Posted by Dinah on February 28, 2004, at 10:20:11
In reply to latest from Frederick Crews, posted by badhaircut on February 27, 2004, at 9:34:44
I think it's impossible to make generalizations about something as complex as the brain, when clearly we don't know enough about how it works to make global pronouncements.
Did he really say?
> He boils down the studies reviewed: «[N]o unanswerable evidence has been adduced to prove that anyone, anywhere, has ever repressed or dissociated the memory of any occurrence.»
>About any occurrence? Not just major life shattering ones but any ones? Because I can't believe he would say something so definitive. I thought that people in accidents often forgot the actual accident, even in the absence of head trauma. "The last thing I remember was...." And I certainly have had whole conversations with people during which I just wasn't there, and can't remember a thing afterwards.
Are there therapists who go hunting for and help to implant false memories in vulnerable clients? The evidence is overwhelmingly yes. Enough licenses have been very publicly yanked for me to believe that. Is it possible to manufacture memories? Certainly research has convincingly shown that. Is it possible to forget even traumatic memories? I think the research is there for that. Can such memories later be retrieved? I don't know. There have been some cases where retrieved memories have been corroborated by medical and family testimony. Were they ever truly lost and later retrieved? I don't know.
Should therapists and clients alike be cautious with the idea? Certainly.
But I'm not going to discount someone else's experience or refuse to believe it. Because we just don't know enough about how the brain in general, and individual brains in particular, work.
poster:Dinah
thread:318184
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040225/msgs/318482.html