Repressed Memory - Research

Research

Some research indicates that memories of child sexual abuse and other traumatic incidents may be forgotten. Evidence of the spontaneous recovery of traumatic memories has been shown, and recovered memories of traumatic childhood abuse have been corroborated.

Van der Kolk and Fisler's research shows that traumatic memories are retrieved, at least at first, in the form of mental imprints that are dissociated. These imprints are of the affective and sensory elements of the traumatic experience. Clients have reported the slow emergence of a personal narrative that can be considered explicit (conscious) memory. The level of emotional significance of a memory correlates directly with the memory's veracity. Studies of subjective reports of memory show that memories of highly significant events are unusually accurate and stable over time. The imprints of traumatic experiences appear to be qualitatively different from those of nontraumatic events. Traumatic memories may be coded differently than ordinary event memories, possibly because of alterations in attentional focusing or the fact that extreme emotional arousal interferes with the memory functions of the hippocampus.

Although research on repressed memory is limited, a few studies have suggested that memories of trauma that are forgotten and later recalled have a similar accuracy rate as trauma memories that had not been forgotten.

One prominent proponent of the theory of repressed memory, and the usage of repressed memory in legal actions brought against alleged abusers, is Lenore Terr, a controversial California psychiatrist who championed the notion that repressed memories can be suddenly resurrected by victims of abuse (such as childhood physical or sexual abuse) through exposure to visual or auditory stimuli. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenged Terr's theory, when applied to legal actions and remedies, as unreliable and inconsistent, and ultimately denied the admissibility of repressed memory as evidence in a judicial proceeding (Franklin v. Duncan, 1995).

There has also been significant questioning of the reality of repressed memories. There is considerable evidence that rather than being pushed out of consciousness, the difficulty with traumatic memories for most people are their intrusiveness and inability to forget. One case that is held up as definitive proof of the reality of repressed memories, recorded by David Corwin has been criticized by Elizabeth Loftus and Melvin Guyer for ignoring the context of the original complaint and falsely presenting the sexual abuse as unequivocal and true when in reality there was no definitive proof.

Psychologists Elizabeth Loftus and Katherine Ketcham are authors of the seminal work on the fallacy of repressed memory, The Myth of Repressed Memory (St. Martin's Press, 1994).

For years Loftus was criticized and marginalized by her colleagues in psychology and psychiatry for her criticism and skepticism of repressed memory. In recent years her research is regarded as the most responsible approach to the controversy of repressed memory.