Posted by special_k on April 6, 2006, at 23:47:56
In reply to Re: ancient CSA » special_k, posted by pseudoname on April 6, 2006, at 22:50:05
> > how many cases of csa are reported prior to 1800?
> Oh, good point! Very interesting. Well— except for those that were culturally sanctioned, like with catamites and child brides.ah... so... wasn't there any childhood sexual abuse (thinking more particularly of incest here) or...
was it something that society didn't look into / acknowledge / talk about...
?
i dont' think it is legitimate to infer from the lack of reports that it didnt' happen.
and ditto with the case of repressed memory, i guess.
re fiction... wouldn't incest have been a juicy topic for shakespeare etc too????? maybe it just wasnt' the done thing. and again... re memory of traumatic experiences... maybe a cultural thing of 'moving along now' did come into play. and so therapists (tell us your secrets) and delving into the past... well maybe that does get people thinking on it (and hence reporting it) whereas before... maybe the memories were never 'recovered' because the 'recovered memory' was thought (by the subject) to be fantasy... or maybe they just didn't want to talk about it (i mean why go through the pain unless there is a theory that going through the pain helps the pain long term?)
> We do get stories of adult rape and both adult and child murder, so presumably when instances of CSA were known, they were deliberately never mentioned. Very interesting.> The absence of CSA is interesting... Someone must've written papers about this.
i've head ian hacking's "multiple personality and the sciences of memory" and he talks about how definitions of 'abuse' have changed over time (now lots more acts are considered 'abuse' that would not be considered 'abuse' in the past. if you change the concept so more acts fall under it then the prevalence of abuse will go up...)
> Of course, as you say, there are other traumas that are considered triggers of repressed memory, many of which are events of the sort clearly reported in ancient literature. Murder, fires, adult rape, pillaging, kidnapping, plague, wholesale slaughter of towns, etc. If these events had triggered repressed memory, writing about their recovery would not have violated any taboos, as it might've with CSA memories.yes. that seems right. i would say absence of therapists and absence of belief in the utility of remembering could come into play quite significantly.
but i don't tink failure to find repressed memories
i don't think failure to find csa
means those things didn't occur.
just that they weren't talked about...hard to know... it is interesting topic... there is huge lit...
> Not all the repression currently reported is from early (say, pre-10) childhood, is it? I don't really know.
no. some from older. some from younger. lots of empirical support for notion that recovered memories before age 3 (i think) is rather dodgey...
> From the posting, I think the McLean folk would accept someone simply self-reporting that they did not remember it earlier but do remember it now. They just ask for someone who's
> > been unable to access the memory
> not someone whose previous denial was on record.how do they measure 'inability to access the memory'?
that is a very real problem...
if i do not remember...
is it because i cannot remember...
or because i choose not to remember...
and do i remember but deny it...
or not remember which is why i deny it...and how do you decide?
(that is a very real problem)
poster:special_k
thread:629255
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060406/msgs/629932.html