Repressed Memory or Dissociative Amnesia: What the Science Says

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan W. Scheflin ◽  
Daniel Brown
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Random Sampling ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Recovered Memories ◽  
Repressed Memory ◽  
Repressed Memories ◽  
Dissociative Amnesia ◽  
Accepted Standard

Legal actions of alleged abuse victims based on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) have been challenged arguing that the concept of repressed memories does not meet a generally accepted standard of science. A recent review of the scientific literature on amnesia for CSA concluded that the evidence was insufficient. The issues revolve around: (1) the existence of amnesia for CSA, and (2) the accuracy of recovered memories. A total of 25 studies on amnesia for CSA now exist, all of which demonstrate amnesia in a subpopulation; no study failed to find it, including recent studies with design improvements such as random sampling and prospective designs that address weaknesses in earlier studies. A reasonable conclusion is that amnesia for CSA is a robust finding across studies using very different samples and methods of assessment. Studies addressing the accuracy of recovered abuse memories show that recovered memories are no more or no less accurate than continuous memories for abuse.

False memory syndrome vs. total repression

1995 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stan Abrams
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
False Memory ◽  
Mental Health Field ◽  
Recovered Memories ◽  
Repressed Memories ◽  
False Memory Syndrome ◽  
Health Field

A major debate exists within the mental health field regarding the authenticity of recovered repressed memories involving childhood sexual abuse. Since it is difficult to document events that occurred years ago, a study was conducted in which polygraphy was utilized to test alleged child abusers accused on the basis of recovered memories versus those abusers whose purported victims experienced no repression. The former group was found to be deceptive in only 4% of the cases, in contrast to 78% for the latter subjects. These findings strongly argue against the validity of the concept of repression for acts that might have persisted for years.

The illusion of repressed memory

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 515-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
George A. Bonanno
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Clinical Evidence ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Nonverbal Behaviors ◽  
Repressed Memory ◽  
Repressed Memories ◽  
Traumatic Memories

Erdelyi's unified theory includes the idea that traumatic memories can be unconsciously repressed so that they are enduringly inaccessible to deliberate recall. I argue here that clinical evidence for repressed memory is illusory, and illustrate this claim by examining previous studies of putative repressed memories and also recent research on nonverbal behaviors among survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Malpractice & Negligence: State Supreme Courts Limit Therapists’ Duties to Third Parties

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-205
Author(s):  
Megan Cleary
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
State Supreme Courts ◽  
Recovered Memories ◽  
Supreme Courts ◽  
Repressed Memory ◽  
University Of Colorado

In recent years, the law in the area of recovered memories in child sexual abuse cases has developed rapidly. See J.K. Murray, “Repression, Memory & Suggestibility: A Call for Limitations on the Admissibility of Repressed Memory Testimony in Abuse Trials,” University of Colorado Law Review, 66 (1995): 477-522, at 479. Three cases have defined the scope of liability to third parties. The cases, decided within six months of each other, all involved lawsuits by third parties against therapists, based on treatment in which the patients recovered memories of sexual abuse. The New Hampshire Supreme Court, in Hungerford v. Jones, 722 A.2d 478 (N.H. 1998), allowed such a claim to survive, while the supreme courts in Iowa, in J.A.H. v. Wadle & Associates, 589 N.W.2d 256 (Iowa 1999), and California, in Eear v. Sills, 82 Cal. Rptr. 281 (1991), rejected lawsuits brought by nonpatients for professional liability.

How Common Are Repressed Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse?

1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.F. Loftus ◽  
◽  
S. Polonsky ◽  
M.T. Fullilove
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Repressed Memories

Can memories of childhood sexual abuse be repressed?

1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harrison G. Pope ◽  
James I. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Clinical Evidence ◽  
Scientific Interest ◽  
Repressed Memories

SynopsisWe sought studies which have attempted to test whether memories of childhood sexual abuse can be repressed. Despite our broad search criteria, which excluded only unsystematic anecdotal reports, we found only four applicable studies. We then examined these studies to assess whether the investigators: (1) presented confirmatory evidence that abuse had actually occurred; and (2) demonstrated that their subjects had actually developed amnesia for the abuse. None of the four studies provided both clear confirmation of trauma and adequate documentation of amnesia in their subjects. Thus, present clinical evidence is insufficient to permit the conclusion that individuals can repress memories of childhood sexual abuse. This finding is surprising, since many writers have implied that hundreds of thousands, or even millions of persons harbour such repressed memories. In view of the widespread recent public and scientific interest in the areas of trauma and memory, it is important to investigate further whether memories of sexual abuse can be repressed.

Did Freud Mislead Patients to Confabulate Memories of Abuse? A Reply to Gleaves and Hernandez (1999)

2004 ◽  
Vol 95 (3) ◽  
pp. 863-877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell A. Powell ◽  
Douglas P. Boer
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Recovered Memories

Gleaves and Hernandez have argued that skepticism about the validity of Freud's seduction theory, including by Powell and Boer, is largely unjustified. This paper contends that their analysis is in many ways both inaccurate and misleading. For example, we did not, as they implied, reject the possibility that some of Freud's early patients were victims of childhood sexual abuse. We also maintain that the weight of the available evidence indicates that false memories of traumatic events probably can be implanted, and that Freud's (1896/1962a) original evidence for the validity of his patients' recovered memories remains lacking in several respects—particularly in view of the extremely suggestive procedures he often used to elicit such memories.

Forgetting of Trauma Cues in Adults Reporting Continuous or Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse

2005 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 336-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. McNally ◽  
Carel S. Ristuccia ◽  
Carol A. Perlman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Divided Attention ◽  
Adult Survivors ◽  
Memory Deficits ◽  
Recovered Memory ◽  
Recovered Memories ◽  
Betrayal Trauma ◽  
History Of ◽  
Memory Group

According to betrayal trauma theory, adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) who were molested by their caretakers (e.g., a father) are especially likely to dissociate (“repress”) their memories of abuse. Testing college students, some reporting CSA, DePrince and Freyd (2004) found that those scoring high on a dissociation questionnaire exhibited memory deficits for trauma words when they viewed these words under divided-attention conditions. Replicating DePrince and Freyd's procedure, we tested for memory deficits for trauma words relative to neutral words in adults reporting either continuous or recovered memories of CSA versus adults denying a history of CSA. A memory deficit for trauma words under divided attention was expected in the recovered-memory group. Results were inconsistent with this prediction, as all three groups exhibited better recall of trauma words than neutral words, irrespective of encoding conditions.

Suits by adults for childhood sexual abuse: Legal origins of the “repressed memory” controversy

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary R. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
False Memory ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
False Memories ◽  
Repressed Memory ◽  
False Memory Syndrome ◽  
Legal Origins ◽  
Civil Lawsuits

In the last decade there has been a proliferation of civil lawsuits by adults claiming to be survivors of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). Many states have permitted such suits to go forward by applying some form of “delayed discovery of injury” exception to the statute of limitations. Advocates for those claiming to have been falsely accused have generated a new concept—“false memory syndrome”—as an alternative explanation for delayed memories of CSA. Its proponents claim that there is an epidemic of therapy-induced “false memories” of CSA. Psychotherapists and the profession as a whole have become involved in a heated controversy, whose substance as well as intensity is to a large extent litigation driven. To understand the controversy and get a handle on its future, it is important to examine its legal origins, history and context.

Fact or fantasy? A review of recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 99-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael M DelMonte
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Childhood Sexual Abuse ◽  
Research Evidence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Recovered Memories ◽  
The One ◽  
Psychological Defenses

AbstractMore than a century ago Freud provoked a bitter controversy concerning alleged recollections of childhood sexual abuse: Were they fact or fiction? This debate is still ongoing, with some professionals stubbornly holding on to deeply entrenched and polarised positions. On the one side there are those who continue to deny the veracity of all ‘recovered memories’, and thus also of the implicated psychological defenses of repression and dissociation. At the other extreme are those therapists who simplistically assume that particular symptoms invariably imply sexual abuse. Over the decades there is a growing corpus of anecdotal, clinical and, more recently, research evidence supporting the contention that childhood sexual abuse, like all other trauma, can be forgotten for days, and even for many years, before being recalled. However, the reconstruction of these memories is a complex and, at times, a rather fallible process.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document