Health and Medicine
The Folklore of Buried Memories
Richard J. McNally
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How victims remember trauma is the most controversial issue facing psychology and psychiatry today. Many clinical trauma theorists believe that combat, rape, and other terrifying experiences are seemingly engraved on the mind, never to be forgotten.
Others disagree, arguing that the mind can protect itself by banishing memories of trauma from awareness, making it difficult for victims to remember their most horrific experiences until it is safe to do so many years later. While acknowledging that trauma is often all too memorable, these certain clinical trauma theorists assert that a condition known as “traumatic dissociative amnesia” leaves a large minority of victims unable to recall their trauma, precisely because it was so overwhelmingly terrifying.
However, these clinical trauma theorists do not argue that “repressed” or “dissociated” memories of horrific events are either inert or benign. On the contrary, these buried memories silently poison the lives of victims, giving rise to seemingly inexplicable psychiatric symptoms, and therefore must be exhumed for healing to occur.
This is no ordinary academic debate. The controversy has spilled out of the psychology laboratories and psychiatric clinics, capturing headlines, motivating legislative changes, and affecting outcomes in civil lawsuits and criminal trials.
Whether individuals can repress and recover memories of traumatic sexual abuse has been especially contentious. During the 1990’s, many adult psychotherapy patients began to recall having been sexually abused during childhood. Some took legal action against the alleged perpetrators, often their elderly parents. While complaints against parents, based on allegedly repressed and recovered memories of abuse, have declined, those against large institutions, such as the Catholic Church, have increased.
Strikingly, both advocates and skeptics of the concept of traumatic dissociative amnesia adduce the same studies when defending their diametrically opposed views. But it is the advocates who misinterpret the data when attempting to show that victims are often unable to recall their traumatic experiences.
Consider the following. After exposure to extreme stress, some victims report difficulties remembering things in everyday life. Advocates of traumatic amnesia misconstrue these reports as showing that victims are unable to remember the horrific event itself. In reality, this memory problem concerns ordinary absentmindedness that emerges in the wake of trauma; it does not refer to an inability to remember the trauma itself. Ordinary forgetfulness that emerges after a trauma must not be confused with amnesia for the trauma.
Consider, too, that one symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder is an “inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma.” This symptom, however, does not mean that victims are unaware of having been traumatized.
Indeed, the mind does not operate like a video recorder, and thus not every aspect of a traumatic experience gets encoded into memory in the first place. High levels of emotional arousal often result in the victim’s attention being drawn to the central features of the event at the expense of other features. Incomplete encoding of a trauma must not be confused with amnesia – an inability to recall something did get into memory.
Moreover, a rare syndrome called “psychogenic amnesia” is sometimes confused with traumatic amnesia. Victims of psychogenic amnesia suddenly lose all memory of their previous lives, including their sense of personal identity. Occasionally, this sudden, complete memory loss occurs after severe stress, but not invariably. After a few days or weeks, memory abruptly returns. In contrast, the phenomenon of dissociative amnesia supposedly entails victims’ inability to remember their traumatic experiences, not an inability to remember their entire lives or who they are.
Several surveys show that adults reporting childhood sexual abuse often say that there was a period of time when they “could not remember” their abuse. Claims of prior inability to remember imply that they had attempted unsuccessfully to recall their abuse, only to remember it much later. Yet if these individuals were unable to remember their abuse, on what basis would they attempt to recall it in the first place?
Most likely, they meant that there was a period of time when they did not think about their abuse. But not thinking about something is not the same thing as being unable to remember it. It is inability to remember that constitutes amnesia.
Research conducted in my laboratory on adults reporting histories of childhood sexual abuse provides a solution to this bitter controversy. Some of our participants reported having forgotten episodes of nonviolent sexual abuse perpetrated by a trusted adult. They described it as having been upsetting, confusing, and disturbing, but not traumatic in the sense of being overwhelmingly terrifying. Failing to understand what had happened to them, they simply did not think about it for many years.
When reminders prompted recollection many years later, they experienced intense distress, finally understanding their abuse from the perspective of an adult. These cases count as recovered memories of sexual abuse, but not as instances of traumatic dissociative amnesia. That is, the events were not experienced as traumatic when they occurred, and there is no evidence that they were inaccessible during the years when they never came to mind.
Sexual abuse is not invariably traumatic in the sense of being overwhelmingly terrifying. Of course, it is always morally reprehensible, even when it fails to produce lasting psychiatric symptoms.
Richard J. McNally, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. He is the author of Remembering Trauma.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2005.
www.project-syndicate.org
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pete 09:19 02 Dec 09
BTW, not only do I have clear memories of the rapes following "amnesia", I also have proof of a medical exam from a doctor. I had an inflamed and irritate rectum and VD at age 9. The Doctor was the father of one of the priests who orchestrated the gang rape. Another was witnessed by someone who came forward over 30 years after.
Guilt causes some to come forward and I was able to fill in the blanks 100%.
Yet the appointment and the rapes were a blank before.
I will never see justice thanks to those who deny us with their poor studies to making us liars and because of this the courts stop these from moving forward. Imagine my life? Imagine how unbelievable, yet I have all the proof needed. All because of junk science.
pete 04:13 03 Dec 09
It is not possible to embed false memories into humans and expect those to last. Trauma has too many associations that surround it. Feeling, smell and pain. It simply does not hold up to scrutiny for any period of time. Sure you might convince someone for a very short while, then again it will fade fast. It becomes distorted and the individual will struggle to remember. It never could last long enough to even make it as far as a court date, let alone good attorneys breaking it down.
Consider a broken arm as a child. The later adult will not only remember the pain but also the cast. Inability to ride a bike or to awkwardly ride it. The friends that signed it. The anticipation of finally having it removed. The associations go deep and these can not be implanted, in fact the mind will shortly start to question it. In fact a broken arm with events processed into memory will fade before unprocessed events from trauma when recalled 50 years into the future.
There have been virtually no cases of false memories where the victim truly believed it happened. Then again as anything else, and at much lower percentage, some people simply lie. We know some people will lie, does this mean we should never try anyone for any crime? After all, it is the memories of witnesses that help in conviction.
Then again, those who need to hide from such horrendous crimes need a place to hide, this is a great book for those.
pete 07:21 04 Dec 09
Be honest, this is what you protect http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1204/1224260042788.html
pete 08:58 02 Dec 09
"Sexual abuse is not invariably traumatic in the sense of being overwhelmingly terrifying." I disagree and junk science begins with this statement.
I was sodomized from ages 8 to 10, once a gang rape by four priests (FBI has come to realizing pedophiles find one another to sharing opportunities). Following one sodomy, the priest attempted to suffocate me and I played dead and slept in the woods. Life threatening and overwhelmingly traumatic is a gross understatement.
As a single dad, when my son turned the age I was when first abused, memories flooded in. Why then? It simply may have been a reflection of me through my son plus a parental need to protect him. This alone trumps our minds auto need to continue keeping us safe from the memories. This form of trauma recall is common, which this article does not address.
Would parents be able to watch a film of a small 9 year old boy being sodomized by a group? Most couldn't fathom such a horrendous act, let alone even think of it. Wonder how some think the victim child is to consider this as simply "morally reprehensible" and later some casual "absentmindedness" for not remembering to tell? It was terrifying, I know firsthand.
During the sodomises I distinctly remember trying hard to separate my mind from my body, as if this were not me. I have later found out this is usual among victims.
Why don't children tell is the reason this is the "Perfect Crime". In fact the more violent the rape, the longer lasting is the trauma. I also remember that I didn't cry, after if I were to cry that would mean I would have to process the events. Bingo! The answer is that we didn't process the experience. Unprocessed traumatic experiences do not dissolve nor do they get distorted. Details associated with the trauma have greater detail round them for the very reason our senses are heightened. This alone brings out an even stronger awareness.
Then why don’t children of overwhelmingly terrifying rape run and tell someone? Just as I did not cry, the next step was to go into isolation. After all, in isolation you can control your mind from the events, a complete escape. Ever go to the dentists and during the drilling focus a thought on something else? Same, except a dentist procedure is not quite as terrifying. Imagine the priest’s threatening you and your family if you tell? As a small child you know they mean business. What I can tell you what happens next is that your mind will quickly hop from thought to thought, rapidly. You must avoid any memory.
Most everyone has had a mild trauma, an embarrassing situation, they will forget without control and remember later. It is all about when your mind is able to process it. When it does though, and no matter how long ago, the vividness of detail is surprising. Why? Unprocessed traumatic events can not be altered or faded until processed.
Remember, it is articles as these that provide a hiding place for pedophiles. And using the term "ritual abuse" is merely a distraction when what is really meant by it is that an organization has proven to have volumes of abuse.
You could never traumatize a child to the degree needed for proper laboratory testing. This leaves the the study to those who pretend to think as others using a brain lacking experience.
There is too much for me to write here, though I can prove with real life experiences so others can understand why this study failed miserably.
To help understand a victims life, you might watch the movie "Click", with Adam Sandler. Although it has nothing to do with abuse, the life missed parallels the victims. Those watching this movie were terrified as imagining they were Adam now a much older man never living a life. Thankfully this was a movie and Adan was given a second chance. Victims have to live with the reality, the worst trauma of all.
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