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The problem is not that memories can't be repressed. There's plenty of research demonstrating repression does exist as a defence mechanism. The problem is that

by dbspin 1y ago

The problem is not that memories can't be repressed. There's plenty of research demonstrating repression does exist as a defence mechanism. The problem is that even highly evocative memories can also relatively easily be falsified, or modified through elicitation and reframing. Since there's no neurological stenographer, there is no mechanism even in principle to identify the difference between the two. With potential consequences like the satanic panic of recovered and elicited memories of sexual abuse. That's what Elizabeth Loftus and others have shown, and shown so thoroughly that eye witness testimony should never be trusted.

saltcured 1y ago
As a counterpoint to this, I am replying here because I can't make myself write a polite response to the GPP. Yes, witness testimony is always potentially flawed. But knowing "some repressed memory recovery is false" does not justify saying that repressed memories are not a real thing. Repressed memories do happen. They do come back sometimes. When they do, they are just as valid as any normal memory that a person thinks they always had. I know because I had them myself. Mine were of trauma in the age range from 5-9. I had a high "ACE score" when I eventually looked into this. I did not have any therapy session prompting the recall, I just remembered them spontaneously around age 15 when I was empathizing with a schoolmate who told me about domestic violence. It was a sickening feeling to have this whole phase of my past come unlocked. Amazingly, it submerged into repression again. I next remembered it at about age 20. In between, I had years of basically not remembering/knowing that I had any of this trauma or that I had experience the earlier recall. They all came back together, again triggered by an empathetic moment in college. Again it was disorienting to have this whole aspect of my past reopen. At that later point, I confronted people who were around my childhood and got enough of a painful discussion, confession, and apology to know that these memories were not invented. I had other forms of childhood trauma that never submerged. I don't know why this one section did. I find it very offensive for someone to make broad statements that these phenomena do not exist.
- eiginn 1y ago
  This mirrors my experience as well of multiple instances over my life of repressing childhood trauma and some event or conversation suddenly bringing it back to the surface.
  - jimmaswell 1y ago
    Not to minimize your experience or anything like that, I'm just thinking out loud: What's typically the delineation between repressed and "not on the mind at the moment"? We naturally "forget" things all the time because there's no need for them to be in our current context window, e.g. I can't recite every coffee shop I've been to, but maybe if you start talking about a coffee shop with uncomfortable seats, I'll remember the one I went to with uncomfortable seats. Not a comparable experience in general of course, but one wouldn't say I repressed the coffee shop. Is it more like if I started at "uncomfortable coffee shop", nothing came to mind, but then I later remembered only after smelling some special flavor of coffee beans they had had?
    - mrsvanwinkle 1y ago
      I can objectively say your reply minimizes the previous two posts who shared childhood traumas by the objective fact that you are implying (if they are not able to satisfy your Scientific Endeavor) that, if there is no delineation, then their repression of childhood trauma is equivalent and minimized or perhaps exalted if coffee is your religion to the repression of your religious experience of this coffee shop. If you were perhaps a child victim in this coffee shop maybe? You literally erased the trauma part. That is the delineation if you still need to think about this out loud
    - saltcured 1y ago
      A repressed memory and its associated knowledge and entailment is "not there" until triggered properly. To the extent that our autobiographical memories construct our sense of identity, repressed memories have been censored from ourselves. And, I think it is censored for a purpose, not because it was one too many bits of trivia to keep in ready memory. I think it is a coping mechanism like very deep and targeted denial or dissociation. When such memories come back, it can be like a mini identity crisis. You suddenly know things that are counter to your self-identity from the moment before. Once I was able to absorb the whole picture and not recoil back into repression, it became a permanent and unpleasant part of my self. . There can be flashbacks of related events, some of which I also might feel are remembered for the first time in a long time. Those little flashbacks might be like remembering your specific uncomfortable cafe. The overall memory recovery is like suddenly realizing I spent years in a theater of war, that happened to have such cafes in it.
blauditore 1y ago
Repressed memory due to trauma is "scientifically discredited" nowadays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory

by dbspin 1y ago

saltcured 1y ago

As a counterpoint to this, I am replying here because I can't make myself write a polite response to the GPP. Yes, witness testimony is always potentially flawed. But knowing "some repressed memory recovery is false" does not justify saying that repressed memories are not a real thing. Repressed memories do happen. They do come back sometimes. When they do, they are just as valid as any normal memory that a person thinks they always had. I know because I had them myself. Mine were of trauma in the age range from 5-9. I had a high "ACE score" when I eventually looked into this. I did not have any therapy session prompting the recall, I just remembered them spontaneously around age 15 when I was empathizing with a schoolmate who told me about domestic violence. It was a sickening feeling to have this whole phase of my past come unlocked. Amazingly, it submerged into repression again. I next remembered it at about age 20. In between, I had years of basically not remembering/knowing that I had any of this trauma or that I had experience the earlier recall. They all came back together, again triggered by an empathetic moment in college. Again it was disorienting to have this whole aspect of my past reopen. At that later point, I confronted people who were around my childhood and got enough of a painful discussion, confession, and apology to know that these memories were not invented. I had other forms of childhood trauma that never submerged. I don't know why this one section did. I find it very offensive for someone to make broad statements that these phenomena do not exist.

eiginn 1y ago
This mirrors my experience as well of multiple instances over my life of repressing childhood trauma and some event or conversation suddenly bringing it back to the surface.
- jimmaswell 1y ago
  Not to minimize your experience or anything like that, I'm just thinking out loud: What's typically the delineation between repressed and "not on the mind at the moment"? We naturally "forget" things all the time because there's no need for them to be in our current context window, e.g. I can't recite every coffee shop I've been to, but maybe if you start talking about a coffee shop with uncomfortable seats, I'll remember the one I went to with uncomfortable seats. Not a comparable experience in general of course, but one wouldn't say I repressed the coffee shop. Is it more like if I started at "uncomfortable coffee shop", nothing came to mind, but then I later remembered only after smelling some special flavor of coffee beans they had had?
  - mrsvanwinkle 1y ago
    I can objectively say your reply minimizes the previous two posts who shared childhood traumas by the objective fact that you are implying (if they are not able to satisfy your Scientific Endeavor) that, if there is no delineation, then their repression of childhood trauma is equivalent and minimized or perhaps exalted if coffee is your religion to the repression of your religious experience of this coffee shop. If you were perhaps a child victim in this coffee shop maybe? You literally erased the trauma part. That is the delineation if you still need to think about this out loud
  - saltcured 1y ago
    A repressed memory and its associated knowledge and entailment is "not there" until triggered properly. To the extent that our autobiographical memories construct our sense of identity, repressed memories have been censored from ourselves. And, I think it is censored for a purpose, not because it was one too many bits of trivia to keep in ready memory. I think it is a coping mechanism like very deep and targeted denial or dissociation. When such memories come back, it can be like a mini identity crisis. You suddenly know things that are counter to your self-identity from the moment before. Once I was able to absorb the whole picture and not recoil back into repression, it became a permanent and unpleasant part of my self. . There can be flashbacks of related events, some of which I also might feel are remembered for the first time in a long time. Those little flashbacks might be like remembering your specific uncomfortable cafe. The overall memory recovery is like suddenly realizing I spent years in a theater of war, that happened to have such cafes in it.

blauditore 1y ago

Repressed memory due to trauma is "scientifically discredited" nowadays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory