ask dr. read      Idaho Statesman columns      new articles      biography      formal resume      philosophy      services offered      contact dr. read      psychology links      other links      forms      pictures		Researchers Debate Repressed Memories by James M. Read, Ph.D. The debate rages on. Can people totally repress memories of childhood sexual and/or physical abuse? Do they remember nothing, until at some point in their adult life traumatic memories begin to return, sometimes in bits and pieces, like a puzzle? Many therapists will attest to the the fact that this does indeed occur. But researchers on memory are quick to point to the malleability of memory, and the general unreliability of memory, especially when it comes to emotionally charged events. One famous researcher (Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, University of Washington) at the center of the current debate has done hundreds of experiments with thousands of people and finds that people remember things and events incorrectly and can be made to "remember" events as if they really happened to them that never happened at all. There have been more court cases, and talk show appearances by people who claim to have remembered abuse by their parents in childhood. One famous example is, of course, television actress Roseanne Barr Arnold. She claims to have remembered abuse by her parents in the first 6 months of her life. Carol Tavris writes, in the New York Times Book Review "Beware the Incest Survivor Machine" and gets raked over the coals by authors of a popular self-help book. Dr. John Briere (USC Medical School) has treated 100's of victims of sexual abuse and is considered a national expert on the subject. I listened to him all day a few years ago giving a seminar in Sun Valley for the Idaho Psychological Association. He was terrific. He argues with Dr. Loftus that lab experiments on memory, involving no trauma, produce a completely different situation. "It's the trauma in in the memory that relates to the dynamic of not remembering." I think they're both right. I think people do repress painful memories that they may never recall, or may only later begin slowly, in bits and pieces, to recall, but not always accurately. Traumatic memories may be distorted and amplified too. And no one escapes the effects of movies, TV, and "popular culture" in general. The bottom line? There is no simple answer. One size does not fit all. I think people do repress traumatic memories they may recall later in life. But I also think that overzealous therapists may interpret symptoms incorrectly, or may be biased in favor of seeing every symptom as an indication of past abuse. Beware the therapist who jumps to conclusions. There are lots of reasons people have anxiety, are depressed, or are uncomfortable around the opposite (or the same) gender, etc. etc. Repressed abuse is far too often blamed. There are false positives. James M. Read, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist  Originally published in The Idaho Stateman newspaper (Boise, Idaho) March 19, 1994 For more information, or to contact the author (that's me!), write to James M. Read, Ph.D., jread@jread.com