![]() This of course can leave someone very vulnerable and damaged. It can do this by combining pieces of real memories with suggestions made by others.Īnd that is another danger of the concept of repressed memories – sometimes, sadly, we can be manipulated by others to believe something has happened to us when it hasn’t. Unless many other people come forward with the same memory of a situation, it’s possible your recall is instead a false memory created by the brain to manage reality more effectively. The brain is a highly complicated and intelligent network. ![]() Repressed memories are also very difficult to prove as factual. And proving the phenomenon by research is tricky as it would involve monitoring people for years of their lives. They are not something, for example, a brain scan or microscope can pick up. It’s very difficult to prove that repressed memories really exist. The controversy around repressed memories If you went to therapy, you might discover your family was not so happy or that you have ‘forgotten’ your father’s violence toward your mother. So you tell yourself it’s just ‘timing’ and ‘bad luck’, and keep living a very lonely life. In your ‘memory’ you come from a happy family. But the brain does indeed favour some memories while repressing others, albeit in a far more complicated and not completely understood fashion.įor example, you might have terrible difficulties letting other people get close to you and lack any long-term friendships. Neuroscience has also made it clear there is no such ‘lockup room’ in the brain where all our difficult memories are kept in cold storage waiting to be discovered. Few therapists think that repressed memories are the cause of all issues an individual has, although they are important and need consideration. Of course nowadays psychotherapy has moved on a bit. He felt that it was necessary for clients to work with an analyst who was trained to help one ‘dig out’ and process such repressed memories. The concept of repressed memory is that when something happens that is very shocking or hard to handle, the mind decides to block it out.Īn automatic process, it differs from suppression, where you can decide to no longer think about things because you don’t like them.įreud developed the idea that repressed memories were delegated to a part of the mind called the ‘unconscious‘, and based psychoanalytical psychotherapy around the concept that what we hide in the unconscious is behind any struggles we have in life. Repressed memories are an important yet controversial topic in psychology.ĭo these memories really exist, do they matter as much as some people think, and how are they best dealt with if so? What are repressed memories?
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