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Research Finds Repressed Memories Don't Exist
ABC ^ | Karen Berkman

Posted on 09/20/2010 11:39:03 PM PDT by nickcarraway

The idea that traumatised people, especially the victims of child sexual abuse, deliberately repress horrific memories goes all the way back to the 19th century and the theories of Sigmund Freud himself.

But now some experts are saying the evidence points the other way.

Professor Grant Devilly, from Griffith University's Psychological Health research unit, says the memory usually works in the opposite way, with traumatised people reliving experiences they would rather forget.

"It's the opposite. They wish they couldn't think about it," he said.

In a briefing to the US Supreme Court, Professor Richard McNally from Harvard University described the theory of repressed memory as "the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry".

He maintains false memories can easily be created by inept therapists.

"The stress hormones that are released during a trauma tend to consolidate the memory, make it rather strong and sometimes even intrusive, as you see in post-traumatic stress disorder," he said.

But Professor McNally says some abuse victims do suffer when they reassess childhood experiences much later.

"Seeing the event through the eyes of adult, they realise what has happened to them and now they experience the emotional turmoil of trauma," he said.

The good news is that now, Professor McNally says most victims can be helped.

"Things have changed, happily. We now have treatments that work," he said.

Soldiers returning from war zones, victims of violent crime and sexual abuse, can now be helped by cognitive behaviour therapy, where they learn to assign terrible memories to the past, instead of them crowding their present and future.

Professor Devilly says the therapy is working.

"We're now getting, at the end of between 8 and 12 sessions, 90 to 92 per cent of people no longer meet the criteria for PTSD," he said.

Now psychologists are working to fend off post traumatic stress in high-risk occupations, by teaching recruits to develop resilience.


TOPICS: Education; Health/Medicine; Miscellaneous
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To: UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide

Very!


21 posted on 09/21/2010 3:55:10 AM PDT by Islander7 (If you want to anger conservatives, lie to them. If you want to anger liberals, tell them the truth.)
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To: Razzz42
Like you can recall/see the event but not feel the emotion

Don't get me wrong, there was a painful catharsis. The key to recovery of the visual memory was operating from body sensations, not thoughts.

22 posted on 09/21/2010 4:24:18 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The fourth estate IS the fifth column.)
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To: skr
I’m so sorry. May God bless you and the other victims.

It has been a blessing of understanding with which to both empathize and self-discipline. That is the grace that comes with having forgiven the perp.

23 posted on 09/21/2010 4:26:11 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The fourth estate IS the fifth column.)
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To: LukeL

“So you mean there is no chance of me forgetting the past two years?”

Don’t know..

Did you take the blue pill, or the red pill?


24 posted on 09/21/2010 4:52:15 AM PDT by Bigh4u2 (Denial is the first requirement to be a liberal)
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To: nickcarraway

DUH - now can we get pardons and apologies to the Fells Acres folks who had their lives destroyed by the total BS witchhunt of “scary clowns with knives” and other repressed memory BS testimony forced out of children?

What about the witchhunt in Washington State that destroyed families?


25 posted on 09/21/2010 5:28:54 AM PDT by Buckeye Battle Cry (Conservatives want a CHOICE not an echo - No more RINOs!)
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To: Buckeye Battle Cry

And let’s not forget, it was liberal Martha Coakley who fought to keep the Fell’s Acres Amiraults in prison. Thank heavens Scott Brown (with all his problems) beat her in that senate race.


26 posted on 09/21/2010 5:35:21 AM PDT by ladyjane
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To: nickcarraway; decimon; neverdem; Coleus

This joker (I cleaned that up) has no idea what he’s talking about.

Neither do those “no such thing as hypnosis” jackasses.

For that matter, neither do those who attribute Multiple Personality Disorder symptoms to demonic possession.

Thanks nickcarraway.


27 posted on 09/21/2010 3:59:43 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Democratic Underground... matters are worse, as their latest fund drive has come up short...)
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To: SunkenCiv

That’s just your repressed neanderthal speaking.


28 posted on 09/21/2010 4:13:20 PM PDT by decimon
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To: ransomnote
I have long doubted the Repressed Memory theory, but I too believe there are memories which can lay dormant for decades, wreaking havoc on the psyche, while the person is totally unaware of the underlying cause. My suspicion is that anything that happens to a child before he can articulate that experience verbally will be remembered, if at all, as nothing but a blur of impressions and feelings. The mind creates concepts and language to represent those concepts, so that they can be stored for future use, referenced, and communicated to other minds. An experience that has no corresponding stored "file" can not be retrieved. Any attempt to do so will unfortunately be inconclusive.

This is not to say that therapy can't help, though.

29 posted on 09/21/2010 4:56:08 PM PDT by giotto
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To: decimon

;’)


30 posted on 09/21/2010 8:00:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Democratic Underground... matters are worse, as their latest fund drive has come up short...)
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the two quoted in the excerpt are odd bedfellows:
31 posted on 09/21/2010 8:12:52 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Democratic Underground... matters are worse, as their latest fund drive has come up short...)
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To: DixieOklahoma; reuben barruchstein; theprophetyellszambolamboromo; Alusch; house of cards; ...

.


32 posted on 09/21/2010 9:35:58 PM PDT by Coleus (Abortion, Euthanasia & FOCA - - don't Obama and the Democrats just kill ya!)
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To: nickcarraway; giotto

There’s not nearly enough information in the article to make a conclusion either way. It appears to simply be the opinions of one or two psychologists.

I absolutely believe that false memories could be “planted” by a therapist — well-intentioned or not. But I think giotto’s assessment, esp. in the case of children, is quite likely.


33 posted on 09/22/2010 5:30:27 AM PDT by workerbee (FAIL, BABY, FAIL!)
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