Repressed Memories

Buried memories of sexual abuse can have a devastating impact on a victim's relationships, work, and health. Using case histories, Renee Fredrickson stresses the importance of recovering these memories as a crucial step in healing, and she explains various therapeutic processes used in memory retrieval.

Maintains that there is no controlled scientific evidence that memories of trauma may be "recovered" years later.

This book explores every aspect of repressed trauma and false allegations of abuse.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the concept of repressed memories. It provides a history and context that documents key events that have had an effect on the way that modern psychology and psychotherapy have developed. Chapters provide an overview of how human memory functions and works and examine facets of the misguided theories behind repressed memory. The book also examines the science of the brain, the reconstructive nature of human memory, and studies of suggestibility. It traces the present-day resurgence of a belief in repressed memories in the general public as well as among many clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, “body workers,” and others who offer counseling. It concludes with legal and professional recommendations and advice for individuals who deal with or have dealt with the psychotherapeutic practice of repressed memory therapy. Topics featured in this text include: The modern diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (once called MPD) The “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and its relation to repressed memory therapy. The McMartin Preschool Case and the “Day Care Sex Panic.” A historical overview from the Great Witch Craze to Sigmund Freud’s theories, spanning the 16th to 19th centuries. An exploration of the cultural context that produced the repressed memory epidemic of the 1990s. The repressed memory movement as a religious sect or cult. The Repressed Memory Epidemic will be of interest to researchers and clinicians as well as undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of psychology, sociology, cultural studies, religion, and anthropology.

Beginning in the 1990s, the contentious “memory wars” divided psychologists into two schools of thought: that adults’ recovered memories of childhood abuse were generally true, or that they were generally not, calling theories, therapies, professional ethics, and survivor credibility into question. More recently, findings from cognitive psychology and neuroimaging as well as new theoretical constructs are bringing balance, if not reconciliation, to this polarizing debate. Based on presentations at the 2010 Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, True and False Recovered Memories: Toward a Reconciliation of the Debate assembles an expert panel of scholars, professors, and clinicians to update and expand research and knowledge about the complex interaction of cognitive, emotional, and motivational factors involved in remembering—and forgetting—severe childhood trauma. Contrasting viewpoints, elaborations on existing ideas, challenges to accepted models, and intriguing experimental data shed light on such issues as the intricacies of identity construction in memory, post-trauma brain development, and the role of suggestive therapeutic techniques in creating false memories. Taken together, these papers add significant new dimensions to a rapidly evolving field. Featured in the coverage: The cognitive neuroscience of true and false memories. Toward a cognitive-neurobiological model of motivated forgetting. The search for repressed memory. A theoretical framework for understanding recovered memory experiences. Cognitive underpinnings of recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Motivated forgetting and misremembering: perspectives from betrayal trauma theory. Clinical and cognitive psychologists on all sides of the debate will welcome True and False Recovered Memories as a trustworthy reference, an impartial guide to ongoing controversies, and a springboard for future inquiry.

This book covers repressed memories.

The question of whether memories can be lost, particularly as a result of trauma, and then "recovered" through psychotherapy has polarised the field of memory research. This is the first volume to bring together leading memory researchers and clinicians with the aiming of facilitating aresolution to this question. The volume offers a unique and timely summary of the theories of memory recovery, and how false memories may be created. Some of the first research relating to the phenomenal characteristics of memory recovered is reported in detail, suggesting important avenues fornew research. Theories of autobiographical memory, implicit memory, reminiscence, and the effects of repeated recall on memory are included. Recovered memories and false memories provides the most current and authoritative thinking in this area, and will be an essential sourcebook for memoryresearchers and psychotherapists.

Synthesising clinical case reports and the research literature on the effects of stress, suggestion and trauma on memory, Richard McNally arrives at significant conclusions, first and foremost that traumatic experiences are indeed unforgettable.