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Repressed Memory is rejected by mainstream science. The article looks like it has been written by advocates of repressed memory therapy rather than objective editors. For any other subject this wouldn't be bad, but this is frankly dangerous. Editors should step in and do something. 173.76.92.94 ( talk) 20:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Studies done by Steve Porter at UBC have demonstrated that false memories can be suggested to participants who in turn will wager money on them that they are true even though they have been created by the experimenters. As a victim of child sexual abuse I can say that it is highly doubtful one would forget such an event under any circumstances. Also, it is interesting to note that some land mark cases have been about events occuring during a child's first year of life. The problem is that we do not remember the first year of our lives because of childhood amnesia. Letting quack "therapists" hypnotizing hihgly dissosiative individuals and implanting memories has ruined many people's lives. Beleiving in repressed memories is dangerous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.108.31.36 ( talk) 19:10, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
(UTC) Yes, because a contributor to Wikipedia claims to have recovered repressed memories, this means repressed memories are a real phenomenon. 69.158.16.56 ( talk) 05:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I would like to add a few notes to this discussion.
1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia ("Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.") Therefore, subjective opinions - such as those expressed here - about one's mental states are, in a word, irrelevant. Therefore, the following statements bear no weight in discussions about the article: "As a victim of child sexual abuse I can say that it is highly doubtful one would forget such an event under any circumstances." - There is ample (verifiable) evidence that forgetting of child sexual abuse occurs; "I have recovered repressed memories." - Not verifiable.
2. This discussion does not distinguish between recovering a memory (which implies a special mechanism), and suddenly remembering a memory. The article also fails to make this distinction.
3. I suggest this article be lifted to a semi-protected status, because of the controversial nature of the article and high likelyhood of vandalism. Vuorrem ( talk) 00:54, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Regards the recent changes:
Primarily, I'd like to see the number of sources to one statement in the lead reduced, the rest I'm happy to discuss. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 13:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
In this diff I took out a couple sources but forgot to refer to them in my edit summary. This is a significant article with lots of scholarly debate. The recovered memory project at Brown is essentially a personal webpage, even if it has the imprimatur of Brown University, and is not published in a reliable source. The place where this is debated is scholarly books and journal articles, not on random sympathetic webpages that AbuseTruth managed to turn up while trolling the internet. There's a good book by Paul McHugh I've read, and another by Randy McNally that I've got on reserve, as well as a bunch at my local university library that I could pick up. Let's write the page with these, not with webpages. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 14:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
The theory section is terrible - two sentences with two sources, both by Pamela Freyd. The IJSTD or whatever it is called now is a bit of a walled garden with a dubious journal - McHugh states that the peer reivew process for the journal is more of a "consultation with peers" than actual peer review. Freyd is one of the people to kick off the recovered memory movement and it's counterpart the FMSF - her parents are two of the founders. Ethics and Behaviour is of dubious use in my mind as well, and certainly seems like a bad choice of publication venue for an ostensibly neurological theory. There must be better sources than this... WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 19:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
TakuyaMurata has been creating an independent article (apparently from cz.wikipedia) at Recovered memory. I've been reverting, because much of the material is here, but perhaps a split is appropriate. I can't find a consensus for the redirect in any of the history, so I'm trying to determine whether there is a consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
To be honest, I still don't get what problem Rubin has. (i) The new article is not in a copyright violation. Period. What can I say more? (ii) You don't really have to discuss before you start a new article. However, if you want to delete it, then you have to discuss. If there are overlaps, then some materials moved around from here to there or there to here, as we do routinely. The most important question is, however, whether the topic "recovered memory" deserves a standalone article. An AFD is a place to discuss that. -- Taku ( talk) 11:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
This discussion has been dead for over a year now and the same goes for the entire talk page of Recovered memory. If there aren't any objections I will be closing this discussion in about a week and start with the merger. JGM73 ( talk) 01:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
I never said it was an accepted theory, but it is a theory that repressed memories exist and can be formed by traumatic events. The hypothesis would be that they merely exist. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:40, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't believe that " The Butterfly Effect (film)" belongs in the "See also" section of this article. However, since Arthur Rubin dose, I thought I would bring this up on the talk page. I don't believe it belongs because:
The inclusion of " The Butterfly Effect (film)", which is purely a work of fiction, is just misplaced here. -- ARTEST4ECHO ( talk/ contribs) 15:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Just a quick suggestion: should a link to the film A Nightmare On Elm Street (the page, of course) bhe included in the see also section? Or even a new "in popular culture" section? The film centres around the repressed memories of these children. Merely a suggestion. 94.15.207.239 ( talk) 19:58, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
This subject is currently being worked on in three different places ( Recovered memory and False memory syndrome). This is not working. If want to improve the quality we need to join our forces in one centralized article. It'd be a waste of time to copy and paste sources back and forth between articles that largely deal with the same subject. JGM73 ( talk) 00:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
As an editor, I think of false memory syndrome, repressed memories, and amnesia as completely separate things so I would not merge False Memory Syndrome and Repressed Memory in one article. The topic of memory is too large to be contained in one article.
Also, on the topic of amnesia as the most common illness in soap operas, Harlequin had a whole series, not sure if it is still running, called the Amnesia Series, in which a woman is married to a man (or engaged or whatever) and then, for some reason, completely forgets that part of her life, then he finds her and gets to woo her all over again. Weird but fascinating. I read two of these though I don't usually read romances of this type. Bebhinn-Matrix ( talk) 18:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC) Bebhinn
I disagree that repressed memory should be merged with false memory syndrome. Rather, the latter should be expanded beyond its narrow focus to include false memories that occur outside the therapist's office. For example, Person A is enraged at Person B, imagines harmful actions by Person B, and in a vicious cycle of imagining and rage, comes to believe, with utter conviction, that Person B did those harms. The consequences of the rage/illusion syndrome can be devastating. Example: the Holocaust. (See The Holocaust: Ideology and scale, first quotation box. Although the Nazis' hallucinations were as much about the present as about the past, they were very similar to rage-induced memories.) But I've seen it happen twice on a smaller scale, destroying friendships, estranging family members. "False memory syndrome" or "False memory" (which is currently only a disambiguaton page), or both, should be expanded. Scribe2u ( talk) 02:26, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
And then there's the closely related subject of memory distortion. I understand Wikipedia's difficulties here. This area is too complex for any encyclopedia. Scribe2u ( talk) 18:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
Articles with overlapping content and their respective sections:
Legal issues/Medico-legal issues/Court cases
Controversy/Authenticity (of recovered memories)/Research (about recovered memories)
Evidence for (the existence of false memories in general)/Neurological basis of memory
Hypothesis/Effects of trauma on memory
If you I missed a significant overlap, please create a new discussion topic to discuss this there.
JGM73 ( talk) 01:03, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
A repressed memory is not also know as a recovered memory. This is false. MathewTownsend ( talk) 14:01, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
This is not a good idea for several reasons.
The first is that the ability to create false memories has been scientifically proven over and over, as referenced in the Wikipedia entry.
Repressed memory in of itself, is disputed as to its actual veracity.
Finally, even if repressed memories did exist, false memories and false memory syndrome have and can be created from events that absolutely could not have happened. Therefore, these events could not have been repressed in the first place.
Example one: "I Shook Hands With Bugs Bunny At Disney World" experiment. This could not be a repressed memory, because Bugs Bunny is a Warner Brothers character and would not be at Disney World.
Synopsis: In Experiment 2, participants viewed an ad for Disney that suggested that they shook hands with an impossible character (e.g., Bugs Bunny). Again, relative to controls, the ad increased confidence that they personally had shaken hands with the impossible character as a child at a Disney resort. The increased confidence is consistent with the notion that autobiographical referencing can lead to the creation of false or distorted memory. � 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Reference: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/BraunPsychMarket02.pdf Make My Memory: How Advertising Can Change Our Memories of the Past Kathryn A. Braun,Harvard Business School -- Rhiannon Ellis,University of Pittsburgh -- Elizabeth F. Loftus, University of Washington
Example two: Car Crash Study
Synopsis: To date, research has shown that it is fairly easy to take advantage of our fallible memory. Elizabeth Loftus, cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory, has found that simply changing one word in a question can contort what we recall. In one experiment, Loftus had participants watch a film of a car crash, and then asked about what they saw. They were either asked “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other,” or “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other.” One week later the participants returned for some memory questions. Loftus asked whether or not there was broken glass at the scene of the accident. Those participants that heard the word “smashed” were more than twice as likely to recall seeing broken glass than those who heard the word “hit.” Keep in mind, there was in fact no broken glass at the scene[2].
Reference: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/11/14/how-long-will-a-lie-last-new-study-finds-that-false-memories-linger-for-years/ Scientific American How Long Will a Lie Last? New Study Finds That False Memories Linger for Years By Kyle Hill | November 14, 2012 |
Glenna1984 ( talk) 19:21, 27 January 2013 (UTC)Glenn Abelson
Hello everyone, we are a group of students from Florida International University working on a class project to help improve the quality of the Wikipedia Repressed Memory article. We propose the following:
First, we want to revise the first section of the article by replacing the first two sentences into an easier and faster to read definition of repressed memory. We also want to add a citation at the end of these sentences. Furthermore, we would like to add at least one more sentence discussing the belief that repressed memories are false. This will add a more neutral view on the topic. We propose deleting the sentence tagged as “dubious”. This section should have a clear definition of dissociative amnesia to prove that the two terms are very similar. Also, revise the definition of amnesia into an easier to read definition. In this section we would want to remove a citation and add two more secondary sources that the article is in need of.
In addition, we would like to expand the History section of this article. We would remove the second sentence because there is no appropriate citation. Then we would add information about Freud’s psychoanalysis philosophy and tie it into repressed memory. We would also discuss his study on the case of Anna O. Then, add more secondary references.
Next, in the Criticism section we propose adding more examples and information on case studies. Again, add more secondary references. In the Amnesia section we would like to revise the wording of certain sentences. Add more references to support our new added information.
The last entry on this articles talk page by Glenn Abelson in January 2013 was mainly based on primary sources which are not the best sources because it does not follow Wikipedia standards. We would not agree to change the article based on these primary sources. Rachelparra ( talk) 22:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
This article was the subject of an educational assignment in 2013 Q1. Further details were available on the "Education Program:Florida International University/Advanced Experimental Psychology Lab (Spring 2013)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki. |
Fiupsychology ( talk) 04:52, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
This article is controversial. It says "citation needed" in the first line. This has not been provided. Let's shed some light on this.
The events in Sweden that finally came to light on 26th November 2013 prove beyond doubt that there is no such thing as repressed memory. Elisabeth Lotus has been interviewed for the Swedish TV on the Thomas Quick case and the program became a revelation.
The world's leading expert on repressed memories (the now discredited Swede Margit Norell who died at 90 in 2006) had an influence on all those who dealt with Thomas Quick. Starting in 1992 Quick confessed to 39 murders and was convicted of 8. All of Quick's confessions were brought about in therapy sessions with physiatrists who had received training/therapy and guidance from Norell. One of the physiatrists even "revealed" her own repressed memory of child abuse sufferred at 1 to Quick, whom she identified with, in private letters.
Quick has now been cleared of all charges and pardoned from all murders. He has changed his name back to his birth name Sture Bergwall if anyone wants to google the case. The Quick saga has been an ongoing case for over 20 years. The belief in repressed memory led to all other leads in the murder cases being ignored. In Swedish law there is a statute of limitations on murder of 25 years and only one of the 8 murders files can be opened again. The other 7 are now prescribed and even a confession from the real murderer and DNA proof can not lead to a prosecution. The belief in the myth of "repressed memory" has thus created one of the biggest criminal injustices of all time. The families of seven murder victims will now never see somebody convicted. According to a legal expert at least 5 of the murders would have been cleared up if prosecutors had not been misled by what he called "repressed memory quacks".
In a number of the cases no body has been recovered. Quick was taken on outings to the forests to look for bodies and body parts. Despite the psychiatrists being present no body parts were ever recovered. Quick has now confessed to wanting day trips and everybody being all to eager to believe him because of the "need" by believers in "repressed memory" theory to prove what they believed in actually existed. The case became more about the existence or non-existence of repressed memory than about trying to find the murderers. Police with alternate theories were kept away from these cases.
It is my belief that the WIKI entry on repressed memory can therefore be changed to "proven myth". And in any case there needs to be a section on Thomas Quick as any scholars of theory need to take a deep look into this case. The falseness of the confessions is synonymous with the myth of repressed memory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.246.25 ( talk) 05:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
This page has been modified so much to the belief that Repressed memory is real, it no longer looks NPOV. Repressed memory is pseudoscience and that page is written as if the scientific community thinks it is real. It really need to me move back to a NOPV page.-- ARTEST4ECHO ( talk/ contribs) 14:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. The article is a complete mess. It needs to be completely re-organized. Many of the sections overlap, and sort of say the same things. Other sections need to be broken up into smaller ones. It gives way too much credence to the fringe positions. Relies on primary sources. The lede is terrible. Many, many issues.
As a starting point, I've tried to simply remove the primary and low quality sources. Have I succeeded? Are there any more? If you see anymore, just outright remove them. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 09:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
@ARTEST4ECHO: I suggest as a start help organize and refine the current article. In addition, create a test page where you re-write the article. Then post the test page here for discussion. It can then be discussed, altered and some or all of your re-write can be incorporated into the article. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 09:43, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
I've reworked some of the most problematic wording, but we could really use some larger studies. As far as I'm aware every large scale study has pointed towards the nonexistence of the phenomenon, and NPOV doesn't mean we need to weight this as heavily as the few studies that strengthen the hypothesis. CFCF ( talk · contribs · email) 10:31, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
Also look at Recovered-memory therapy article. Possibly merge them. I dunno. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 12:07, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
Even though there is quite a strong argument that it is not possible to know if recovered memories are true or false I feel the article fails to bring up the viewpoint that it is impossible to recover memories. Looking into sources. CFCF ( talk · contribs · email) 09:45, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
I am fairly upset that the section I spent so much time researching and writing was removed. The article was extensively cited and sourced, and is clearly related to this topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.226.254 ( talk) 04:47, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry, the article has been purged of a number of other inaccuracies in the same time-period which fall under those clauses. The reason your text was removed was not that it was poorly sourced, but because it was not entirely in the scope of the article. Also one editor expressed concern that it might be a copyright violation. It is possible to restore the text and create a new article, such as; Forensics of repressed memory or similar. (Take note not to make the name too long). Also it is preferable to use in-line citations. CFCF ( talk · contribs · email) 09:06, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
The new article Forensics of repressed memory is in need of attention, and previous discussions on this talk page seem relevant. --Animalparty-- ( talk) 00:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Likewise confused about the assertive stance, since the inclusion by the U.S. authority in the past three editions of DSM demonstrate scientific consensus for the legitimacy of this phenomenon. SocialButterflyAgency ( talk) 15:47, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
It looks like this has been ongoing for more than a year.
"Repressed memory" was a topic of active debate in the 1990s. Its now been thoroughly rejected by the courts, the APA, etc.
This article is an example of the reason for the NPOV rule that tiny minority viewpoints do not get as much credence as supermajority viewpoints.
There hasn't been any support for this idea in 15 years.
People today discuss it only in the context of miscarriage-of-justice cases from the 1980s and 1990s in which people were convicted in child-molestation hysteria cases of crimes that never occurred.
If someone can point me to the POV dispute discussion, I'll get involved there.
If not, I'm bringing the issue back up here: Is there any reliable source from the past 15 years that this phenomenon even exists? If not, I propose going through the page and radically trimming it to note that the theory had proponents, is now discredited, cite the cases, and provide links to the miscarriage-of-justice pages.
Djcheburashka ( talk) 07:44, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm confused by how assertive this article is that repressed memories is pseudo-science. Aren't there thousands of instances of returning soldiers who have lost memories of their time in the war, but are triggered by stimuli correlating with the absent memory and nightmares which express it (see: Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery). What is this if not repressed memory? The article mentions the term dissociation amnesia, which is referred to in the DSM, but other sources (e.g. Harvard magazine) simply describe it as the diagnostic term for repressed memories. And other Wikipedia articles cite repressed memories and amnesia as symptoms of psychological trauma. Huh?
Shouldn't the article clarify the difference between repressed memories and dissociation amnesia, and why one is accepted by the psychology community and the other is not? Because I have no idea after reading it.
Dark_Wolf101 07:34, 15 January 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dark Wolf101 ( talk • contribs)
Hi all. Currently in the process of researching an update/rewrite/clean-up of the article to remove the flags and bring it up to standard. Its going to be a lot of work and take a while. Given the level of attention and detail that a proper treatment will demand please direct suggestions, help, concerns, and criticisms to my talk page or the talk page for my sandbox. Cheers Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 13:14, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
I'm considering just removing the section on neurological basis of memory. It's well covered in Memory as well as elsewhere and seems extraneous to the article. Thoughts on that? Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 15:03, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
OK. I think the rewrite is very close to complete. I've added some references, tried to clarify some of the issues discussed previously on the talk page, rearranged the sections a bit, clarified what is speculative and what is backed up by research to the best of my ability, and think I might take it live here soon. I'd like it if anyone that has this on their watchlist could take a look at and provide some constructive criticism and propose any changes you think ought to be made. The article can be found HERE. Cheers. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 14:16, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
When I read through the lede, it read to me like a series of sentences written by different people, without a clear organization or connections between paragraphs. I did some rewriting to try to improve the section's clarity while retaining almost all of the information that had been there, and added reference to an important recent review paper by Otgaar et al in Perspectives in Psychological Science. Thanks to whomever it was who quickly caught, and fixed, the error I made when adding the Otgaar reference. Regutten ( talk) 18:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
In the United States, the DSM serves as the principal authority for psychiatric diagnoses. The inclusion of dissociative amnesia in the last three editions of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders proves the Scientific consensus repressed memories is a real phenomenon, albeit the change in verbiage used to refer to it. SocialButterflyAgency ( talk) 15:30, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
On the scientific consensus, the American Psychological Association has a Memories of Childhood Abuse page, which clearly states that "both memory researchers and clinicians who work with trauma victims agree that both phenomena occur, [i.e., a child abuse memory being forgotten and then remembered and false memories]," and "most leaders in the field agree that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later."
On the reality of the phenomenon, there are many documented cases with corroborating evidence, including perpetrator confessions (here is a link to the "Case Archive" of Brown professor Ross Cheit's "Recovered Memory Project" — http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/case-archive/ ).
Recently there was a podcast done on a real case of recovered memory for an adult sexual assault— https://www.thecut.com/2019/10/the-cut-on-tuesdays-the-story-of-a-lyft-ride-gone-wrong.html
There are also cases of recovered memories of child sexual abuse and adult sexual assault published by the memory researcher Jonathan Schooler: https://labs.psych.ucsb.edu/schooler/jonathan/sites/labs.psych.ucsb.edu.schooler.jonathan/files/pubs/schooler_et_al_1997_-_taking_the_middle_line.pdf SocialButterflyAgency ( talk) 16:39, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Section on Research:
"Another possibility is that traumatic events are pushed out of consciousness until a later events elicits or triggers a psychological response."
That can only be called "a possibility" if there is evidence that can be referenced that supports the claim. Moreover, as McNally has noted in several of his papers, seemingly forgetting an event until the memory is cued by an effective retrieval cue does not necessarily imply that the memory was "pushed out of consciousness"
" A high percentage of female psychiatric in-patients,[17][18][19][20][21] and outpatients [22][23][24] have reported experiencing histories of childhood sexual abuse. Other clinical studies have concluded that patients who experienced incestuous abuse reported higher suicide attempts and negative identity formation[25] as well as more disturbances in interpersonal relationships.[26]"
How are those sentences relevant to the topic? Given that the statements are presented as part of this page, the implication is that repressed memories play some kind or role in these responses to childhood trauma. Implying that without providing reference to supporting evidence violates NPOV standards.
The paragraph quoted above should simply be deleted.
Section on Cause
"Researchers have proposed that repression can operate on a social level as well.[33]"
Even though Freyd uses the term repression when describing what she argues has occurred at a social level, the phenomenon of social repression of information is a VERY different phenomenon than the purported phenomenon of memory repression occurring at the individual level. Moreover, without additional elaboration, it is impossible for anyone but an anlready informed reader to know what this sentence refers to. It *might* be worth keeping this reference as part of the page, but only if some additional explanation of "repression at the social level" is offered.
"Other theoretical causes of forgotten memories have stemmed from the idea of Retrieval-Influenced Forgetting,[34] which states that “false” memories will be more accurately recalled when rehearsed more, than when actual memories get rehearsed. In this scenario, the action of rehearsing a falsified memory can actually take precedence over the actual memory that a person experiences. Anderson et al.[34] discovered that rehearsal of novel information exhibits inhibitive processes on one’s ability to remember or recall the prior (real) memory. This conclusion indicates that past memories can be easily forgotten, simply by attending to “real”, novel memories that are brought into awareness."
This entire paragraph is borderline incomprehensible. I suspect (can't be bothered to comb through the history to find out) that it was written by a student as part of a course assignment. I wish faculty would not do that, because the end result is almost inevitably that the wikipedia page ends up poorly written and disorganized.
Section on Neurological Basis of Memory
As was noted by another editor, it is not clear why this section is here at all. It should only be retained only if the information provided adds to our understanding of issues regarding claims of repressed memories. The discussion of the study with mice by Radulovic is really the only part of the section that would seem to directly relate to a discussion of repression. A more recent article by Radulovic that could be discussed in this section can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30429781
Regutten ( talk) 18:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Much of this article slanted the research to encode bias against recovered memories, a well documented phenomenon.
In the context of disputing validity for recovered memories, one sentence under the In the context of disputing the validity of their Authenticity section stated:
“For example, one study where victims of documented child abuse were reinterviewed many years later as adults, 38% of the women denied any memory of the abuse.”
I have edited it and reorganized it under the Case Study section:
“A number of studies have reported data that could be used to estimate the prevalence of prior periods of non-remembering of childhood sexual abuse among adults who report such a history. In one such study involving 129 women who had documented cases of child abuse, 38% had no memories of the abuse when reinterviewed 17 years later.“
To provide a more balanced observation, and better topic flow I have made about a dozen such corrections/rearrangements.
PS Thank you for allowing me a chance to contribute to the wiki community, and I apologize in advance for any editing errors!! I’m a newb editor looking to grow and gain experience and willing to take direction! 🤓
Much love, Kat SocialButterflyAgency ( talk) 05:25, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
This article does not hold much scientific value. It cherrypicks the perspectives of people arguing against repressed memories IN THE CONTEXT OF FALSE MEMORIES while completely ignoring or worse, trying to patronize, the larger context of dissociative amnesia. The discourse is therefore shifted onto the existence of false memories, and while those of course are real phenonenon, so is dissociative amnesia which should be represented just as prominently. The narrative of this article is harmful towards people suffering from dissociative disorders or dissociative amnesia as well as people trying to inform themselves about this phenomenon, and does not accurately inform about different comprehensions of "repressed memory". 94.220.132.91 ( talk) 18:47, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
[4] What is "unbalanced" about that section? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 05:51, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
The following information below is inconsistent with DSM-5 regarding the treatment of dissociative amnesia and it could be confusing to readers. In many cases, dissociative amnesia is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or another disorder. Psychotherapy is indicated for the management of dissociative amnesia according to DSM-5. In fact, when a person is recovering memories following dissociative amnesia, the experience can be extremely distressing and elevating the risk for self-harm including suicide. See section below:
Despite widespread belief in the phenomenon of repressed memories among laypersons and clinical psychologists,[4] most research psychologists who study the psychology of memory dispute that repression ever occurs at all.[5][6][7][8][9][10] While some psychologists claim that repressed memories can be recovered through psychotherapy (or may be recovered spontaneously, years or even decades after the event, when the repressed memory is triggered by a particular smell, taste, or other identifier related to the lost memory),[11] experts in the psychology of memory argue that, rather than promoting the recovery of a real repressed memory, psychotherapy is more likely to contribute to the creation of false memories.[12][13][9] According to the American Psychological Association, it is not possible to distinguish repressed memories from false ones without corroborating evidence.[3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8A:200:B6B0:F59B:5E58:8FA8:CD64 ( talk) 21:16, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
"Memories can be accurate, but they are not always accurate. For example, eyewitness testimony even of relatively recent dramatic events is notoriously unreliable.[31] Memories of events are a mix of fact overlaid with emotions, mingled with interpretation and "filled in" with imaginings. Skepticism regarding the validity of a memory as factual detail is warranted.[32] For example, one study where victims of documented child abuse were reinterviewed many years later as adults, 38% of the women denied any memory of the abuse.[33]"
This paragraph cites LM Williams' article based on a prospective study involving cases of documented sexual abuse in which the victims were seen at a hospital. Here is the abstract:
"One hundred twenty-nine women with previously documented histories of sexual victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked detailed questions about their abuse histories to answer the question 'Do people actually forget traumatic events such as child sexual abuse, and if so, how common is such forgetting?' A large proportion of the women (38%) did not recall the abuse that had been reported 17 years earlier. Women who were younger at the time of the abuse and those who were molested by someone they knew were more likely to have no recall of the abuse. The implications for research and practice are discussed. Long periods with no memory of abuse should not be regarded as evidence that the abuse did not occur."
How exactly one gets "Skepticism regarding the validity of a memory as factual detail is warranted" from that is beyond me. The entire point of the article is that women with medically documented experiences of sexual abuse reported having lost memory of said abuse at some point, for some period of time. Moreover, the leap from "certain details of a memory can and do change over time" to "the memories are entirely made up and false" is pretty enormous! I'll have to do some digging to find the sources, but the majority of literature I've read on this subject suggests that the issue is with details being inaccurate in ways that compromise legal testimony - i.e. a mugging victim may misremember the race of their assailant, especially as a result of implicit bias. But, this is not to say, nor does the majority of research suggest (as far as I'm aware), that the entire memory of being mugged should therefore be called into question. Again, the issue is about particular details, not the general summary of the overall event.
Frankly, this article seems highly biased towards towards a "skeptic" position which frames itself as based on "the real science" while ignoring the many serious critiques of that position. For example, I just removed a line from the intro about repressed memory being "largely scientifically discredited" which cited, in part, this APA FAQ page which responds to the question,
"Can a memory be forgotten and then remembered? Can a 'memory' be suggested and then remembered as true?"
with,
"What we do know is that both memory researchers and clinicians who work with trauma victims agree that both phenomena occur."
Again, how we get from that to "largely scientifically discredited" is beyond me. What is clear is that some version of "repressed memory" is widely considered a real phenomenon in the mental health community and the actual controversy is around how often it occurs, its mechanisms, and the validity and safety of therapies intended to "recover" such memories. That debate should absolutely be represented in this article, but as it stands the article reads like it is denying the very existence of a phenomenon which has, at this point, but thoroughly empirically validated (see, for example, the Recovered Memory Project). I would hope that all the skeptics who claim they're "just following the science" would want to do just that and present a less biased picture of the current state of debate around this sensitive and controversial issue, rather than offering a polemic for one "side" or the other.
Donna's Cyborg ( talk) 16:22, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
can you provide evidence that the journal Trauma, Violence, & Abuse is in any way fringe or disreputable?Why on Earth should I do that? I did not say it was, I never even mentioned it. If you pull stuff out of your hat and demand I back up statements I never made about that stuff, a
polite and reasonable discussionis going to be difficult.
moving forward accusations of "fringe" or "pseudoscience" were backed up with quality sourcingThe fringe I was talking about is recovered memory therapy. Are you really demanding evidence that that one is fringe and pseudoscientific, or are you putting words into my mouth?
Research during the past two decades has firmly established the reliability of the phenomenon of recovered memory. This review first highlights the strongest evidence for the phenomenon itself and discusses the survey, experimental, and biological evidence for the varying mechanisms that may underlie the phenomenon. Routes to traumatic amnesia from dissociative detachment (loss of emotional content leading to loss of factual content) and from dissociative compartmentalization (failure in integration) are discussed. Next, an argument is made that false memory is a largely orthogonal concept to recovered memory; the possibility of one phenomena is largely irrelevant to the potential for the other. Furthermore, some aspects of the false memory research offer supportive data for the recovered memory researcher. Finally, the issue of error rates in making the Daubert case is explored. It is concluded that the weight of the evidence should allow the recovered memory victim to come before the court.
One strategy to oppose recovered memory possibility, then, is to choose the mechanism that is most difficult to prove (in this case, repression) and pretend that evidence against the mechanism is evidence against the phenomena. As an analogy, some researchers believe that viruses play a role in schizophrenia. If this hypothesis proves to be false, it does not then follow that schizophrenia does not exist.
At the present point in time, in keeping with the many surveys on recovered memory and the hundreds of supporting empirical studies on stress, trauma and memory, the concept of recovered memory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. In a survey of psychologists by Pope and Tabachnick (1995), 73% stated that they had personally seen a case that they classified as a recovered memory. In a survey of both American and British professionals, Poole, Lindsay, Memon, and Bull (1995) found a similar high rate of experience with the phenomena. Polusny and Follette (1996) found that 28% of psychologists reported that they had seen a case of repressed memory in the past year. In Dammeyer, Nightingale, and McCoy’s (1997) more recent survey, only 7% of experimental psychologists, 3% of clinical psychologists with research involvement, and 2% of clinicians with no research involvement reported that they held the view that accurate recovered memories of trauma are not possible (rating the possibility of loss and recovery of a trauma memory as 1 or 2 on a 1 to 10 point scale of validity). The majority of all groups view the current evidence as supporting a more probable than not decision (6 to 8 on an 10-point scale) or are certain of the validity of the phenomenon (9 to 10). The relevant percentages for experimentalists, clinical researchers and PhD clinicians who rated their belief in the validity of recovered memory at or more than 6 were 70%, 88%, and 93% respectively. If asked for their belief in repressed memory, the number dropped slightly, but the majority of each group still fell in the more probable than not category. Fourteen percent of experimentalists, 2% of clinical researchers, and 1% of nonresearcher clinicians take the position of the extreme false memory advocates and reject the concept (rating belief as 1 or 2).
Perhaps part of a solution is to include additional, reliable, secondary sources that support the claim largely scientifically discredited
. How about sourcing to some combination of
this,
this,
this, and
this, none of which (I think) are currently referenced in the article? The final source on this list speaks to an alleged dichotomy between researchers (i.e., scientists) and clinicians, but that dichotomy supports the phrase "largely scientifically discredited." Along with adding some additional sources, perhaps appending to the quoted passage something along the lines of "but accepted by some therapists" (with appropriate sources, of course) would be acceptable? I know that wording is a bit weasely, but collaboration, consensus, and all that.
JoJo Anthrax (
talk) 16:19, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
At the present point in time, in keeping with the many surveys on recovered memory and the hundreds of supporting empirical studies on stress, trauma and memory, the concept of recovered memory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. In a survey of psychologists by Pope and Tabachnick (1995), 73% stated that they had personally seen a case that they classified as a recovered memory. In a survey of both American and British professionals, Poole, Lindsay, Memon, and Bull (1995) found a similar high rate of experience with the phenomena. Polusny and Follette (1996) found that 28% of psychologists reported that they had seen a case of repressed memory in the past year. In Dammeyer, Nightingale, and McCoy’s (1997) more recent survey, only 7% of experimental psychologists, 3% of clinical psychologists with research involvement, and 2% of clinicians with no research involvement reported that they held the view that accurate recovered memories of trauma are not possible (rating the possibility of loss and recovery of a trauma memory as 1 or 2 on a 1 to 10 point scale of validity). The majority of all groups view the current evidence as supporting a more probable than not decision (6 to 8 on an 10-point scale) or are certain of the validity of the phenomenon (9 to 10). The relevant percentages for experimentalists, clinical researchers and PhD clinicians who rated their belief in the validity of recovered memory at or more than 6 were 70%, 88%, and 93% respectively. If asked for their belief in repressed memory, the number dropped slightly, but the majority of each group still fell in the more probable than not category. Fourteen percent of experimentalists, 2% of clinical researchers, and 1% of nonresearcher clinicians take the position of the extreme false memory advocates and reject the concept (rating belief as 1 or 2).
Edited to add tl;dr:
This article represents a minority position as settled consensus science and the majority position as fringe/pseudoscience. The article also relies heavily on non-academic and primary sources despite a wealth of secondary sources. I am suggesting that article at very least needs significant re-writing. It might also make sense to simply merge much of this material into
recovered-memory therapy,
repression (psychoanalysis) and/or
dissociative amnesia, the latter of which already has a section on repressed memory that is much more balanced than this article. Honestly, all three of these are connected in ways that make me unsure how to best structure/link them together. I'm new to making significant edits like this and would greatly appreciate helpful input and constructive criticism from more experienced editors.
|
---|
I thought it might be helpful to gather sources under a new heading here where I can make my case. Issue One: Scientific Consensus
This article has reviewed the evidence for eight predictions made by the TM and FM of dissociation. The evidence from all eight areas more strongly and consistently supports the TM than the FM
Of these eight peer-reviewed metanalyses and systematic reviews, the vast majority support the claim that acceptance of some form of the "repressed memory" hypothesis is widespread in both the experimental and clinical communities. Dalenberg (2006) addresses this most directly, citing three studies surveying experimentalists, clinicians and clinician-experimentalist. Significant majorities of all groups expressed that some form of the "repressed memory" hypothesis was either probably or certainly true. Dodie (2018) - which it should be noted leans towards the "anti-repressed memory" camp - definitively debunks any claim that this issue is "largely scientifically discredited" because it demonstrates that as of 2018 research interest in the topic was at least as strong as during the so-called "memory wars" of the 1980's and 1990's. Loftus and Davis (2006) represent the most significant detraction from this consensus. However, they exclusively "focus upon the controversial sense of this term, which involves memories of abuse that are 'recovered' during suggestive psychotherapy." While this may be the most controversial sense of term, it is hardly how it used throughout the relevant peer-reviewed literature. This definitional issue is not only critical for resolving the neutrality and confusing structure of this article, but is also an important part of story of "repressed memory" itself that the article is intended to cover. To quote Dalenberg et al. (2012) again,
As currently written the article insinuates that there is no meaningful difference between dissociative amnesia and "repressed memory" while also insinuating that the former is just a sneaky way of referring to the latter. For one, this undermines the very argument the article is trying to make - and let's be clear, this article is taking sides here - in that it would imply that the DSM-5 recognizes "repressed memory" as a legitimate phenomenon by way of its inclusion of dissociative amnesia. Secondly, the fact that a minority of critics believe these concepts to be essentially identical and inherently illegitimate should not be allowed to overshadow the consensus represented by both the statistics cited in Dalenberg (2006) and the inclusion of dissociative amnesia in DSM-5. The consensus in the field, as demonstrated above, is quite clearly that a minority of people do in fact experience some kind of delayed recall of actual childhood abuse and that this is better described as dissociative amnesia than "repressed memory" due to the heterogeneity of these experiences and the mechanisms underlying them.
As argued above, the majority consensus view on repressed memories/dissociative amnesia is that people can forget and then later recall traumatic memories and pseudo-memories can be constructed, particularly when specific suggestive therapies are used. Despite this, by my rough count this article contains 36 inline citations from 6 primary authors representing the minority view and only 23 inline citations from 15 primary authors for the mainstream view. Moreover, 36 citations representing the minority view are heavily skewed towards just three authors - McNally (15), Loftus (8) and Otgaar (8) - while the 15 authors representing the majority view mostly have one citation each, with Bessel van der Kolk topping the list at 3 citations. Additionally, the Otgaar citation is to a single reference which is cited eight times throughout the article. These issues are also representative of the overall structure of the article, which gives significant weight to these three authors who espouse a minority view. I believe this constitutes a clear case of Undue Weight.
...well... at least if others think this article should even remain. If so, I believe that it requires a significant rewrite to meet NPOV. However, I think an argument could also be made for merging much of this into dissociative amnesia, recovered memory therapy and/or memory inhibition. And that is assuming this article isn't simply replicating - in an often very poorly structured, confusing and misleading way - content already present in those or other pages. Regardless, I think I've made my case pretty extensively lol, so I'm going to go ahead and flag the issues I've covered now. |
Donna's Cyborg ( talk) 05:01, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Donna's Cyborg ( talk) 19:45, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
In part because of the intense controversies that arose surrounding the concepts of repressed and recovered memories, many clinical psychologists stopped using those terms and instead adopted the term dissociative amnesia to refer to the purported processes whereby memories for traumatic events become inaccessible, [1] [2] and the term dissociative amnesia can be found in the DSM-V, where it is defined as an "inability to recall autobiographical information. This amnesia may be localized (i.e., an event or period of time), selective (i.e., a specific aspect of an event), or generalized (i.e., identity and life history)." The change in terminology, however, has not made belief in the phenomenon any less problematic according to experts in the field of memory. [1] [2] As Richard J. McNally, Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, has written: "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." [3]
please read the page. Frankly, you seem to be taking the most unflattering reading of the page possible to make your argument and I'm done going back and forth with you. — The Hand That Feeds You: Bite 21:19, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Otgaar
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).pmid17803876
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Donna's Cyborg ( talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
"Making accusations of tendentious editing can be inflammatory and hence these accusations may not be helpful in a dispute. It can be seen as a personal attack if tendentious editing is alleged without clear evidence that the other's action meets the criteria set forth on this page, and unfounded accusations may constitute harassment if done repeatedly."
References
I see from the sections above that this article is very controversial and its current state is disputed, but what I immediately notice is that the opening sentence fails even to define what "repressed memory" means, per WP:FIRST. I'm glad I can read French, because I was able to find out by reading the opening of fr:Mémoire traumatique refoulée. — Mahāgaja · talk 14:01, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Repressed memory is an inability to recall autobiographical informationActually, the repressed memory is the memory of the autobiographical information that one is unable to recall. But it is understandable, and clearly an improvement. I have no non-clumsy suggestion for further improvement at the moment. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 12:31, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2023 and 15 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Smithzorah ( article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Smithzorah ( talk) 21:32, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
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Repressed Memory is rejected by mainstream science. The article looks like it has been written by advocates of repressed memory therapy rather than objective editors. For any other subject this wouldn't be bad, but this is frankly dangerous. Editors should step in and do something. 173.76.92.94 ( talk) 20:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Studies done by Steve Porter at UBC have demonstrated that false memories can be suggested to participants who in turn will wager money on them that they are true even though they have been created by the experimenters. As a victim of child sexual abuse I can say that it is highly doubtful one would forget such an event under any circumstances. Also, it is interesting to note that some land mark cases have been about events occuring during a child's first year of life. The problem is that we do not remember the first year of our lives because of childhood amnesia. Letting quack "therapists" hypnotizing hihgly dissosiative individuals and implanting memories has ruined many people's lives. Beleiving in repressed memories is dangerous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.108.31.36 ( talk) 19:10, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
(UTC) Yes, because a contributor to Wikipedia claims to have recovered repressed memories, this means repressed memories are a real phenomenon. 69.158.16.56 ( talk) 05:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
I would like to add a few notes to this discussion.
1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia ("Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.") Therefore, subjective opinions - such as those expressed here - about one's mental states are, in a word, irrelevant. Therefore, the following statements bear no weight in discussions about the article: "As a victim of child sexual abuse I can say that it is highly doubtful one would forget such an event under any circumstances." - There is ample (verifiable) evidence that forgetting of child sexual abuse occurs; "I have recovered repressed memories." - Not verifiable.
2. This discussion does not distinguish between recovering a memory (which implies a special mechanism), and suddenly remembering a memory. The article also fails to make this distinction.
3. I suggest this article be lifted to a semi-protected status, because of the controversial nature of the article and high likelyhood of vandalism. Vuorrem ( talk) 00:54, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Regards the recent changes:
Primarily, I'd like to see the number of sources to one statement in the lead reduced, the rest I'm happy to discuss. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 13:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
In this diff I took out a couple sources but forgot to refer to them in my edit summary. This is a significant article with lots of scholarly debate. The recovered memory project at Brown is essentially a personal webpage, even if it has the imprimatur of Brown University, and is not published in a reliable source. The place where this is debated is scholarly books and journal articles, not on random sympathetic webpages that AbuseTruth managed to turn up while trolling the internet. There's a good book by Paul McHugh I've read, and another by Randy McNally that I've got on reserve, as well as a bunch at my local university library that I could pick up. Let's write the page with these, not with webpages. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 14:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
The theory section is terrible - two sentences with two sources, both by Pamela Freyd. The IJSTD or whatever it is called now is a bit of a walled garden with a dubious journal - McHugh states that the peer reivew process for the journal is more of a "consultation with peers" than actual peer review. Freyd is one of the people to kick off the recovered memory movement and it's counterpart the FMSF - her parents are two of the founders. Ethics and Behaviour is of dubious use in my mind as well, and certainly seems like a bad choice of publication venue for an ostensibly neurological theory. There must be better sources than this... WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/ complex 19:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
TakuyaMurata has been creating an independent article (apparently from cz.wikipedia) at Recovered memory. I've been reverting, because much of the material is here, but perhaps a split is appropriate. I can't find a consensus for the redirect in any of the history, so I'm trying to determine whether there is a consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
To be honest, I still don't get what problem Rubin has. (i) The new article is not in a copyright violation. Period. What can I say more? (ii) You don't really have to discuss before you start a new article. However, if you want to delete it, then you have to discuss. If there are overlaps, then some materials moved around from here to there or there to here, as we do routinely. The most important question is, however, whether the topic "recovered memory" deserves a standalone article. An AFD is a place to discuss that. -- Taku ( talk) 11:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
This discussion has been dead for over a year now and the same goes for the entire talk page of Recovered memory. If there aren't any objections I will be closing this discussion in about a week and start with the merger. JGM73 ( talk) 01:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
I never said it was an accepted theory, but it is a theory that repressed memories exist and can be formed by traumatic events. The hypothesis would be that they merely exist. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:40, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't believe that " The Butterfly Effect (film)" belongs in the "See also" section of this article. However, since Arthur Rubin dose, I thought I would bring this up on the talk page. I don't believe it belongs because:
The inclusion of " The Butterfly Effect (film)", which is purely a work of fiction, is just misplaced here. -- ARTEST4ECHO ( talk/ contribs) 15:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
Just a quick suggestion: should a link to the film A Nightmare On Elm Street (the page, of course) bhe included in the see also section? Or even a new "in popular culture" section? The film centres around the repressed memories of these children. Merely a suggestion. 94.15.207.239 ( talk) 19:58, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
This subject is currently being worked on in three different places ( Recovered memory and False memory syndrome). This is not working. If want to improve the quality we need to join our forces in one centralized article. It'd be a waste of time to copy and paste sources back and forth between articles that largely deal with the same subject. JGM73 ( talk) 00:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
As an editor, I think of false memory syndrome, repressed memories, and amnesia as completely separate things so I would not merge False Memory Syndrome and Repressed Memory in one article. The topic of memory is too large to be contained in one article.
Also, on the topic of amnesia as the most common illness in soap operas, Harlequin had a whole series, not sure if it is still running, called the Amnesia Series, in which a woman is married to a man (or engaged or whatever) and then, for some reason, completely forgets that part of her life, then he finds her and gets to woo her all over again. Weird but fascinating. I read two of these though I don't usually read romances of this type. Bebhinn-Matrix ( talk) 18:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC) Bebhinn
I disagree that repressed memory should be merged with false memory syndrome. Rather, the latter should be expanded beyond its narrow focus to include false memories that occur outside the therapist's office. For example, Person A is enraged at Person B, imagines harmful actions by Person B, and in a vicious cycle of imagining and rage, comes to believe, with utter conviction, that Person B did those harms. The consequences of the rage/illusion syndrome can be devastating. Example: the Holocaust. (See The Holocaust: Ideology and scale, first quotation box. Although the Nazis' hallucinations were as much about the present as about the past, they were very similar to rage-induced memories.) But I've seen it happen twice on a smaller scale, destroying friendships, estranging family members. "False memory syndrome" or "False memory" (which is currently only a disambiguaton page), or both, should be expanded. Scribe2u ( talk) 02:26, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
And then there's the closely related subject of memory distortion. I understand Wikipedia's difficulties here. This area is too complex for any encyclopedia. Scribe2u ( talk) 18:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
Articles with overlapping content and their respective sections:
Legal issues/Medico-legal issues/Court cases
Controversy/Authenticity (of recovered memories)/Research (about recovered memories)
Evidence for (the existence of false memories in general)/Neurological basis of memory
Hypothesis/Effects of trauma on memory
If you I missed a significant overlap, please create a new discussion topic to discuss this there.
JGM73 ( talk) 01:03, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
A repressed memory is not also know as a recovered memory. This is false. MathewTownsend ( talk) 14:01, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
This is not a good idea for several reasons.
The first is that the ability to create false memories has been scientifically proven over and over, as referenced in the Wikipedia entry.
Repressed memory in of itself, is disputed as to its actual veracity.
Finally, even if repressed memories did exist, false memories and false memory syndrome have and can be created from events that absolutely could not have happened. Therefore, these events could not have been repressed in the first place.
Example one: "I Shook Hands With Bugs Bunny At Disney World" experiment. This could not be a repressed memory, because Bugs Bunny is a Warner Brothers character and would not be at Disney World.
Synopsis: In Experiment 2, participants viewed an ad for Disney that suggested that they shook hands with an impossible character (e.g., Bugs Bunny). Again, relative to controls, the ad increased confidence that they personally had shaken hands with the impossible character as a child at a Disney resort. The increased confidence is consistent with the notion that autobiographical referencing can lead to the creation of false or distorted memory. � 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Reference: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/BraunPsychMarket02.pdf Make My Memory: How Advertising Can Change Our Memories of the Past Kathryn A. Braun,Harvard Business School -- Rhiannon Ellis,University of Pittsburgh -- Elizabeth F. Loftus, University of Washington
Example two: Car Crash Study
Synopsis: To date, research has shown that it is fairly easy to take advantage of our fallible memory. Elizabeth Loftus, cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory, has found that simply changing one word in a question can contort what we recall. In one experiment, Loftus had participants watch a film of a car crash, and then asked about what they saw. They were either asked “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other,” or “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other.” One week later the participants returned for some memory questions. Loftus asked whether or not there was broken glass at the scene of the accident. Those participants that heard the word “smashed” were more than twice as likely to recall seeing broken glass than those who heard the word “hit.” Keep in mind, there was in fact no broken glass at the scene[2].
Reference: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/11/14/how-long-will-a-lie-last-new-study-finds-that-false-memories-linger-for-years/ Scientific American How Long Will a Lie Last? New Study Finds That False Memories Linger for Years By Kyle Hill | November 14, 2012 |
Glenna1984 ( talk) 19:21, 27 January 2013 (UTC)Glenn Abelson
Hello everyone, we are a group of students from Florida International University working on a class project to help improve the quality of the Wikipedia Repressed Memory article. We propose the following:
First, we want to revise the first section of the article by replacing the first two sentences into an easier and faster to read definition of repressed memory. We also want to add a citation at the end of these sentences. Furthermore, we would like to add at least one more sentence discussing the belief that repressed memories are false. This will add a more neutral view on the topic. We propose deleting the sentence tagged as “dubious”. This section should have a clear definition of dissociative amnesia to prove that the two terms are very similar. Also, revise the definition of amnesia into an easier to read definition. In this section we would want to remove a citation and add two more secondary sources that the article is in need of.
In addition, we would like to expand the History section of this article. We would remove the second sentence because there is no appropriate citation. Then we would add information about Freud’s psychoanalysis philosophy and tie it into repressed memory. We would also discuss his study on the case of Anna O. Then, add more secondary references.
Next, in the Criticism section we propose adding more examples and information on case studies. Again, add more secondary references. In the Amnesia section we would like to revise the wording of certain sentences. Add more references to support our new added information.
The last entry on this articles talk page by Glenn Abelson in January 2013 was mainly based on primary sources which are not the best sources because it does not follow Wikipedia standards. We would not agree to change the article based on these primary sources. Rachelparra ( talk) 22:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
This article was the subject of an educational assignment in 2013 Q1. Further details were available on the "Education Program:Florida International University/Advanced Experimental Psychology Lab (Spring 2013)" page, which is now unavailable on the wiki. |
Fiupsychology ( talk) 04:52, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
This article is controversial. It says "citation needed" in the first line. This has not been provided. Let's shed some light on this.
The events in Sweden that finally came to light on 26th November 2013 prove beyond doubt that there is no such thing as repressed memory. Elisabeth Lotus has been interviewed for the Swedish TV on the Thomas Quick case and the program became a revelation.
The world's leading expert on repressed memories (the now discredited Swede Margit Norell who died at 90 in 2006) had an influence on all those who dealt with Thomas Quick. Starting in 1992 Quick confessed to 39 murders and was convicted of 8. All of Quick's confessions were brought about in therapy sessions with physiatrists who had received training/therapy and guidance from Norell. One of the physiatrists even "revealed" her own repressed memory of child abuse sufferred at 1 to Quick, whom she identified with, in private letters.
Quick has now been cleared of all charges and pardoned from all murders. He has changed his name back to his birth name Sture Bergwall if anyone wants to google the case. The Quick saga has been an ongoing case for over 20 years. The belief in repressed memory led to all other leads in the murder cases being ignored. In Swedish law there is a statute of limitations on murder of 25 years and only one of the 8 murders files can be opened again. The other 7 are now prescribed and even a confession from the real murderer and DNA proof can not lead to a prosecution. The belief in the myth of "repressed memory" has thus created one of the biggest criminal injustices of all time. The families of seven murder victims will now never see somebody convicted. According to a legal expert at least 5 of the murders would have been cleared up if prosecutors had not been misled by what he called "repressed memory quacks".
In a number of the cases no body has been recovered. Quick was taken on outings to the forests to look for bodies and body parts. Despite the psychiatrists being present no body parts were ever recovered. Quick has now confessed to wanting day trips and everybody being all to eager to believe him because of the "need" by believers in "repressed memory" theory to prove what they believed in actually existed. The case became more about the existence or non-existence of repressed memory than about trying to find the murderers. Police with alternate theories were kept away from these cases.
It is my belief that the WIKI entry on repressed memory can therefore be changed to "proven myth". And in any case there needs to be a section on Thomas Quick as any scholars of theory need to take a deep look into this case. The falseness of the confessions is synonymous with the myth of repressed memory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.246.25 ( talk) 05:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
This page has been modified so much to the belief that Repressed memory is real, it no longer looks NPOV. Repressed memory is pseudoscience and that page is written as if the scientific community thinks it is real. It really need to me move back to a NOPV page.-- ARTEST4ECHO ( talk/ contribs) 14:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I agree. The article is a complete mess. It needs to be completely re-organized. Many of the sections overlap, and sort of say the same things. Other sections need to be broken up into smaller ones. It gives way too much credence to the fringe positions. Relies on primary sources. The lede is terrible. Many, many issues.
As a starting point, I've tried to simply remove the primary and low quality sources. Have I succeeded? Are there any more? If you see anymore, just outright remove them. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 09:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
@ARTEST4ECHO: I suggest as a start help organize and refine the current article. In addition, create a test page where you re-write the article. Then post the test page here for discussion. It can then be discussed, altered and some or all of your re-write can be incorporated into the article. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 09:43, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
I've reworked some of the most problematic wording, but we could really use some larger studies. As far as I'm aware every large scale study has pointed towards the nonexistence of the phenomenon, and NPOV doesn't mean we need to weight this as heavily as the few studies that strengthen the hypothesis. CFCF ( talk · contribs · email) 10:31, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
Also look at Recovered-memory therapy article. Possibly merge them. I dunno. -- Harizotoh9 ( talk) 12:07, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
Even though there is quite a strong argument that it is not possible to know if recovered memories are true or false I feel the article fails to bring up the viewpoint that it is impossible to recover memories. Looking into sources. CFCF ( talk · contribs · email) 09:45, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
I am fairly upset that the section I spent so much time researching and writing was removed. The article was extensively cited and sourced, and is clearly related to this topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.226.254 ( talk) 04:47, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry, the article has been purged of a number of other inaccuracies in the same time-period which fall under those clauses. The reason your text was removed was not that it was poorly sourced, but because it was not entirely in the scope of the article. Also one editor expressed concern that it might be a copyright violation. It is possible to restore the text and create a new article, such as; Forensics of repressed memory or similar. (Take note not to make the name too long). Also it is preferable to use in-line citations. CFCF ( talk · contribs · email) 09:06, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
The new article Forensics of repressed memory is in need of attention, and previous discussions on this talk page seem relevant. --Animalparty-- ( talk) 00:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Likewise confused about the assertive stance, since the inclusion by the U.S. authority in the past three editions of DSM demonstrate scientific consensus for the legitimacy of this phenomenon. SocialButterflyAgency ( talk) 15:47, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
It looks like this has been ongoing for more than a year.
"Repressed memory" was a topic of active debate in the 1990s. Its now been thoroughly rejected by the courts, the APA, etc.
This article is an example of the reason for the NPOV rule that tiny minority viewpoints do not get as much credence as supermajority viewpoints.
There hasn't been any support for this idea in 15 years.
People today discuss it only in the context of miscarriage-of-justice cases from the 1980s and 1990s in which people were convicted in child-molestation hysteria cases of crimes that never occurred.
If someone can point me to the POV dispute discussion, I'll get involved there.
If not, I'm bringing the issue back up here: Is there any reliable source from the past 15 years that this phenomenon even exists? If not, I propose going through the page and radically trimming it to note that the theory had proponents, is now discredited, cite the cases, and provide links to the miscarriage-of-justice pages.
Djcheburashka ( talk) 07:44, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
I'm confused by how assertive this article is that repressed memories is pseudo-science. Aren't there thousands of instances of returning soldiers who have lost memories of their time in the war, but are triggered by stimuli correlating with the absent memory and nightmares which express it (see: Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery). What is this if not repressed memory? The article mentions the term dissociation amnesia, which is referred to in the DSM, but other sources (e.g. Harvard magazine) simply describe it as the diagnostic term for repressed memories. And other Wikipedia articles cite repressed memories and amnesia as symptoms of psychological trauma. Huh?
Shouldn't the article clarify the difference between repressed memories and dissociation amnesia, and why one is accepted by the psychology community and the other is not? Because I have no idea after reading it.
Dark_Wolf101 07:34, 15 January 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dark Wolf101 ( talk • contribs)
Hi all. Currently in the process of researching an update/rewrite/clean-up of the article to remove the flags and bring it up to standard. Its going to be a lot of work and take a while. Given the level of attention and detail that a proper treatment will demand please direct suggestions, help, concerns, and criticisms to my talk page or the talk page for my sandbox. Cheers Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 13:14, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
I'm considering just removing the section on neurological basis of memory. It's well covered in Memory as well as elsewhere and seems extraneous to the article. Thoughts on that? Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 15:03, 2 May 2018 (UTC)
OK. I think the rewrite is very close to complete. I've added some references, tried to clarify some of the issues discussed previously on the talk page, rearranged the sections a bit, clarified what is speculative and what is backed up by research to the best of my ability, and think I might take it live here soon. I'd like it if anyone that has this on their watchlist could take a look at and provide some constructive criticism and propose any changes you think ought to be made. The article can be found HERE. Cheers. Rap Chart Mike ( talk) 14:16, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
When I read through the lede, it read to me like a series of sentences written by different people, without a clear organization or connections between paragraphs. I did some rewriting to try to improve the section's clarity while retaining almost all of the information that had been there, and added reference to an important recent review paper by Otgaar et al in Perspectives in Psychological Science. Thanks to whomever it was who quickly caught, and fixed, the error I made when adding the Otgaar reference. Regutten ( talk) 18:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
In the United States, the DSM serves as the principal authority for psychiatric diagnoses. The inclusion of dissociative amnesia in the last three editions of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders proves the Scientific consensus repressed memories is a real phenomenon, albeit the change in verbiage used to refer to it. SocialButterflyAgency ( talk) 15:30, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
On the scientific consensus, the American Psychological Association has a Memories of Childhood Abuse page, which clearly states that "both memory researchers and clinicians who work with trauma victims agree that both phenomena occur, [i.e., a child abuse memory being forgotten and then remembered and false memories]," and "most leaders in the field agree that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later."
On the reality of the phenomenon, there are many documented cases with corroborating evidence, including perpetrator confessions (here is a link to the "Case Archive" of Brown professor Ross Cheit's "Recovered Memory Project" — http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/case-archive/ ).
Recently there was a podcast done on a real case of recovered memory for an adult sexual assault— https://www.thecut.com/2019/10/the-cut-on-tuesdays-the-story-of-a-lyft-ride-gone-wrong.html
There are also cases of recovered memories of child sexual abuse and adult sexual assault published by the memory researcher Jonathan Schooler: https://labs.psych.ucsb.edu/schooler/jonathan/sites/labs.psych.ucsb.edu.schooler.jonathan/files/pubs/schooler_et_al_1997_-_taking_the_middle_line.pdf SocialButterflyAgency ( talk) 16:39, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Section on Research:
"Another possibility is that traumatic events are pushed out of consciousness until a later events elicits or triggers a psychological response."
That can only be called "a possibility" if there is evidence that can be referenced that supports the claim. Moreover, as McNally has noted in several of his papers, seemingly forgetting an event until the memory is cued by an effective retrieval cue does not necessarily imply that the memory was "pushed out of consciousness"
" A high percentage of female psychiatric in-patients,[17][18][19][20][21] and outpatients [22][23][24] have reported experiencing histories of childhood sexual abuse. Other clinical studies have concluded that patients who experienced incestuous abuse reported higher suicide attempts and negative identity formation[25] as well as more disturbances in interpersonal relationships.[26]"
How are those sentences relevant to the topic? Given that the statements are presented as part of this page, the implication is that repressed memories play some kind or role in these responses to childhood trauma. Implying that without providing reference to supporting evidence violates NPOV standards.
The paragraph quoted above should simply be deleted.
Section on Cause
"Researchers have proposed that repression can operate on a social level as well.[33]"
Even though Freyd uses the term repression when describing what she argues has occurred at a social level, the phenomenon of social repression of information is a VERY different phenomenon than the purported phenomenon of memory repression occurring at the individual level. Moreover, without additional elaboration, it is impossible for anyone but an anlready informed reader to know what this sentence refers to. It *might* be worth keeping this reference as part of the page, but only if some additional explanation of "repression at the social level" is offered.
"Other theoretical causes of forgotten memories have stemmed from the idea of Retrieval-Influenced Forgetting,[34] which states that “false” memories will be more accurately recalled when rehearsed more, than when actual memories get rehearsed. In this scenario, the action of rehearsing a falsified memory can actually take precedence over the actual memory that a person experiences. Anderson et al.[34] discovered that rehearsal of novel information exhibits inhibitive processes on one’s ability to remember or recall the prior (real) memory. This conclusion indicates that past memories can be easily forgotten, simply by attending to “real”, novel memories that are brought into awareness."
This entire paragraph is borderline incomprehensible. I suspect (can't be bothered to comb through the history to find out) that it was written by a student as part of a course assignment. I wish faculty would not do that, because the end result is almost inevitably that the wikipedia page ends up poorly written and disorganized.
Section on Neurological Basis of Memory
As was noted by another editor, it is not clear why this section is here at all. It should only be retained only if the information provided adds to our understanding of issues regarding claims of repressed memories. The discussion of the study with mice by Radulovic is really the only part of the section that would seem to directly relate to a discussion of repression. A more recent article by Radulovic that could be discussed in this section can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30429781
Regutten ( talk) 18:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Much of this article slanted the research to encode bias against recovered memories, a well documented phenomenon.
In the context of disputing validity for recovered memories, one sentence under the In the context of disputing the validity of their Authenticity section stated:
“For example, one study where victims of documented child abuse were reinterviewed many years later as adults, 38% of the women denied any memory of the abuse.”
I have edited it and reorganized it under the Case Study section:
“A number of studies have reported data that could be used to estimate the prevalence of prior periods of non-remembering of childhood sexual abuse among adults who report such a history. In one such study involving 129 women who had documented cases of child abuse, 38% had no memories of the abuse when reinterviewed 17 years later.“
To provide a more balanced observation, and better topic flow I have made about a dozen such corrections/rearrangements.
PS Thank you for allowing me a chance to contribute to the wiki community, and I apologize in advance for any editing errors!! I’m a newb editor looking to grow and gain experience and willing to take direction! 🤓
Much love, Kat SocialButterflyAgency ( talk) 05:25, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
This article does not hold much scientific value. It cherrypicks the perspectives of people arguing against repressed memories IN THE CONTEXT OF FALSE MEMORIES while completely ignoring or worse, trying to patronize, the larger context of dissociative amnesia. The discourse is therefore shifted onto the existence of false memories, and while those of course are real phenonenon, so is dissociative amnesia which should be represented just as prominently. The narrative of this article is harmful towards people suffering from dissociative disorders or dissociative amnesia as well as people trying to inform themselves about this phenomenon, and does not accurately inform about different comprehensions of "repressed memory". 94.220.132.91 ( talk) 18:47, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
[4] What is "unbalanced" about that section? -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 05:51, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
The following information below is inconsistent with DSM-5 regarding the treatment of dissociative amnesia and it could be confusing to readers. In many cases, dissociative amnesia is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or another disorder. Psychotherapy is indicated for the management of dissociative amnesia according to DSM-5. In fact, when a person is recovering memories following dissociative amnesia, the experience can be extremely distressing and elevating the risk for self-harm including suicide. See section below:
Despite widespread belief in the phenomenon of repressed memories among laypersons and clinical psychologists,[4] most research psychologists who study the psychology of memory dispute that repression ever occurs at all.[5][6][7][8][9][10] While some psychologists claim that repressed memories can be recovered through psychotherapy (or may be recovered spontaneously, years or even decades after the event, when the repressed memory is triggered by a particular smell, taste, or other identifier related to the lost memory),[11] experts in the psychology of memory argue that, rather than promoting the recovery of a real repressed memory, psychotherapy is more likely to contribute to the creation of false memories.[12][13][9] According to the American Psychological Association, it is not possible to distinguish repressed memories from false ones without corroborating evidence.[3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8A:200:B6B0:F59B:5E58:8FA8:CD64 ( talk) 21:16, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
"Memories can be accurate, but they are not always accurate. For example, eyewitness testimony even of relatively recent dramatic events is notoriously unreliable.[31] Memories of events are a mix of fact overlaid with emotions, mingled with interpretation and "filled in" with imaginings. Skepticism regarding the validity of a memory as factual detail is warranted.[32] For example, one study where victims of documented child abuse were reinterviewed many years later as adults, 38% of the women denied any memory of the abuse.[33]"
This paragraph cites LM Williams' article based on a prospective study involving cases of documented sexual abuse in which the victims were seen at a hospital. Here is the abstract:
"One hundred twenty-nine women with previously documented histories of sexual victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked detailed questions about their abuse histories to answer the question 'Do people actually forget traumatic events such as child sexual abuse, and if so, how common is such forgetting?' A large proportion of the women (38%) did not recall the abuse that had been reported 17 years earlier. Women who were younger at the time of the abuse and those who were molested by someone they knew were more likely to have no recall of the abuse. The implications for research and practice are discussed. Long periods with no memory of abuse should not be regarded as evidence that the abuse did not occur."
How exactly one gets "Skepticism regarding the validity of a memory as factual detail is warranted" from that is beyond me. The entire point of the article is that women with medically documented experiences of sexual abuse reported having lost memory of said abuse at some point, for some period of time. Moreover, the leap from "certain details of a memory can and do change over time" to "the memories are entirely made up and false" is pretty enormous! I'll have to do some digging to find the sources, but the majority of literature I've read on this subject suggests that the issue is with details being inaccurate in ways that compromise legal testimony - i.e. a mugging victim may misremember the race of their assailant, especially as a result of implicit bias. But, this is not to say, nor does the majority of research suggest (as far as I'm aware), that the entire memory of being mugged should therefore be called into question. Again, the issue is about particular details, not the general summary of the overall event.
Frankly, this article seems highly biased towards towards a "skeptic" position which frames itself as based on "the real science" while ignoring the many serious critiques of that position. For example, I just removed a line from the intro about repressed memory being "largely scientifically discredited" which cited, in part, this APA FAQ page which responds to the question,
"Can a memory be forgotten and then remembered? Can a 'memory' be suggested and then remembered as true?"
with,
"What we do know is that both memory researchers and clinicians who work with trauma victims agree that both phenomena occur."
Again, how we get from that to "largely scientifically discredited" is beyond me. What is clear is that some version of "repressed memory" is widely considered a real phenomenon in the mental health community and the actual controversy is around how often it occurs, its mechanisms, and the validity and safety of therapies intended to "recover" such memories. That debate should absolutely be represented in this article, but as it stands the article reads like it is denying the very existence of a phenomenon which has, at this point, but thoroughly empirically validated (see, for example, the Recovered Memory Project). I would hope that all the skeptics who claim they're "just following the science" would want to do just that and present a less biased picture of the current state of debate around this sensitive and controversial issue, rather than offering a polemic for one "side" or the other.
Donna's Cyborg ( talk) 16:22, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
can you provide evidence that the journal Trauma, Violence, & Abuse is in any way fringe or disreputable?Why on Earth should I do that? I did not say it was, I never even mentioned it. If you pull stuff out of your hat and demand I back up statements I never made about that stuff, a
polite and reasonable discussionis going to be difficult.
moving forward accusations of "fringe" or "pseudoscience" were backed up with quality sourcingThe fringe I was talking about is recovered memory therapy. Are you really demanding evidence that that one is fringe and pseudoscientific, or are you putting words into my mouth?
Research during the past two decades has firmly established the reliability of the phenomenon of recovered memory. This review first highlights the strongest evidence for the phenomenon itself and discusses the survey, experimental, and biological evidence for the varying mechanisms that may underlie the phenomenon. Routes to traumatic amnesia from dissociative detachment (loss of emotional content leading to loss of factual content) and from dissociative compartmentalization (failure in integration) are discussed. Next, an argument is made that false memory is a largely orthogonal concept to recovered memory; the possibility of one phenomena is largely irrelevant to the potential for the other. Furthermore, some aspects of the false memory research offer supportive data for the recovered memory researcher. Finally, the issue of error rates in making the Daubert case is explored. It is concluded that the weight of the evidence should allow the recovered memory victim to come before the court.
One strategy to oppose recovered memory possibility, then, is to choose the mechanism that is most difficult to prove (in this case, repression) and pretend that evidence against the mechanism is evidence against the phenomena. As an analogy, some researchers believe that viruses play a role in schizophrenia. If this hypothesis proves to be false, it does not then follow that schizophrenia does not exist.
At the present point in time, in keeping with the many surveys on recovered memory and the hundreds of supporting empirical studies on stress, trauma and memory, the concept of recovered memory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. In a survey of psychologists by Pope and Tabachnick (1995), 73% stated that they had personally seen a case that they classified as a recovered memory. In a survey of both American and British professionals, Poole, Lindsay, Memon, and Bull (1995) found a similar high rate of experience with the phenomena. Polusny and Follette (1996) found that 28% of psychologists reported that they had seen a case of repressed memory in the past year. In Dammeyer, Nightingale, and McCoy’s (1997) more recent survey, only 7% of experimental psychologists, 3% of clinical psychologists with research involvement, and 2% of clinicians with no research involvement reported that they held the view that accurate recovered memories of trauma are not possible (rating the possibility of loss and recovery of a trauma memory as 1 or 2 on a 1 to 10 point scale of validity). The majority of all groups view the current evidence as supporting a more probable than not decision (6 to 8 on an 10-point scale) or are certain of the validity of the phenomenon (9 to 10). The relevant percentages for experimentalists, clinical researchers and PhD clinicians who rated their belief in the validity of recovered memory at or more than 6 were 70%, 88%, and 93% respectively. If asked for their belief in repressed memory, the number dropped slightly, but the majority of each group still fell in the more probable than not category. Fourteen percent of experimentalists, 2% of clinical researchers, and 1% of nonresearcher clinicians take the position of the extreme false memory advocates and reject the concept (rating belief as 1 or 2).
Perhaps part of a solution is to include additional, reliable, secondary sources that support the claim largely scientifically discredited
. How about sourcing to some combination of
this,
this,
this, and
this, none of which (I think) are currently referenced in the article? The final source on this list speaks to an alleged dichotomy between researchers (i.e., scientists) and clinicians, but that dichotomy supports the phrase "largely scientifically discredited." Along with adding some additional sources, perhaps appending to the quoted passage something along the lines of "but accepted by some therapists" (with appropriate sources, of course) would be acceptable? I know that wording is a bit weasely, but collaboration, consensus, and all that.
JoJo Anthrax (
talk) 16:19, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
At the present point in time, in keeping with the many surveys on recovered memory and the hundreds of supporting empirical studies on stress, trauma and memory, the concept of recovered memory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. In a survey of psychologists by Pope and Tabachnick (1995), 73% stated that they had personally seen a case that they classified as a recovered memory. In a survey of both American and British professionals, Poole, Lindsay, Memon, and Bull (1995) found a similar high rate of experience with the phenomena. Polusny and Follette (1996) found that 28% of psychologists reported that they had seen a case of repressed memory in the past year. In Dammeyer, Nightingale, and McCoy’s (1997) more recent survey, only 7% of experimental psychologists, 3% of clinical psychologists with research involvement, and 2% of clinicians with no research involvement reported that they held the view that accurate recovered memories of trauma are not possible (rating the possibility of loss and recovery of a trauma memory as 1 or 2 on a 1 to 10 point scale of validity). The majority of all groups view the current evidence as supporting a more probable than not decision (6 to 8 on an 10-point scale) or are certain of the validity of the phenomenon (9 to 10). The relevant percentages for experimentalists, clinical researchers and PhD clinicians who rated their belief in the validity of recovered memory at or more than 6 were 70%, 88%, and 93% respectively. If asked for their belief in repressed memory, the number dropped slightly, but the majority of each group still fell in the more probable than not category. Fourteen percent of experimentalists, 2% of clinical researchers, and 1% of nonresearcher clinicians take the position of the extreme false memory advocates and reject the concept (rating belief as 1 or 2).
Edited to add tl;dr:
This article represents a minority position as settled consensus science and the majority position as fringe/pseudoscience. The article also relies heavily on non-academic and primary sources despite a wealth of secondary sources. I am suggesting that article at very least needs significant re-writing. It might also make sense to simply merge much of this material into
recovered-memory therapy,
repression (psychoanalysis) and/or
dissociative amnesia, the latter of which already has a section on repressed memory that is much more balanced than this article. Honestly, all three of these are connected in ways that make me unsure how to best structure/link them together. I'm new to making significant edits like this and would greatly appreciate helpful input and constructive criticism from more experienced editors.
|
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I thought it might be helpful to gather sources under a new heading here where I can make my case. Issue One: Scientific Consensus
This article has reviewed the evidence for eight predictions made by the TM and FM of dissociation. The evidence from all eight areas more strongly and consistently supports the TM than the FM
Of these eight peer-reviewed metanalyses and systematic reviews, the vast majority support the claim that acceptance of some form of the "repressed memory" hypothesis is widespread in both the experimental and clinical communities. Dalenberg (2006) addresses this most directly, citing three studies surveying experimentalists, clinicians and clinician-experimentalist. Significant majorities of all groups expressed that some form of the "repressed memory" hypothesis was either probably or certainly true. Dodie (2018) - which it should be noted leans towards the "anti-repressed memory" camp - definitively debunks any claim that this issue is "largely scientifically discredited" because it demonstrates that as of 2018 research interest in the topic was at least as strong as during the so-called "memory wars" of the 1980's and 1990's. Loftus and Davis (2006) represent the most significant detraction from this consensus. However, they exclusively "focus upon the controversial sense of this term, which involves memories of abuse that are 'recovered' during suggestive psychotherapy." While this may be the most controversial sense of term, it is hardly how it used throughout the relevant peer-reviewed literature. This definitional issue is not only critical for resolving the neutrality and confusing structure of this article, but is also an important part of story of "repressed memory" itself that the article is intended to cover. To quote Dalenberg et al. (2012) again,
As currently written the article insinuates that there is no meaningful difference between dissociative amnesia and "repressed memory" while also insinuating that the former is just a sneaky way of referring to the latter. For one, this undermines the very argument the article is trying to make - and let's be clear, this article is taking sides here - in that it would imply that the DSM-5 recognizes "repressed memory" as a legitimate phenomenon by way of its inclusion of dissociative amnesia. Secondly, the fact that a minority of critics believe these concepts to be essentially identical and inherently illegitimate should not be allowed to overshadow the consensus represented by both the statistics cited in Dalenberg (2006) and the inclusion of dissociative amnesia in DSM-5. The consensus in the field, as demonstrated above, is quite clearly that a minority of people do in fact experience some kind of delayed recall of actual childhood abuse and that this is better described as dissociative amnesia than "repressed memory" due to the heterogeneity of these experiences and the mechanisms underlying them.
As argued above, the majority consensus view on repressed memories/dissociative amnesia is that people can forget and then later recall traumatic memories and pseudo-memories can be constructed, particularly when specific suggestive therapies are used. Despite this, by my rough count this article contains 36 inline citations from 6 primary authors representing the minority view and only 23 inline citations from 15 primary authors for the mainstream view. Moreover, 36 citations representing the minority view are heavily skewed towards just three authors - McNally (15), Loftus (8) and Otgaar (8) - while the 15 authors representing the majority view mostly have one citation each, with Bessel van der Kolk topping the list at 3 citations. Additionally, the Otgaar citation is to a single reference which is cited eight times throughout the article. These issues are also representative of the overall structure of the article, which gives significant weight to these three authors who espouse a minority view. I believe this constitutes a clear case of Undue Weight.
...well... at least if others think this article should even remain. If so, I believe that it requires a significant rewrite to meet NPOV. However, I think an argument could also be made for merging much of this into dissociative amnesia, recovered memory therapy and/or memory inhibition. And that is assuming this article isn't simply replicating - in an often very poorly structured, confusing and misleading way - content already present in those or other pages. Regardless, I think I've made my case pretty extensively lol, so I'm going to go ahead and flag the issues I've covered now. |
Donna's Cyborg ( talk) 05:01, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Donna's Cyborg ( talk) 19:45, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
In part because of the intense controversies that arose surrounding the concepts of repressed and recovered memories, many clinical psychologists stopped using those terms and instead adopted the term dissociative amnesia to refer to the purported processes whereby memories for traumatic events become inaccessible, [1] [2] and the term dissociative amnesia can be found in the DSM-V, where it is defined as an "inability to recall autobiographical information. This amnesia may be localized (i.e., an event or period of time), selective (i.e., a specific aspect of an event), or generalized (i.e., identity and life history)." The change in terminology, however, has not made belief in the phenomenon any less problematic according to experts in the field of memory. [1] [2] As Richard J. McNally, Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, has written: "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." [3]
please read the page. Frankly, you seem to be taking the most unflattering reading of the page possible to make your argument and I'm done going back and forth with you. — The Hand That Feeds You: Bite 21:19, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Otgaar
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).pmid17803876
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).Donna's Cyborg ( talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
"Making accusations of tendentious editing can be inflammatory and hence these accusations may not be helpful in a dispute. It can be seen as a personal attack if tendentious editing is alleged without clear evidence that the other's action meets the criteria set forth on this page, and unfounded accusations may constitute harassment if done repeatedly."
References
I see from the sections above that this article is very controversial and its current state is disputed, but what I immediately notice is that the opening sentence fails even to define what "repressed memory" means, per WP:FIRST. I'm glad I can read French, because I was able to find out by reading the opening of fr:Mémoire traumatique refoulée. — Mahāgaja · talk 14:01, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Repressed memory is an inability to recall autobiographical informationActually, the repressed memory is the memory of the autobiographical information that one is unable to recall. But it is understandable, and clearly an improvement. I have no non-clumsy suggestion for further improvement at the moment. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 12:31, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2023 and 15 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Smithzorah ( article contribs).
— Assignment last updated by Smithzorah ( talk) 21:32, 1 April 2023 (UTC)