
Research finds repressed memories don't exist - jaybol
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/06/3003364.htm?section=world
======
dejb
> says the memory usually works in the opposite way, with traumatised people
> reliving experiences they would rather forget.

I don't see how this contradicts the notion that there could be people who
would repress memories. If anything it seems to suggest that repression would
be a successful strategy if it could be managed. By their argument there could
be a substantial population or 'successful repressers' that never seek therapy
and could resist all efforts to stimulate memory of repressed events. It would
only be the population of 'unsuccessful repressers' that they would ever get
to see. That could, of course, then be further confused by a population of
people who, for whatever reason, experience faked memories.

~~~
rimantas

      If anything it seems to suggest that repression would be a
      successful strategy if it could be managed.
    

Eveolutionary memory repression would be a bit like feeling no pain: increased
risk to get hurt again.

~~~
Groxx
That argument can go both ways. If the pain of the memory is causing you to be
hurt more, then repressing it is to your benefit.

Given what depression does to people, based on that argument alone, I'd say
evolution _strongly_ favors repression of any rare trauma.

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hackerr
Interesting observation. Though it demands what exactly is considered
repression and the degree to which it is done. Person's memories are malleable
over the time. A memory of an event 10 years back _will_ be modified over the
course of 10 years based on other events during that period. Rashomon Effect
is not just among people or in a society, it also applies to a person and his
internal loop. Also - correct me if I am wrong here - degree of repression if
any also depends on the age (and thus mental setup of the person then) of
person involved. There may be memories of trauma a 4 year old may have endured
and long forgotten by his conscious mind but may surface in the form of
unnatural phobias/fears. But as mentioned before, it is not hard for someone
to plant an idea into someone else's mind or tamper with his/her memory and
inject false ideas, particularly in a patient-doctor relationship.

Conclusion: Basing legal judgements or decisions purely on a person's memory
is wrong. Our insight into memory is not deep enough to be making such
decisions. Diagnosing a person who may be experiencing depression/fears purely
based on his own memories sounds absurd.

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shashmundar
Article headline is misleading, but so are the comments on here.

Repressed memories, by definition, are memories that you block. As the article
states, the research showed it's simple to overcome so-called "repressed
memories" and therefore the traumas associated with them.

The solution assumes that all people block the memories, because of their
adult-perspective on the events and what that event means to them now that
they're adults.

I think we should take away one thing and one thing only: Majority of the
population can be coerced into changing how they perceive a situation,
depending on how it's explained to them.

Exxageration--

DR: Oh Sally, you're saying that because you were raped as a little girl,
that's why you sleep around so much? Well, you're an adult now. What happened
when you were little no longer matters. What matters is how you respond to
what happened to you.

Sally: Oh. That's a good way of putting it, doc.

------
MLnick
I wonder what results a study into the differences in brain function (eg fMRI
scans etc) between recalling normal memories and "fake" memories, perhaps
using machine learning, might turn up? I wonder if such techniques could
distinguish between real memories and fake repressed memories...

They've had success with "mind reading" already
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-
mechani...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-mechanics-of-
mind-reading)

~~~
btilly
I'm pretty sure that there is no actual difference. Reconstruction is how
memories work. To find the difference you have to look at the content of the
memories.

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jamesbkel
If anyone's interested in another analysis of the problem of repressed memory
(particularly in legal context) I would recommend checking out some of Robyn
Dawes' work.

This is a good starting point:
[http://books.google.com/books?id=LvbnRn78ywsC&lpg=PP1...](http://books.google.com/books?id=LvbnRn78ywsC&lpg=PP1&ots=c38PMvzFVj&dq=robyn%20dawes&pg=PA157#v=onepage&q&f=false)

~~~
billswift
Even better is Elizabeth Loftus's _Myth of Repressed Memory_ from the late
1990s ([http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Repressed-Memory-Memories-
Allegat...](http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Repressed-Memory-Memories-
Allegations/dp/0312141238/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283787919&sr=8-1)).
Loftus specializes in memory research and has been an expert witness, _Witness
for the Defense_ [http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Defense-Accused-Eyewitness-
Exp...](http://www.amazon.com/Witness-Defense-Accused-Eyewitness-
Expert/dp/0312084552/ref=pd_sim_b_1) about legal cases she was involved in and
_Eyewitness Testimony_ [http://www.amazon.com/Eyewitness-Testimony-new-
preface-autho...](http://www.amazon.com/Eyewitness-Testimony-new-preface-
author/dp/0674287770/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c) which was originally written in
1980.

------
c00p3r
What a shitty headline and article itself.

The much better idea to consider is that people are re-creating (re-
constructing) their traumatic memories again and again, unable (or unwilling
in some part) to let them go. So, what they get is a recollection stored on
top of recollection and so on. When we re-construct the memory we re-create it
and then store (alter) the result.

I think I can remember my own childhood traumas (I had many) but what I
actually can fetch from my memory is the reconstruction I used to have.

The cognitive therapy is working exactly because I can alter (re-frame) my
memories, by reconstructing them, altering them and storing back. In
particular I can reduce the intensity of the emotional "color" attached to my
reconstruction. I had such and such crap. Ok, no problem. It's done and it's
gone.

In Buddhist terms it sound as "the karma is already applied" - your past
personality was already changed by those events, but since then you got a lot
of another changes. Actually, any thought alters you, and that is why Buddhist
people says that thought and deeds are the same. Your thought actually is a
your deed.

~~~
Symmetry
I'm not sure that anything you're saying there contradicts what was in the
article (or the headline), though thank you for detailing what the article
calls just "new therapies that work".

The article seems to have been written in the context of the numerous people
who have been sent to jail solely on the testimony of people who thought they
had repressed memories which psychotherapists were able to recover. See
wikipedia: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse>

