. To do this, the paper will also distinguish a number terms, some of which are always confused, such as false memory, repression, amnesia, recovered memory, and trauma.

False memories

Proponents of both sides have, however, come to agree with the view that what may seem to be newly regained (recovered) memories of previous traumatic events may be accurate or inaccurate and can neither be confirmed nor disconfirmed. Through false memory, a person will recall something that did not occur, or they will remember it in a way that is different from how it took place. The study ‘Lost in the Mall’ (Loftus and Pickrell, 1995) after its publication showed that it was possible, with a little encouragement, for people to report rare occurrences- such as spilling a punchbowl in a wedding (Hyman et al., 1995) or putting slime in a teacher’s desk (Lindsay et al., 2004).

The Lost in the mall and other studies show that planting an occurrence is possible and even made easier if a person believes in the physical likelihood of an event and its possibility to happen ((Pezdek et al., in press; Scoboria et al., 2004). Studies by different authors and scholars (Laurence & Perry, 1983; Hyman, Husband, & Billings, 1995; Patihis & Younes Burton, 2015) show that it is possible for an event, even the most traumatic, to be implanted into one’s memory.

Other scholars have also argued that repressed memories recovered through therapy may be false memories, rather than a factual or true occurrence of events (Lindsay & Read, 1995; Loftus & Davis, 2006). Different people are likely to be affected by false memories in different ways (Patihis, 2018). People with dissociative tendencies are more susceptible to distortion of memory, leading to false memories, during experiments (Ost et al., 2005; Wright & Livingston-Raper, 2001). Other researchers, however, have associated dissociative tendencies with experiences of abuse in the past (Brown et al., 1998).

Repression

The main idea behind the concept is the use of unconscious or automatic repression as a defence mechanism to no longer remember or be aware of an experience (Loftus, 1993; McNally, 2005; Piper, Lillevik, & Kritzer, 2008)- as a way of coping with very traumatic events. A review of experimental tests conducted over sixty years showed no evidence proposing repression (Roy-Byrne, 2019). While unwillingness to disclose has been listed as the major reason and explanation for why people fail to report important occurrences, a lack of memory was also cited as another possible explanation (McNally, 2003). It has been historically hard to define repression, and this has resulted in its criticism as a concept and the evidence it proposes (Roy-Byrne, 2019).

Dissociation (dissociative amnesia) has suggested the conscious or unconscious repression of memories, whereby people dissociate themselves from previous traumatic events as a way of coping (Brown et al., 1998). Repression has been found to exert a high physical and mental pressure that presents a wide range of symptoms- such as mutism and amnesia. That has resulted in the body-keeps-score hypothesis that suggests that the trauma may be organized perceptually or implicitly such that it does not give a representation of what occurred (van der Kolk and Fisler, 1995, p. 512). Therapists believe that the goal of therapy to make these implicit (repressed) memories explicit and to make conscious the unconscious (Yapko, 1994a). To achieve this goal, therapists used suggestive and leading methods in instances where patients did not recollect traumatic events or when the patients presented symptoms like anxiety and personality disorders, which they linked to repressed abuse memories, to uncover the supposed repressed memories seemingly.

However, research studies at the time pointed to the detrimental effects of hypnosis, repeatedly cueing memories, guided imagery, interpretation of dreams, and other suggestion techniques on the recollection of forgotten autobiographical memories (Loftus, 1994; Loftus & Ketcham, 1994). The credibility of recovered memories has also been questioned by scholars who posit that, as a result of therapy, a person may reinterpret an autobiographical occurrence and reinforce it as a memory of abuse (McNally, 2012). While a person may not have found an event traumatic initially, they could later reevaluate it as such (Mann and Naugle, 2019).

This meta-awareness puts the credibility of a recovered memory into question; since it views this as a reinterpretation of a memory that the individual possessed and could access all along, not a reappearance of suppressed memory. Some researchers note that repressed memories of trauma and their subsequent recovery are hard to reconcile since a large body of works has shown that critical aspects of a traumatic event are likely to be well remembered (McNally, 2005). Trauma victims were very unlikely to completely lose memories of those events (Wagenaar & Groeneweg, 1990; Merckelbach, Dekkers, Wessel, & Roefs, 2003; Goodman et al., 2003). Repression and recovered memory concept also go against well-modeled human memory principles, key among them being the good recollection of repeated events.

Many purportedly recovered child sexual abuse memories are more often than not repetitive abuse experiences. Repetitive abuse experiences are difficult to forget (repress) as in the example of people who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who often get memories and flashbacks of their traumatic events.

The concept of recovered memory as a facet of common human memory, as evidenced by Brewin and Andrews (2017), means that an individual may use a retrieval cue to forget and recover memories, thereby challenging the repression concept. McNally & Geraerts (2009) have also argued that to entirely repress a graphic or well-detailed memory only to recollect it many years on in life or through therapy is a far cry from the recovered memory phenomenon. This knowledge of human memory and traumatic events makes the recovery of supposedly repressed and long-forgotten trauma memories less plausible as it raises questions as to whether there exists some evidence to corroborate these memories independently.

The issue of evidence and independent corroboration of recovered memories, which entirely depends on the victim’s corroboration, further complicates their unreserved acceptance (Gomez-ariza et al., 2019). This credibility is further put into doubt as previous researches that sought even the slightest independent corroboration indicated that it was possible to corroborate recalled continuous child sexual abuse memories without therapy than it was for patchy/ intermittent memories purportedly recovered through therapy (Geraerts et al., 2007; McNally, Perlman, Ristuccia, & Clancy, 2006).

Dissociative Amnesia

Although repressed memory concept was majorly believed in by numerous psychologists, the controversy surrounding the term repression saw its proponents drop it in favor of ‘dissociative amnesia.’ It is imagined that dissociative amnesia is more acceptable and is now preferred and used more frequently. For example, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -DSM–5- (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) has used this term over 70 times, and never repressed memory or repression in any of its editions.

Some studies on patients who claimed to have dissociative amnesia have lent credence to the validity of the construction of dissociative amnesia. Roy-Byrne (2019), however, argues that dissociative amnesia is simply a different word for repression. That is because dissociating oneself from an event (no longer being aware of it) means the person has repressed it. The American Psychiatric Association (2013, p. 298) defines dissociative amnesia as the inability to remember autobiographical events or information that is traumatic or stressful, but which has the chance of being reversed since the memory has been stored successfully.

It also lists several features and lays out three types of dissociative amnesia (p. 298):

Localized dissociative amnesia, which DSM-5 terms the most common due to its resemblance of repressed memory, involves memory loss for a circumscribed or restricted period such as months or years of abuse. This type may be wider than single trauma or event amnesia.

Selective dissociative amnesia involves the recalling of parts of, but not all, the events of a certain period.

Generalized dissociative amnesia, which it terms rare, involves completely losing the memory of one’s entire life.

Although some sections believe in the ostensible validity of dissociated amnesia as a concept, it remains as scientifically fraught as repressed memory. The credibility of memories recovered in cases identified as dissociative amnesia, however, has also been put to doubt because dissociative amnesia symptoms may present themselves in ways other than trauma. For example, after the administration of ketamine (Simeon, 2004) or the use of marijuana, ecstasy, and cocaine (van Heugten-van der Kloet et al., 2015). Some authors have tried to use the principles of human memory to explain dissociative amnesia, for example, McNally (2003), when commenting on two youngsters who showed cases of dissociative amnesia after witnessing a lightning strike. She proposed that the brain injuries they must have sustained during that event may have contributed to them having no memory of it. Harrison et al. (2017), however, when documenting cases of psychogenic amnesia, was unable to conclude if the traumatic nature of an event resulted in memory problems or if the recovered memories had been inaccessible Patihis, Otgaar, & Merckelbach, 2019). Just as in repression, it is difficult to prove that the memory existed but was inaccessible and whether it is the trauma from the event that made it inaccessible. A look at the definition of dissociative amnesia as advanced by DSM-5 and of repressed memory as given by its skeptics (Loftus, 1993; Roy-Byrne, 2019) shows some similarities. Both concepts show the notion of a traumatic occurrence being stored, the event inaccessible due to trauma, and the memory can (possibly) be recovered still intact at a later period. Critics contend that, as a result of these parallels, dissociative amnesia should be approached with skepticism equal to that which repressed memory is approached.

Conclusion

Although each quarter would want to hold their belief or skepticism regarding the side of the memory wars o which they stand, the evidence pointing to the limitations and broader implications of recovered memories based on their accuracy or reliability must be taken into account.

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