Repressed memory
Repressed memory is a controversial, and largely scientifically discredited, psychiatric phenomenon which involves an inability to recall autobiographical information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature. The concept originated in psychoanalytic theory, where repression is understood as a defense mechanism that excludes painful experiences and unacceptable impulses from consciousness. Repressed memory is presently considered largely unsupported by research. Sigmund Freud initially claimed the memories of historical childhood trauma could be repressed, while unconsciously influencing present behavior and emotional responding; he later revised this belief.
While the concept of repressed memories persisted through much of the 1990s, insufficient support exists to conclude that memories can become inconspicuously hidden in a way that is distinct from forgetting. Historically, some psychoanalysts provided therapy based on the belief that alleged repressed memories could be recovered; however, rather than promoting the recovery of a real repressed memory, such attempts could result in the creation of entirely false memories. Subsequent accusations based on such "recovered memories" led to substantial harm of individuals implicated as perpetrators, sometimes resulting in false convictions and years' incarceration.
Out of lack of evidence for the concept of repressed and recovered memories, mainstream clinical psychologists have stopped using these terms. The clinical psychologist Richard McNally stated: "The notion that traumatic events can be repressed and later recovered is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry. It has provided the theoretical basis for 'recovered memory therapy'—the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era."
History
discussed repressed memory in his 1896 essay, The Aetiology of Hysteria.One of the studies published in his essay involved a young woman referred to as Anna O., who had been treated by Freud's friend and colleague Josef Breuer. Among her many ailments, Anna O. had stiff paralysis on the right side of her body. Freud hypothesized that her symptoms were attached to psychological traumas; the traumatic experiences had been repressed from her conscious mind, but reappeared as physical symptoms. Breuer used hypnosis to treat Anna O. She is reported to have gained slight mobility on her right side.
The concept received renewed interest in the 1970s in relation to child sexual abuse and incest. Coming to be labelled The Recovered Memory Movement and Memory Wars or The Memory War, it became a major issue in pop culture during the 1980s and 1990s, connected to Satanic panic, and spawned a myriad of legal cases, controversies, and media. Michelle Remembers, a discredited book by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his wife/former patient Michelle Smith about Smith's fabricated experiences with repressed memories of childhood Satanic rituals and abuse, gained widespread popularity that persisted after debunking, influenced subsequent claims, and received promotion from media including Oprah, Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jesse Raphael, and 20/20. Starting in the 1980s, repressed memory legal cases increased rapidly. In 1989, a landmark legal case developed when George Franklin was charged and convicted in 1990 for the rape and murder of 8-year-old Susan Kay Nason on September 22, 1969, based on the account of his daughter, Eileen Franklin's recovered memories. Originally sentenced to life imprisonment, a district court judge overturned the conviction in 1995 based on several trial errors including the unreliability of hypnosis that was used. Eileen Franklin would further accuse her father of raping and murdering 18-year-old Veronica Cascio and 17-year-old Paula Baxter. George Franklin was released in July 1996 after prosecutors announced they would not retry him, and in 2018, the DNA evidence linked Rodney Lynn Halbower to the Cascio and Baxter murders. He was convicted of both murders and sentenced to life in prison. In 1991, People magazine featured Marilyn Van Derbur and Roseanne Barr's experiences with childhood abuse and repressed memory. Van Derbur's oldest sister Gwen verified her account, though Barr would later moderate her claims. Such cases and reactions led to the definition of false memory syndrome and establishment of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation in 1992. The Ramona false memory case in 1994 was another landmark case, where father Gary Ramona successfully sued for malpractice against Western Medical Center in Anaheim, its chief of psychiatry Richard Rose, and therapist Marche Isabella, for implanting false memories of child abuse while treating his daughter Holly for depression and bulimia. It was also notable for being brought by a third party not involved in the doctor-patient relationship and contributed to continued evaluation of the phenomenon. Skepticism and criticism of repressed memory continued to mount through the 1990s, 2000s, and beyond, emphasizing unreliability, false claims, and lack of examples in historical records.
Issues
Case studies
Psychiatrist David Corwin has claimed that one of his cases provides evidence for the reality of repressed memories. This case involved a patient who, according to Corwin, had been seriously abused by her mother, had recalled the abuse at age six during therapy with Corwin, then eleven years later was unable to recall the abuse before memories of the abuse returned to her mind again during therapy. An investigation of the case by Elizabeth Loftus and Melvin Guyer, however, raised serious questions about many of the central details of the case as reported by Corwin, including whether or not Jane Doe was abused by her mother at all, suggesting that this may be a case of false memory for childhood abuse with the memory "created" during suggestive therapy at the time that Doe was six. Loftus and Guyer also found evidence that, following her initial "recall" of the abuse during therapy at age six, Doe had talked about the abuse during the eleven years in between the sessions of therapy, indicating that even if abuse had really occurred, memory for the abuse had not been repressed. More generally, in addition to the problem of false memories, this case highlights the critical dependence of repression-claims cases on the ability of individuals to recall whether or not they had previously been able to recall a traumatic event; as McNally has noted, people are notoriously poor at making that kind of judgment.An argument that has been made against the validity of the phenomenon of repressed memories is that there is little discussion in the historical literature prior to the 19th century of phenomena that would qualify as examples of memory repression or dissociative amnesia. In response to Harrison Pope's 2006 claim that no such examples exist, Ross Cheit, a political scientist at Brown University, cited the case of Nina, a 1786 opera by the French composer Nicolas Dalayrac, in which the heroine, having forgotten that she saw her lover apparently killed in a duel, waits for him daily. Pope claims that even this single fictional description does not clearly meet all criteria for evidence of memory repression, as opposed to other phenomena of normal memory.
Despite the claims by proponents of the reality of memory repression that any evidence of the forgetting of a seemingly traumatic event qualifies as evidence of repression, research indicates that memories of child sexual abuse and other traumatic incidents may sometimes be forgotten through normal mechanisms of memory. Evidence of the spontaneous recovery of traumatic memories has been shown, and recovered memories of traumatic childhood abuse have been corroborated; however, forgetting trauma does not necessarily imply that the trauma was repressed. One situation in which the seeming forgetting, and later recovery, of a "traumatic" experience is particularly likely to occur is when the experience was not interpreted as traumatic when it first occurred, but then, later in life, was reinterpreted as an instance of early trauma.
A review by Alan Sheflin and Daniel Brown in 1996 found 25 previous studies of the subject of amnesia of childhood sexual abuse. All 25 "demonstrated amnesia in a subpopulation", including more recent studies with random sampling and prospective designs. On the other hand, in a 1998 editorial in the British Medical Journal Harrison Pope wrote that "on critical examination, the scientific evidence for repression crumbles." He continued, "asking individuals if they 'remember whether they forgot' is of dubious validity. Furthermore, in most retrospective studies corroboration of the traumatic event was either absent or fell below reasonable scientific standards."
A meta-analysis was conducted by McNally in 2005 to disprove misconceptions about repression, trauma, and memory. The analysis found that a significant misunderstanding with repression is that many individuals who have experienced abuse or a traumatic event often fail to recall these events because they don't recognize the events as traumatic or as an instance of abuse. This issue could arise for several reasons, one being a lack of understanding of what abuse entails, particularly in cases where the individual is a child. Because many of these traumatic events occur during childhood, the victim may not have the emotional or cognitive development to process the event as abuse or trauma. In some cases, the person may not have the language or tools to understand that their experience was harmful. Consequently, the individual may not recognize the event as something to be distressed about at the time. This lack of recognition does not mean the event did not occur, but rather that the victim may not realize the event was abuse until later in life. As they mature and gain a better understanding of abusive characteristics or trauma, victims may eventually come to the realization that their past experience was indeed abuse, prompting them to come forward years later to speak out.
Furthermore, research done by Deferme et al. on repressed memories emphasized that another reason individuals who experience abuse or a traumatic event don't report their recollections of abuse is due to social stigma. According to Deferme et al., victims of abuse seldom forget their recollections of a traumatic event completely and they often delay telling others about the event due to shame or fear. They may fear the stigma of being a victim of abuse, whose reports are often denied or criticized, especially if they are accusing a high profile individual. Victims of abuse may also avoid coming forward due to threats from their abuser.