Talk:Repressed memory/Archive 2

This article is dangerously irresponsible
Repressed Memory is rejected by mainstream science. The article looks like it has been written by advocates of repressed memory therapy rather than objective editors. For any other subject this wouldn't be bad, but this is frankly dangerous. Editors should step in and do something.173.76.92.94 (talk) 20:02, 30 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Dimitrova, L., Dean, S., Schlumpf, Y., Vissia, E., Nijenhuis, E., Chatzi, V., . . . Reinders, A. (2021). A neurostructural biomarker of dissociative amnesia: A hippocampal study in dissociative identity disorder. Psychological Medicine, 1-9. doi:10.1017/S0033291721002154
 * I believe this article is currently unbalanced and unclear. For the purpose of a universal language to describe repressed memories, I suggest this article refer readers to the topic for dissociative amnesia. In full disclosure: I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse with repressed memories with very strong evidence to backup their accuracy. It may be helpful to recognize that there has been controversy. The study above as well as other brain imaging studies are starting to yield information on brain differences between people with reported dissociative amnesia and a healthy controls. Suggesting that dissociative amnesia has been largely discredited is false.
 * Woodson, J. C., Macintosh, D., Fleshner, M., & Diamond, D. M. (2003). Emotion-induced amnesia in rats: working memory-specific impairment, corticosterone-memory correlation, and fear versus arousal effects on memory. Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.), 10(5), 326–336. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.62903
 * In addition, recent animal studies have shown that when rats are exposed to a high stress situation, their memory at normal state is impaired. However, when placed again in a high stress situation, the animals are able to remember and respond accordingly to cues of an impending electric shock. This research is helping to advance understanding of memory storage in the brain. 2601:8A:200:B6B0:F59B:5E58:8FA8:CD64 (talk) 20:53, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Repressed Memories are False
Studies done by Steve Porter at UBC have demonstrated that false memories can be suggested to participants who in turn will wager money on them that they are true even though they have been created by the experimenters. As a victim of child sexual abuse I can say that it is highly doubtful one would forget such an event under any circumstances. Also, it is interesting to note that some land mark cases have been about events occuring during a child's first year of life. The problem is that we do not remember the first year of our lives because of childhood amnesia. Letting quack "therapists" hypnotizing hihgly dissosiative individuals and implanting memories has ruined many people's lives. Beleiving in repressed memories is dangerous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.108.31.36 (talk) 19:10, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, however, this is your opinion and not fact. I beleive in this--I spent more than a year of my life researching how to cause myself to forget the previous year--and the year after that, I thought I was a year younger and had to re-meet six people. However, the article does not claim it to be true, just as it does not claim and religion or spirituality to be true. Equivamp (talk) 20:40, 27 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Hate to burst your bubble. I have recovered repressed memories.  Many of the recovered memories have been corroborated.  I did not recover them in the process of therapy. Wikipedia talk pages are for discussing how to create a good page, not the subject itself. Bloomingdedalus (talk) 14:59, 21 June 2011

(UTC) Yes, because a contributor to Wikipedia claims to have recovered repressed memories, this means repressed memories are a real phenomenon. 69.158.16.56 (talk) 05:58, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Repressed memories and false memories are two different concepts. To insist that all repressed memories fall into the category of "false" would be to negate the concept of repressed memories and essentially censor the latter.  This is not what Wikipedia is about.  These should be two different articles.

I would like to add a few notes to this discussion.

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia ("Encyclopedic content must be verifiable.") Therefore, subjective opinions - such as those expressed here - about one's mental states are, in a word, irrelevant. Therefore, the following statements bear no weight in discussions about the article: "As a victim of child sexual abuse I can say that it is highly doubtful one would forget such an event under any circumstances." - There is ample (verifiable) evidence that forgetting of child sexual abuse occurs; "I have recovered repressed memories." - Not verifiable.

2. This discussion does not distinguish between recovering a memory (which implies a special mechanism), and suddenly remembering a memory. The article also fails to make this distinction.

3. I suggest this article be lifted to a semi-protected status, because of the controversial nature of the article and high likelyhood of vandalism. Vuorrem (talk) 00:54, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Discussion of changes
Regards the recent changes:
 * This change undoes my removal of the reference to child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome. My issue isn't that it's a relaible source, it's that CSAAS isn't recognized as an actual syndrome.  Satan's Silence discusses how Summit himself states it is "impressionistic" rather than evidence based.  In this source on page 142 in the "other child abuse syndromes" section, points out that it has recieved a great deal of attention but is rejected for some uses and accepted for others.  I've also got a couple references here but I'll have to read through them a little more.  My impression of CSAAS is that it's not well recieved or proven.  This is another discussion which is rather critical.  I removed the reference not because it's not a reliable source, but because it's undue weight on an unproven, poorly-accepted theory (and one that could probably have a page written on it, as I intended to do with the sources at talk:sra when I made the time).
 * This is again not a problem with the reliability of the sources, it's a matter of weight. A statement with five (old) sources after it, while the counter-statement has none, gives the reader the impression that there is really only merit to one point of view.  I didn't change the text at all, I merely took out the references.  Alternative approaches could include collapsing all five into one reference with the five in it, selecting the best one and using only it, or finding a newer one.  I don't think anyone disputes this is part of the debate in psychology and memory, but there are certainly better and newer sources (if I get a chance to re-read Paul R. McHugh's Try to Remember, I'll do so with an eye towards a better reference here.  Good book by the way).
 * The use of Pope is...OK... but he is pretty partisan and not primarily an academic. However, he does have a lot of publications.  It's also just as old as the entry it replaced.  My thinking is that the recent opinion on memory is considerably further from Pope's position than it was in the past.  However, it's up to me to demonstrate that through citations rather than assertion.

Primarily, I'd like to see the number of sources to one statement in the lead reduced, the rest I'm happy to discuss. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 13:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I've undone DreamGuy's revert - I certainly agree with him that these sources are problematic (above) but they are not unreliable. The page really, really deserves a thorough re-write.  It's too full of AbuseTruth's POV-pushing, lopsided referencing and source dumping to be a good page, but kicking off a revert war isn't the way to re-write it.  Please let us discuss rather than drive away contributors.  If we work together to find and summarize good, recent sources, we'll be doing a great thing for the page and community and can build a consensus version we're all willing to defend and trust.  WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to include this comment in my edit summary
In this diff I took out a couple sources but forgot to refer to them in my edit summary. This is a significant article with lots of scholarly debate. The recovered memory project at Brown is essentially a personal webpage, even if it has the imprimatur of Brown University, and is not published in a reliable source. The place where this is debated is scholarly books and journal articles, not on random sympathetic webpages that AbuseTruth managed to turn up while trolling the internet. There's a good book by Paul McHugh I've read, and another by Randy McNally that I've got on reserve, as well as a bunch at my local university library that I could pick up. Let's write the page with these, not with webpages. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 14:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Theory section
The theory section is terrible - two sentences with two sources, both by Pamela Freyd. The IJSTD or whatever it is called now is a bit of a walled garden with a dubious journal - McHugh states that the peer reivew process for the journal is more of a "consultation with peers" than actual peer review. Freyd is one of the people to kick off the recovered memory movement and it's counterpart the FMSF - her parents are two of the founders. Ethics and Behaviour is of dubious use in my mind as well, and certainly seems like a bad choice of publication venue for an ostensibly neurological theory. There must be better sources than this... WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules: simple/complex 19:42, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Recovered memory
TakuyaMurata has been creating an independent article (apparently from cz.wikipedia) at Recovered memory. I've been reverting, because much of the material is here, but perhaps a split is appropriate. I can't find a consensus for the redirect in any of the history, so I'm trying to determine whether there is a consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 05:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The article from Citizendium is interesting and has some good sources. This could be either a merge or a split, but either way, the additional content is useful and should be kept while we work it out.


 * One thing to keep clear while we discuss this - although the other article is titled Recovered memory, it is not about Recovered memory therapy - that is a separate term for a short-lived set of practices that were never embraced by science and are not part of the scientific issues regarding the operation of memory in the presence of trauma.  We should not allow the science topic to be distracted into the socio-political topic of RMT as it occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s.  That's a valid topic for the encyclopedia also, but it's a different topic, and it's not science.


 * A main point to consider in deciding whether to merge or split - is there enough information in the sources for separate articles (repressed memories & recovered memories), and is that information  clearly differentiated enough - or do the sources mostly overlap and discuss the two concepts under one umbrella?  --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, I still don't get what problem Rubin has. (i) The new article is not in a copyright violation. Period. What can I say more? (ii) You don't really have to discuss before you start a new article. However, if you want to delete it, then you have to discuss. If there are overlaps, then some materials moved around from here to there or there to here, as we do routinely. The most important question is, however, whether the topic "recovered memory" deserves a standalone article. An AFD is a place to discuss that. -- Taku (talk) 11:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, you do have to discuss a new article which contains (some of the) same material in an existing article, even if you do not use the existing article. That's a WP:CFORK, whether or not the material is copied from a CZ article.  And AfD is inappropriate, as no one is requesting  the article be deleted.  The two articles need to be merged (by you), and then split if there is a rational way to split the articles on the interwined concepts.  As an aside, is there a CZ article on this topic, repressed memory.  If not, you are clearly the one violating Wikipedia guidelines.  If there really are two CZ articles, then that might be different.
 * My claim of copyright violation is a mistake, as you put the CZ tag elsewhere than where I would have expected it. You may be correct as to placement.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 13:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the two can easlly be merged and that there is no reason to have to articals about the same subject.--ARTEST4ECHO (talk/contribs) 17:45, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

This discussion has been dead for over a year now and the same goes for the entire talk page of Recovered memory. If there aren't any objections I will be closing this discussion in about a week and start with the merger. JGM73 (talk) 01:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Hypothesis v. theory
I never said it was an accepted theory, but it is a theory that repressed memories exist and can be formed by traumatic events. The hypothesis would be that they merely exist. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 22:40, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that Arthur Rubin and 188.221.109.57 have been going back and forth since 13 January 2011 on the use of Hypothesis v. theory. I thought I would put my 2-cents in.  First I thought definitions might help.  According to Wikipedia:


 * Hypothesis: A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for an observable phenomenon.
 * Theory: The word theory, when used by scientists, refers to an explanation of reality that has been thoroughly tested so that most scientists agree on it.


 * Additionally if you go to this page it says "A theory is a well-established principle that has been developed to explain some aspect of the natural world.".


 * Given the statements "scientists agree on it," and "well-established principle" I would have to say that I agree with 188.221.109.57. "Repressed memory" is far from being accepted by "most scientists" or being "well-established", therefore it is a hypothesis.  Even Arthur Rubin says "never said it was an accepted theory".  In order to the a theory it has to be accepted, per "scientists agree on it," and "well-established principle".--ARTEST4ECHO (talk/contribs) 15:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * We need to fix the Wikipedia articles "hypothesis" and "theory". "Theory" should include any complex explanation of an (observable) phenomenon, while a hypothesis should be restricted to the (proposed) cause of a phenomenon; if the theory includes more than one cause, it should be a "theory", not a ""hypothesis".  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 18:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but you have honestly lost me. I'm not sure what you’re getting at?  Everything I have read (after doing a search on Google of "Hypothesis v. theory" (, , , etc.) backs the idea that a Theory requires thoroughly testing that most scientists agree with.  Just because something has more then one supposed cause, doesn’t make it a theory.  However, again, I'm not sure what you’re getting at, so I may be way off.--ARTEST4ECHO (talk/contribs) 19:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The Butterfly Effect (film)
I don't believe that "The Butterfly Effect (film)" belongs in the "See also" section of this article. However, since Arthur Rubin dose, I thought I would bring this up on the talk page. I don't believe it belongs because:


 * 1. I'm not so sure that "The Butterfly Effect (film)" has anything to do with Repressed memory. According to "The Butterfly Effect" page Evan Treborn has "blackouts" due to his altering his past (time travel).  This is not the same as "Repressed memory" where has "motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one's life".  If the event never happened, because he changed it, then there was no memory in the first place.  It has nothing to with "motivated forgetting".


 * 2. Even assuming that it qualifies as "Repressed memory" or "motivated forgetting", the film only vague has anything to do with Repressed memory.  Even the edit summery] say "It's a stretch, but the viewpoint character DOES have repressed memories". The film is more about the "Chaos theory", hence the name "The Butterfly Effect".


 * 3. Even assuming I am wrong about 1 and 2, including this one film opens the issue, what about the many other films that have much more to do with "Repressed memory" then this film.  For example, After Life (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2001), Amateur (Hal Hartley, 1994), Amnesia (Margaret Harris, 2000), Anastasia (1956), As You Desire Me (George Fitzmaurice, 1932),  Beware My Lovely (Harry Horner, 1952), The Black Curtain, The Blue Dahlia (1946), The Bourne Identity (2002) and all it's sequels.  I can list 15 more (I have a nice list, but I don't want to include them all here).  Unless someone wants to list all the films that have or will have anything to do with "Repressed memory" in the future, then including this one film and not the all the other is inappropriate.

The inclusion of "The Butterfly Effect (film)", which is purely a work of fiction, is just misplaced here. --ARTEST4ECHO (talk/contribs) 15:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)


 * IIRC correctly, Evan has blackouts due to the traumatic events in the "current" version of the subject. When he reads the diary entry (which he made at the time, as he no longer remembers the event ), he can change it.  If I'm wrong, I apologize.
 * The film is about the butterfly effect, which, itself, only has a loose connection to chaos theory.
 * Many of the films you list qualify as related to amnesia (the most common illness in soap operas), rather than to repressed memory.
 * Still, I probably won't restore it if it's removed again. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 15:47, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

A Nightmare On Elm Street
Just a quick suggestion: should a link to the film A Nightmare On Elm Street (the page, of course) bhe included in the see also section? Or even a new "in popular culture" section? The film centres around the repressed memories of these children. Merely a suggestion. 94.15.207.239 (talk) 19:58, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Merging False Memory Syndrome into Repressed Memory
This subject is currently being worked on in three different places (Recovered memory and False memory syndrome). This is not working. If want to improve the quality we need to join our forces in one centralized article. It'd be a waste of time to copy and paste sources back and forth between articles that largely deal with the same subject.JGM73 (talk) 00:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

As an editor, I think of false memory syndrome, repressed memories, and amnesia as completely separate things so I would not merge False Memory Syndrome and Repressed Memory in one article. The topic of memory is too large to be contained in one article.

Also, on the topic of amnesia as the most common illness in soap operas, Harlequin had a whole series, not sure if it is still running, called the Amnesia Series, in which a woman is married to a man (or engaged or whatever) and then, for some reason, completely forgets that part of her life, then he finds her and gets to woo her all over again. Weird but fascinating. I read two of these though I don't usually read romances of this type. Bebhinn-Matrix (talk) 18:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC) Bebhinn


 * I would definitely not suggest to throw the entire topic of memory in one article but there is a content fork and POV fork between the repressed memory page and false memory syndrome page that needs to be addressed somehow. Whether or not merging is the best remedy (and if so whether or not this is the best destination page) is of course a topic of debate. JGM73 (talk) 15:21, 27 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I believe these sections should be kept separate. Each of these sections (repressed memory, Recovered memory, and false memory syndrome) have too many distinctive differences. For example, a false memory will sometimes feel like a repressed memory, but most often it does not. In addition, a recovered memory will sometimes be a false memory, but often it merely feels as if it has been recovered but is really a true memory that was never forgotten in the first place. In short, these three sections, while related, each have distinctively different lines of research, and have different root causes and implications in the real world. I do agree with JGM73 though that there should be good links between all of these articles. Jlfosternz (talk) 20:58, 9 February 2012 (UTC)


 * After looking around a little more, I do believe that the Repressed memory and Psychological repression should probably be merged together. Jlfosternz (talk) 21:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that repressed memory should be merged with false memory syndrome. Rather, the latter should be expanded beyond its narrow focus to include false memories that occur outside the therapist's office. For example, Person A is enraged at Person B, imagines harmful actions by Person B, and in a vicious cycle of imagining and rage, comes to believe, with utter conviction, that Person B did those harms. The consequences of the rage/illusion syndrome can be devastating. Example: the Holocaust. (See The Holocaust: Ideology and scale, first quotation box. Although the Nazis' hallucinations were as much about the present as about the past, they were very similar to rage-induced memories.) But I've seen it happen twice on a smaller scale, destroying friendships, estranging family members. "False memory syndrome" or "False memory" (which is currently only a disambiguaton page), or both, should be expanded.Scribe2u (talk) 02:26, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

And then there's the closely related subject of memory distortion. I understand Wikipedia's difficulties here. This area is too complex for any encyclopedia.Scribe2u (talk) 18:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

An oversight of the mess
Articles with overlapping content and their respective sections:

Repressed memory
 * History / Research / Hypothesis / Controversy / Legal issues / Recovered memory therapy (with referral to the main article)

Psychological repression
 * Freud's theory / Later developments / Related concepts: repressed memories

Recovered memory
 * Authenticity / Medico-legal issues / Neurological basis of memory / Amnesia / Effects of trauma on memory / Professional organisations

Recovered-memory therapy
 * Terminology / Research / Professional guidelines / Legal issues

False memory syndrome
 * Definition / Recovered memory therapy (with referral to the main article) / Evidence for / Court cases

Overlapping sections
Legal issues/Medico-legal issues/Court cases
 * → False memory syndrome
 * → Recovered-memory therapy
 * → Repressed memory

Controversy/Authenticity (of recovered memories)/Research (about recovered memories)
 * → Repressed memory
 * → Recovered memory
 * → False memory syndrome

Evidence for (the existence of false memories in general)/Neurological basis of memory
 * → Recovered memory
 * → False memory syndrome

Hypothesis/Effects of trauma on memory
 * → Repressed memory
 * → Recovered memory

If you I missed a significant overlap, please create a new discussion topic to discuss this there.

Vote

 * Vote for each of these topics which article should be their main article.


 * Vote per topic whether the topics in the other articles should
 * (a) have a brief summary and a referral to the main article, or
 * (b) be referred to in the See Also section.


 * And please vote yes or no to adding info-tags to the respective talk pages outlining the results of this vote.

JGM73 (talk) 01:03, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

from the lead: "A repressed memory, also known as a recovered memory" - this is false
A repressed memory is not also know as a recovered memory. This is false. MathewTownsend (talk) 14:01, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * How do you know it's a "repressed memory" until it's "recovered" and becomes a "recovered memory". The sentence could be better-written, but, it's not exactly wrong.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 14:44, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, not all repressed memories will be recovered, so I agree with MathewTownsend that it is wrong. Once the memory is recovered, it is no longer repressed. And as an answer to your question: you can know it is repressed memory when there are witnesses to the traumatic event, but the person cannot remember what happened.  Lova Falk     talk   15:12, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, "you can know it is repressed memory when there are witnesses to the traumatic event, but the person cannot remember what happened" isn't quite correct, either. The memory may never have existed.  Not only the event, but the victim's recollection of the event, must be witnessed.  But it is possible, under some definition of "repressed memory".  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 03:15, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That is true, a memory might never have been created. But once a memory has been recovered, we know the memory was repressed-but-not-recovered prior to the moment of recovery.   Lova Falk     talk   11:57, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * They are two different things, a recovered memory is no longer repressed.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:03, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Merging entry on False Memory Syndrome into Repressed Memory
This is not a good idea for several reasons.

The first is that the ability to create false memories has been scientifically proven over and over, as referenced in the Wikipedia entry.

Repressed memory in of itself, is disputed as to its actual veracity.

Finally, even if repressed memories did exist, false memories and false memory syndrome have and can be created from events that absolutely could not have happened. Therefore, these events could not have been repressed in the first place.

Example one: "I Shook Hands With Bugs Bunny At Disney World" experiment. This could not be a repressed memory, because Bugs Bunny is a Warner Brothers character and would not be at Disney World.

Synopsis: In Experiment 2, participants viewed an ad for Disney that suggested that they shook hands with an impossible character (e.g., Bugs Bunny). Again, relative to controls, the ad increased confidence that they personally had shaken hands with the impossible character as a child at a Disney resort. The increased confidence is consistent with the notion that autobiographical referencing can lead to the creation of false or distorted memory. � 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Reference:http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/BraunPsychMarket02.pdf Make My Memory: How Advertising Can Change Our Memories of the Past Kathryn A. Braun,Harvard Business School -- Rhiannon Ellis,University of Pittsburgh -- Elizabeth F. Loftus, University of Washington Example two: Car Crash Study

Synopsis: To date, research has shown that it is fairly easy to take advantage of our fallible memory. Elizabeth Loftus, cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory, has found that simply changing one word in a question can contort what we recall. In one experiment, Loftus had participants watch a film of a car crash, and then asked about what they saw. They were either asked “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other,” or “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other.” One week later the participants returned for some memory questions. Loftus asked whether or not there was broken glass at the scene of the accident. Those participants that heard the word “smashed” were more than twice as likely to recall seeing broken glass than those who heard the word “hit.” Keep in mind, there was in fact no broken glass at the scene[2].

Reference: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/11/14/how-long-will-a-lie-last-new-study-finds-that-false-memories-linger-for-years/ Scientific American How Long Will a Lie Last? New Study Finds That False Memories Linger for Years By Kyle Hill | November 14, 2012 |

Glenna1984 (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2013 (UTC)Glenn Abelson

Proposal changes to repressed memory page
Hello everyone, we are a group of students from Florida International University working on a class project to help improve the quality of the Wikipedia Repressed Memory article. We propose the following:

First, we want to revise the first section of the article by replacing the first two sentences into an easier and faster to read definition of repressed memory. We also want to add a citation at the end of these sentences. Furthermore, we would like to add at least one more sentence discussing the belief that repressed memories are false. This will add a more neutral view on the topic. We propose deleting the sentence tagged as “dubious”. This section should have a clear definition of dissociative amnesia to prove that the two terms are very similar. Also, revise the definition of amnesia into an easier to read definition. In this section we would want to remove a citation and add two more secondary sources that the article is in need of.

In addition, we would like to expand the History section of this article. We would remove the second sentence because there is no appropriate citation. Then we would add information about Freud’s psychoanalysis philosophy and tie it into repressed memory. We would also discuss his study on the case of Anna O. Then, add more secondary references.

Next, in the Criticism section we propose adding more examples and information on case studies. Again, add more secondary references. In the Amnesia section we would like to revise the wording of certain sentences. Add more references to support our new added information.

The last entry on this articles talk page by Glenn Abelson in January 2013 was mainly based on primary sources which are not the best sources because it does not follow Wikipedia standards. We would not agree to change the article based on these primary sources. Rachelparra (talk) 22:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi Rachel, and welcome! You have no idea how happy I am reading a sentence like this one: "We would not agree to change the article based on these primary sources." I wish you the best of luck and don't hesitate to ask me if I can be of any help. With friendly regards,  Lova Falk     talk   08:46, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I haven't checked the specific edits you want to make, but that is the best description I've seen of how to edit within Wikipedia guidelines I've seen in some time. I should add that, though, with rare exceptions, Wikipedia accounts should be individual; edits done by different members of the class should be done under different editor names.  I, too, wish you the best of luck, and don't hesitate to ask me for assistance in WikiFormating or other difficulties you may have.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 15:14, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Fiupsychology (talk) 04:52, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Repressed memory now proven to be a myth - Thomas Quick Case. Sweden.
This article is controversial. It says "citation needed" in the first line. This has not been provided. Let's shed some light on this.

The events in Sweden that finally came to light on 26th November 2013 prove beyond doubt that there is no such thing as repressed memory. Elisabeth Lotus has been interviewed for the Swedish TV on the Thomas Quick case and the program became a revelation.

The world's leading expert on repressed memories (the now discredited Swede Margit Norell who died at 90 in 2006) had an influence on all those who dealt with Thomas Quick. Starting in 1992 Quick confessed to 39 murders and was convicted of 8. All of Quick's confessions were brought about in therapy sessions with physiatrists who had received training/therapy and guidance from Norell. One of the physiatrists even "revealed" her own repressed memory of child abuse sufferred at 1 to Quick, whom she identified with, in private letters.

Quick has now been cleared of all charges and pardoned from all murders. He has changed his name back to his birth name Sture Bergwall if anyone wants to google the case. The Quick saga has been an ongoing case for over 20 years. The belief in repressed memory led to all other leads in the murder cases being ignored. In Swedish law there is a statute of limitations on murder of 25 years and only one of the 8 murders files can be opened again. The other 7 are now prescribed and even a confession from the real murderer and DNA proof can not lead to a prosecution. The belief in the myth of "repressed memory" has thus created one of the biggest criminal injustices of all time. The families of seven murder victims will now never see somebody convicted. According to a legal expert at least 5 of the murders would have been cleared up if prosecutors had not been misled by what he called "repressed memory quacks".

In a number of the cases no body has been recovered. Quick was taken on outings to the forests to look for bodies and body parts. Despite the psychiatrists being present no body parts were ever recovered. Quick has now confessed to wanting day trips and everybody being all to eager to believe him because of the "need" by believers in "repressed memory" theory to prove what they believed in actually existed. The case became more about the existence or non-existence of repressed memory than about trying to find the murderers. Police with alternate theories were kept away from these cases.

It is my belief that the WIKI entry on repressed memory can therefore be changed to "proven myth". And in any case there needs to be a section on Thomas Quick as any scholars of theory need to take a deep look into this case. The falseness of the confessions is synonymous with the myth of repressed memory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.246.25 (talk) 05:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * How could one case - a drug addict who found out that telling certain lies gave him access to more drugs - overturn an entire theory? Just because it is not true in Quick's case doesn't mean it cannot be true in other cases. We need good sources (please see WP:MEDRS) both for the claim that repressed memory is true or for the claim that it is a myth.  Lova Falk     talk   08:32, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Tagged a POV issue
This page has been modified so much to the belief that Repressed memory is real, it no longer looks NPOV. Repressed memory is pseudoscience and that page is written as if the scientific community thinks it is real. It really need to me move back to a NOPV page.--ARTEST4ECHO (talk/contribs) 14:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * When was the article last more-or-less good? I haven't been watching, recently.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 11:43, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That's a good question. Is is definitely before the IP editors got their hands on it.  However, when the opening sentence of a article has been tagged as needed a citation forever, then obviously there is an overall problem.  The existence of repressed memory has never been accepted by mainstream psychology, yet this page has only two paragraphs in over 30 saying that.  The page is written so that it appears that this is an accepted psychiatric idea, when it isn't.  That should be right up top in the opining paragraph.  Something like, "Repressed memory is a pseudoscience theory that memory can be unconsciously blocked by an individual due to the high level of stress or trauma contained in that memory."  At a minimum it should be something like  "Repressed memory the theory that memory can be unconsciously blocked by an individual due to the high level of stress or trauma contained in that memory."
 * However, the opening line isn't the over all issue. The issue is that this article is written with a POV slant that Repressed memory is accepted by they psychiatric community, it is not.  However, I know that if I were to change the page it would cause a huge edit war, so I'm not going to--ARTEST4ECHO (talk/contribs) 13:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The article is a complete mess. It needs to be completely re-organized. Many of the sections overlap, and sort of say the same things. Other sections need to be broken up into smaller ones. It gives way too much credence to the fringe positions. Relies on primary sources. The lede is terrible. Many, many issues.

As a starting point, I've tried to simply remove the primary and low quality sources. Have I succeeded? Are there any more? If you see anymore, just outright remove them. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 09:16, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

@ARTEST4ECHO: I suggest as a start help organize and refine the current article. In addition, create a test page where you re-write the article. Then post the test page here for discussion. It can then be discussed, altered and some or all of your re-write can be incorporated into the article. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 09:43, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I've reworked some of the most problematic wording, but we could really use some larger studies. As far as I'm aware every large scale study has pointed towards the nonexistence of the phenomenon, and NPOV doesn't mean we need to weight this as heavily as the few studies that strengthen the hypothesis. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 10:31, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you, and I agree fully. We also need to do something about the "criticism" section. It really should be "Research section" but there's already a section like that. A lot of these sections need to be merged, split up, etc. A full re-organizing. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 11:13, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Also look at Recovered-memory therapy article. Possibly merge them. I dunno. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 12:07, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I think merging them is necessary, even if we do I think after weeding out poor sources we can just about justify one article. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 13:04, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. The articles seem to be mostly copies of each other. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 09:03, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Even though there is quite a strong argument that it is not possible to know if recovered memories are true or false I feel the article fails to bring up the viewpoint that it is impossible to recover memories. Looking into sources. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 09:45, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Investigative issues
I am fairly upset that the section I spent so much time researching and writing was removed. The article was extensively cited and sourced, and is clearly related to this topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.226.254 (talk) 04:47, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Please see, WP:MEDMOS, WP:MEDRS, WP:UNDUE, WP:RS. CFCF  (talk · contribs · email) 05:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)


 * And you wonder why fewer people contribute to Wikipedia....
 * Lets take them one at a time, shall we?
 * WP:MEDMOS applies to medical articles. What I posted was clearly criminal justice. In addition, if you don't like the style of valid content, change the style, don't delete useful content.
 * WP:MEDRS I cited and sourced everything in that section with published and peer reviewed papers and common college textbooks. That sub-section was perhaps the best cited and sourced section in the whole topic.  While the citations are not in wiki format, I will also note that I asked for the communities help in converting the citations when I posted it.
 * WP:UNDUE The article on investigative issues was very balanced. It outlined how criminal investigators should approach the issue so as to protect all involved. It did not take any side at all.
 * WP:RS The article extensively cited and sourced common criminal justice textbooks and peer reviewed papers.
 * Care to try again? or perhaps just admit you made a mistake and correct it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.226.254 (talk) 20:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Care to try again? or perhaps just admit you made a mistake and correct it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.76.226.254 (talk) 20:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, the article has been purged of a number of other inaccuracies in the same time-period which fall under those clauses. The reason your text was removed was not that it was poorly sourced, but because it was not entirely in the scope of the article. Also one editor expressed concern that it might be a copyright violation. It is possible to restore the text and create a new article, such as; Forensics of repressed memory or similar. (Take note not to make the name too long). Also it is preferable to use in-line citations. CFCF (talk · contribs · email) 09:06, 9 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Again, if you felt that it was not entirely within scope and belonged on a different page, deleting useful and high quality content is not the answer, but it is a great way of telling someone with subject matter expertise to go away.  This kind of behavior is in large part why wikipedia sees fewer contributors than it used to, especially occasional contributes with subject matter expertise.


 * As to the accusation of it being a possible copyright violation, that really should have a bit of evidence first. Like what it was a violation of.  A review of the article history shows several edits to the section, and show the article evolving.  This is a good indication that the article was not completed when it was posted, and was still evolving.  If it is evolving this way, the liklihood of it being a copyright violation is exceedingly low.


 * Now, I'll take one more stab at it on a new page, however the one you linked to does not exist. Can you assist? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.132.166 (talk) 03:00, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Newly created article: Forensics of repressed memory
The new article Forensics of repressed memory is in need of attention, and previous discussions on this talk page seem relevant. --Animalparty-- (talk) 00:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * There is no such page. So I guess it really does need a lot of attention...   --Gronk Oz (talk) 14:16, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It was moved to Draft:Forensics of repressed memory, and it does still need a lot of attention. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 20:44, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The only attention it needs is if it ever becomes an article it should be deleted. It's an essay, not an article, and it has no reliable sources to speak of. DreamGuy (talk) 18:02, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree. This reads more like an how-to web-page than an encyclopedia article. I see no reason whatsoever that there has to be an article about the topic (as it is no topic, really), A few sentences, in the repressed memory article, about the procedure and the mistakes that were made in procedure and methodology in some Forensic cases should be more than enough.Die-yng (talk) 16:44, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Likewise confused about the assertive stance, since the inclusion by the U.S. authority in the past three editions of DSM demonstrate scientific consensus for the legitimacy of this phenomenon. SocialButterflyAgency (talk) 15:47, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Why is the POV issue still here?
It looks like this has been ongoing for more than a year.

"Repressed memory" was a topic of active debate in the 1990s. Its now been thoroughly rejected by the courts, the APA, etc.

This article is an example of the reason for the NPOV rule that tiny minority viewpoints do not get as much credence as supermajority viewpoints.

There hasn't been any support for this idea in 15 years.

People today discuss it only in the context of miscarriage-of-justice cases from the 1980s and 1990s in which people were convicted in child-molestation hysteria cases of crimes that never occurred.

If someone can point me to the POV dispute discussion, I'll get involved there.

If not, I'm bringing the issue back up here: Is there any reliable source from the past 15 years that this phenomenon even exists? If not, I propose going through the page and radically trimming it to note that the theory had proponents, is now discredited, cite the cases, and provide links to the miscarriage-of-justice pages.

Djcheburashka (talk) 07:44, 9 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The APA still officially says it's a matter of debate: http://www.apa.org/topics/trauma/memories.aspx?item=1
 * So we cannot outright say there is *no* support for it. I would encourage you to edit the article to bring it more in line with current thinking (The Cause section is especially bad currently) and be less WP:WEASELly, but you cannot use the article to outright take your side. DreamGuy (talk) 18:12, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Difference between Repressed Memory and Dissociated Amnesia
I'm confused by how assertive this article is that repressed memories is pseudo-science. Aren't there thousands of instances of returning soldiers who have lost memories of their time in the war, but are triggered by stimuli correlating with the absent memory and nightmares which express it (see: Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery). What is this if not repressed memory? The article mentions the term dissociation amnesia, which is referred to in the DSM, but other sources (e.g. Harvard magazine) simply describe it as the diagnostic term for repressed memories. And other Wikipedia articles cite repressed memories and amnesia as symptoms of psychological trauma. Huh?

Shouldn't the article clarify the difference between repressed memories and dissociation amnesia, and why one is accepted by the psychology community and the other is not? Because I have no idea after reading it.

Dark_Wolf101 07:34, 15 January 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dark Wolf101 (talk • contribs)

Clean-up or possible rewrite research in process
Hi all. Currently in the process of researching an update/rewrite/clean-up of the article to remove the flags and bring it up to standard. Its going to be a lot of work and take a while. Given the level of attention and detail that a proper treatment will demand please direct suggestions, help, concerns, and criticisms to my talk page or the talk page for my sandbox. CheersRap Chart Mike (talk) 13:14, 27 April 2018 (UTC)


 * This sounds very good, the article surely needs much improvement. Do you mean that you are writing the draft of a new version in your sandbox? Could you provide a link to your sandbox? Aerkem (talk) 19:45, 2 May 2018 (UTC)


 * You can find that here. It would be excellent if you could provide some tips. I'm kind of new at this and, while knowledgeable, not oncredibly familiar with wikipedia conventions yet. Rap Chart Mike (talk) 23:42, 3 May 2018 (UTC)


 * In the rewrite I am going to attempt to address all the issues laid out above, clarify any issues I identify, and significantly expand and modernize the cited sources.Rap Chart Mike (talk) 15:54, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm considering just removing the section on neurological basis of memory. It's well covered in Memory as well as elsewhere and seems extraneous to the article. Thoughts on that?Rap Chart Mike (talk) 15:03, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

OK. I think the rewrite is very close to complete. I've added some references, tried to clarify some of the issues discussed previously on the talk page, rearranged the sections a bit, clarified what is speculative and what is backed up by research to the best of my ability, and think I might take it live here soon. I'd like it if anyone that has this on their watchlist could take a look at and provide some constructive criticism and propose any changes you think ought to be made. The article can be found HERE. Cheers.Rap Chart Mike (talk) 14:16, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Editing the lede for clarity
When I read through the lede, it read to me like a series of sentences written by different people, without a clear organization or connections between paragraphs. I did some rewriting to try to improve the section's clarity while retaining almost all of the information that had been there, and added reference to an important recent review paper by Otgaar et al in Perspectives in Psychological Science. Thanks to whomever it was who quickly caught, and fixed, the error I made when adding the Otgaar reference. Regutten (talk) 18:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

In the United States, the DSM serves as the principal authority for psychiatric diagnoses. The inclusion of dissociative amnesia in the last three editions of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders proves the Scientific consensus repressed memories is a real phenomenon, albeit the change in verbiage used to refer to it. SocialButterflyAgency (talk) 15:30, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

On the scientific consensus, the American Psychological Association has a Memories of Childhood Abuse page, which clearly states that "both memory researchers and clinicians who work with trauma victims agree that both phenomena occur, [i.e., a child abuse memory being forgotten and then remembered and false memories]," and "most leaders in the field agree that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later."

On the reality of the phenomenon, there are many documented cases with corroborating evidence, including perpetrator confessions (here is a link to the "Case Archive" of Brown professor Ross Cheit's "Recovered Memory Project" — http://blogs.brown.edu/recoveredmemory/case-archive/ ).

Recently there was a podcast done on a real case of recovered memory for an adult sexual assault— https://www.thecut.com/2019/10/the-cut-on-tuesdays-the-story-of-a-lyft-ride-gone-wrong.html

There are also cases of recovered memories of child sexual abuse and adult sexual assault published by the memory researcher Jonathan Schooler: https://labs.psych.ucsb.edu/schooler/jonathan/sites/labs.psych.ucsb.edu.schooler.jonathan/files/pubs/schooler_et_al_1997_-_taking_the_middle_line.pdf SocialButterflyAgency (talk) 16:39, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems that Dissociative amnesia (or Psychogenic amnesia) may be the article in relation to the DSM entry. — Paleo  Neonate  – 05:34, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Comments
Section on Research:

"Another possibility is that traumatic events are pushed out of consciousness until a later events elicits or triggers a psychological response."

That can only be called "a possibility" if there is evidence that can be referenced that supports the claim. Moreover, as McNally has noted in several of his papers, seemingly forgetting an event until the memory is cued by an effective retrieval cue does not necessarily imply that the memory was "pushed out of consciousness"

" A high percentage of female psychiatric in-patients,[17][18][19][20][21] and outpatients [22][23][24] have reported experiencing histories of childhood sexual abuse. Other clinical studies have concluded that patients who experienced incestuous abuse reported higher suicide attempts and negative identity formation[25] as well as more disturbances in interpersonal relationships.[26]"

How are those sentences relevant to the topic? Given that the statements are presented as part of this page, the implication is that repressed memories play some kind or role in these responses to childhood trauma. Implying that without providing reference to supporting evidence violates NPOV standards.

The paragraph quoted above should simply be deleted.

Section on Cause

"Researchers have proposed that repression can operate on a social level as well.[33]"

Even though Freyd uses the term repression when describing what she argues has occurred at a social level, the phenomenon of social repression of information is a VERY different phenomenon than the purported phenomenon of memory repression occurring at the individual level. Moreover, without additional elaboration, it is impossible for anyone but an anlready informed reader to know what this sentence refers to. It *might* be worth keeping this reference as part of the page, but only if some additional explanation of "repression at the social level" is offered.

"Other theoretical causes of forgotten memories have stemmed from the idea of Retrieval-Influenced Forgetting,[34] which states that “false” memories will be more accurately recalled when rehearsed more, than when actual memories get rehearsed. In this scenario, the action of rehearsing a falsified memory can actually take precedence over the actual memory that a person experiences. Anderson et al.[34] discovered that rehearsal of novel information exhibits inhibitive processes on one’s ability to remember or recall the prior (real) memory. This conclusion indicates that past memories can be easily forgotten, simply by attending to “real”, novel memories that are brought into awareness."

This entire paragraph is borderline incomprehensible. I suspect (can't be bothered to comb through the history to find out) that it was written by a student as part of a course assignment. I wish faculty would not do that, because the end result is almost inevitably that the wikipedia page ends up poorly written and disorganized.

Section on Neurological Basis of Memory

As was noted by another editor, it is not clear why this section is here at all. It should only be retained only if the information provided adds to our understanding of issues regarding claims of repressed memories. The discussion of the study with mice by Radulovic is really the only part of the section that would seem to directly relate to a discussion of repression. A more recent article by Radulovic that could be discussed in this section can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30429781

Regutten (talk) 18:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Edits
Much of this article slanted the research to encode bias against recovered memories, a well documented phenomenon.

In the context of disputing validity for recovered memories, one sentence under the In the context of disputing the validity of their Authenticity section stated:

“For example, one study where victims of documented child abuse were reinterviewed many years later as adults, 38% of the women denied any memory of the abuse.”

I have edited it and reorganized it under the Case Study section:

“A number of studies have reported data that could be used to estimate the prevalence of prior periods of non-remembering of childhood sexual abuse among adults who report such a history. In one such study involving 129 women who had documented cases of child abuse, 38% had no memories of the abuse when reinterviewed 17 years later.“

To provide a more balanced observation, and better topic flow I have made about a dozen such corrections/rearrangements.

PS Thank you for allowing me a chance to contribute to the wiki community, and I apologize in advance for any editing errors!! I’m a newb editor looking to grow and gain experience and willing to take direction! 🤓

Much love, Kat SocialButterflyAgency (talk) 05:25, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * , It sounds as if you are advocating for the view that recovered memory is a real phenomenon, when there's a substantial body of research showing the opposite. Guy (help!) 08:11, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I think that the APA brochure can be considered a reliable source. I verified that it does include information about repressed memories.  Some quotes that I found relevant: "The issue of repressed or suggested memories has been overreported and sensationalized by the news media. Media and entertainment portrayals of the memory issue have succeeded in presenting the least likely scenario (that of a total amnesia of a childhood event) as the most likely occurrence. The reality is that most people who are victims of childhood sexual abuse remember all or part of what happened to them." and important parts of the treatment seeking section: "not to steer you toward a particular conclusion or interpretation", "current knowledge does not allow the definite conclusion that a memory is real or false without other corroborating evidence".  I find interesting that there is no mention of hypnosis, which is one of the traditional issues, but we could consider "to steer you toward a particular conclusion" as possibly being related to such questionable therapies.
 * So this brochure acknowledges that some memories may be better recalled later but that there also is consensus that total amnesia and later recovery is unlikely. It also acknowledges the existence of false memories.  There are a few subtopics involved in this article: common facts about memory, therapies (some methods are considered problematic and fringe today and there's also the recovered-memory therapy article), media and therapy controversies (legal issues, criticism, cases of therapist/patient-induced memories or scenarios).  I erroneously called recovery therapy "regression therapy" in a recent edit summary but that's of course something else...  — Paleo  Neonate  – 01:45, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

YES, this article is dangerously irresponsible.
This article does not hold much scientific value. It cherrypicks the perspectives of people arguing against repressed memories IN THE CONTEXT OF FALSE MEMORIES while completely ignoring or worse, trying to patronize, the larger context of dissociative amnesia. The discourse is therefore shifted onto the existence of false memories, and while those of course are real phenonenon, so is dissociative amnesia which should be represented just as prominently. The narrative of this article is harmful towards people suffering from dissociative disorders or dissociative amnesia as well as people trying to inform themselves about this phenomenon, and does not accurately inform about different comprehensions of "repressed memory". 94.220.132.91 (talk) 18:47, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Please familiarize yourself with community policies and guidelines before making an edit. Please cite reliable sources for edits that will substantially change the current content. I have reverted your edits that were not adhering to these rules; in particular, WP:NPOV. Normchou   💬 19:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Unbalanced?
What is "unbalanced" about that section? --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:51, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Therapy recommendations for people with repressed memories
The following information below is inconsistent with DSM-5 regarding the treatment of dissociative amnesia and it could be confusing to readers. In many cases, dissociative amnesia is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or another disorder. Psychotherapy is indicated for the management of dissociative amnesia according to DSM-5. In fact, when a person is recovering memories following dissociative amnesia, the experience can be extremely distressing and elevating the risk for self-harm including suicide. See section below:

Despite widespread belief in the phenomenon of repressed memories among laypersons and clinical psychologists,[4] most research psychologists who study the psychology of memory dispute that repression ever occurs at all.[5][6][7][8][9][10] While some psychologists claim that repressed memories can be recovered through psychotherapy (or may be recovered spontaneously, years or even decades after the event, when the repressed memory is triggered by a particular smell, taste, or other identifier related to the lost memory),[11] experts in the psychology of memory argue that, rather than promoting the recovery of a real repressed memory, psychotherapy is more likely to contribute to the creation of false memories.[12][13][9] According to the American Psychological Association, it is not possible to distinguish repressed memories from false ones without corroborating evidence.[3] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8A:200:B6B0:F59B:5E58:8FA8:CD64 (talk) 21:16, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Self contradictory, serious bias issues
"'Memories can be accurate, but they are not always accurate. For example, eyewitness testimony even of relatively recent dramatic events is notoriously unreliable.[31] Memories of events are a mix of fact overlaid with emotions, mingled with interpretation and 'filled in' with imaginings. Skepticism regarding the validity of a memory as factual detail is warranted.[32] For example, one study where victims of documented child abuse were reinterviewed many years later as adults, 38% of the women denied any memory of the abuse.[33]'"

This paragraph cites LM Williams' article based on a prospective study involving cases of documented sexual abuse in which the victims were seen at a hospital. Here is the abstract:

"'One hundred twenty-nine women with previously documented histories of sexual victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked detailed questions about their abuse histories to answer the question 'Do people actually forget traumatic events such as child sexual abuse, and if so, how common is such forgetting?' A large proportion of the women (38%) did not recall the abuse that had been reported 17 years earlier. Women who were younger at the time of the abuse and those who were molested by someone they knew were more likely to have no recall of the abuse. The implications for research and practice are discussed. Long periods with no memory of abuse should not be regarded as evidence that the abuse did not occur.'"

How exactly one gets "Skepticism regarding the validity of a memory as factual detail is warranted" from that is beyond me. The entire point of the article is that women with medically documented experiences of sexual abuse reported having lost memory of said abuse at some point, for some period of time. Moreover, the leap from "certain details of a memory can and do change over time" to "the memories are entirely made up and false" is pretty enormous! I'll have to do some digging to find the sources, but the majority of literature I've read on this subject suggests that the issue is with details being inaccurate in ways that compromise legal testimony - i.e. a mugging victim may misremember the race of their assailant, especially as a result of implicit bias. But, this is not to say, nor does the majority of research suggest (as far as I'm aware), that the entire memory of being mugged should therefore be called into question. Again, the issue is about particular details, not the general summary of the overall event.

Frankly, this article seems highly biased towards towards a "skeptic" position which frames itself as based on "the real science" while ignoring the many serious critiques of that position. For example, I just removed a line from the intro about repressed memory being "largely scientifically discredited" which cited, in part, this APA FAQ page which responds to the question,

"'Can a memory be forgotten and then remembered? Can a 'memory' be suggested and then remembered as true?'"

with,

"'What we do know is that both memory researchers and clinicians who work with trauma victims agree that both phenomena occur.'"

Again, how we get from that to "largely scientifically discredited" is beyond me. What is clear is that some version of "repressed memory" is widely considered a real phenomenon in the mental health community and the actual controversy is around how often it occurs, its mechanisms, and the validity and safety of therapies intended to "recover" such memories. That debate should absolutely be represented in this article, but as it stands the article reads like it is denying the very existence of a phenomenon which has, at this point, but thoroughly empirically validated (see, for example, the Recovered Memory Project). I would hope that all the skeptics who claim they're "just following the science" would want to do just that and present a less biased picture of the current state of debate around this sensitive and controversial issue, rather than offering a polemic for one "side" or the other.

Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 16:22, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I have no expertise in this field, so I'm a bit reluctant to comment. However, I just visited the APA's page on repressed memory, at https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma/memories, where it says "But most leaders in the field agree that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later". My reading of this issue is that there are multiple questions being conflated together, such as whether or not memories are repressed, whether or not they can be recovered, and the reliability of recovered memories, all of which seem to be covered here on the one topic. But it seems to me that if the APA is not describing this as discredited, perhaps we shouldn't be wording it so conclusively either. - Bilby (talk) 13:42, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The most important aspect is the fact that therapists have been claiming to be able to recover memories using methods known to fabricate fantasies, such as hypnosis, leading questions, a request to fantasize with a subsequent claim that the fantasies are in reality memories. The result of such therapies are memories of alien abductions, of former lives, of future lives, of multiple personalities, of Satanic rituals, and of sexual abuse. People have gone to jail because such fantasies have been taken as memories. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:34, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Absolutely agree. But my question is whether or not repressed memories have been discredited in the same way that recovered memories are now considered to be unreliable. - Bilby (talk) 14:51, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Recovered-memory therapy has it's own page and is not of primary importance when discussing the scientific consensus on whether repressed memories are "real", let alone what the scientific research and consensus on the issue says. I agree that Recovered-memory therapy should probably have stub (am I using that term correctly?) here, but this actually points to one of the serious issues in critiques of the repressed memory hypothesis, namely the assumption - lacking any empirical backing as far as I'm aware, but you're welcome to offer citations - that a significant number, let alone a majority, of recovered memories are a result of any kind of Recovered-memory therapy. See my reply to Bilby, specifically the paragraph about efforts to discredit survivor testimony. The existence of a handful of sensationalized cases (e.g. the McMartin preschool trial) largely dating back to a moral panic in the 80s/90s, most of which involved improper interviewing techniques with very young children, does not in any way invalidate the existence of recovered memories or the scientific consensus on this issue.
 * This is a common strawman among those who take the extreme (and minority!) total denial view of recovered memories, that is to imply that all or most recovered memories are the result of inappropriate therapeutic techniques. I am unaware of any research demonstrating that a majority of repressed memories were recovered in therapy, let alone in the specific quack therapies that opponents routinely point to, frequently with the implication that many - or even all! - recovered memories result from such quackery. Furthermore, to the extent that some survivors do recover memories in the context of therapy, that does not automatically prove that it was one of the quack therapies or even that the therapy was aimed at recovering memories at all. For example, someone might come into therapy to discuss abuse for which they have continuous memories and, as they begin thinking about a time and place in their life that they had previously avoided, begin to recover additional memories of that abuse. Such a situation wouldn't involve any prodding or probing by a therapist and in fact the recovered memory very well could return outside of therapy as the person is reflecting on parts of their past that were previously avoided.
 * Anyways, I stand by my assertion that this article is seriously biased and need significant reworking, if not a whole rewrite. Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 16:10, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not a strawman. It is an important aspect because repressed memories are a necessary (but not sufficient) component of the worldviews of a colorful mixture of lunatic fringes: a lunatic fringe of religion (recovered memories of Satanism), a lunatic fringe of feminism (recovered memories of child abuse), a lunatic fringe of esotericism (recovered memories of former lives) and a lunatic fringe of a lunatic fringe (recovered memories of alien abduction). Therefore, the literature in favor of its existence is expected to contain a lot of crap and needs to be checked more carefully than the literature in favor of most other scientific hypotheses. For example, WP:PRIMARY sources are right out, peer-reviewed or not. Any statements confirming the existence need to be based on very high-quality sources. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:06, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Hob Gadling
 * Dalenberg (2006) is a review of the relevant literature which establishes/argues for the scientific consensus on the issue and surveys a variety of biological and psychological theories for its mechanisms. It is a secondary source. Further, can you provide evidence that the journal Trauma, Violence, & Abuse is in any way fringe or disreputable? I believe Wikipedia maintains a list of predatory/fringe journals, is it listed there?
 * I have since collected roughly a dozen more sources, both secondary and primary, from reputable peer-reviewed journals and academically published books, representing a range of perspectives on this issue. I will be adding them here when I have time later today, along with relevant passages. At that point I plan to tag the article with a POV warning.
 * I hope we can have a polite and reasonable discussion as we strive for consensus. To that end, I would very much appreciate it if moving forward accusations of "fringe" or "pseudoscience" were backed up with quality sourcing and some kind of argumentation. Simply asserting it does not make it so.
 * -- Donna's Cyborg, editing from phone 2604:CA00:139:B65F:0:0:C60:B090 (talk) 11:59, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * can you provide evidence that the journal Trauma, Violence, & Abuse is in any way fringe or disreputable? Why on Earth should I do that? I did not say it was, I never even mentioned it. If you pull stuff out of your hat and demand I back up statements I never made about that stuff, a polite and reasonable discussion is going to be difficult.
 * moving forward accusations of "fringe" or "pseudoscience" were backed up with quality sourcing The fringe I was talking about is recovered memory therapy. Are you really demanding evidence that that one is fringe and pseudoscientific, or are you putting words into my mouth?
 * Also, please don't ping me. I have a watchlist. --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:43, 31 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I have some expertise in this field (emphasis on the some lol!) as a grad student doing research in medical anthropology, sociology of science and philosophy of science as they relate to PTSD research. My research doesn't necessarily address the repressed memory issue directly (yet! all this controversy is making me think it needs a section in my thesis lol!) but it does come up fairly frequently in the more contemporary research. As for the APA page, I would argue that it is far more conservative than warranted, but obviously that's not my/our call. Either way, it seems like that page hasn't been updated since 1995 - nearly three decades ago! - and indeed displays a disclaimer at the top which says, "[t]his page has been archived and is no longer being updated regularly." While I think it's appropriate to include this page if no other, more recent commentary from the APA (or other relevant organizations) can be found, I don't think it should be given nearly the weight it currently receives in the article, especially in light of more recent research.
 * To that end, in trying to dig up sources on this issue to make sure my recollection was correct (i.e. that some version of repressed memory is widely accepted in the field) I honestly came away with the impression that this article is even more biased than I first thought. Constance Dalenberg's 2006 article 'Recovered Memory and the Daubert Criteria: Recovered Memory as Professionally Tested, Peer Reviewed, and Accepted in the Relevant Scientific Community' in the journal Trauma, Violence, and Abuse (happy to provide a PDF for anyone who doesn't have access!) does a fantastic job of bringing together and summarizing the relevant literature. Here's the abstract:
 * "Research during the past two decades has firmly established the reliability of the phenomenon of recovered memory. This review first highlights the strongest evidence for the phenomenon itself and discusses the survey, experimental, and biological evidence for the varying mechanisms that may underlie the phenomenon. Routes to traumatic amnesia from dissociative detachment (loss of emotional content leading to loss of factual content) and from dissociative compartmentalization (failure in integration) are discussed. Next, an argument is made that false memory is a largely orthogonal concept to recovered memory; the possibility of one phenomena is largely irrelevant to the potential for the other. Furthermore, some aspects of the false memory research offer supportive data for the recovered memory researcher. Finally, the issue of error rates in making the Daubert case is explored. It is concluded that the weight of the evidence should allow the recovered memory victim to come before the court."
 * I think you're right that part of the issue is a confusion of terms. The term "repressed memory" has had multiple definitions since it's (supposed) origination with Freud and the basic concept - i.e. that abuse/traumatic memories can be rendered inaccessible to conscious awareness for some extended period of time - predates him. For example, Pierre Janet was developing a similar concept even before Freud (see Allan Young's excellent ethnography of PTSD 'The Harmony of Illusions' for more info). Freud himself defined "repressed memory" and indeed "repression" itself differently throughout his work - for example, sometimes describing repression as an unconscious process and at others as a conscious, willful forgetting. And all of this is to say nothing of the various ways it has been used in both the psy-disciplines and popular culture in the many decades since! All this to say that the history section of this article needs some serious updating and expanding in order bring greater clarity to these definitional issues.
 * Unfortunately, however, there has been a fairly concerted effort (by folks who imho have less than great motives) to undermine the validity of survivor testimony which started around the 1980's. This effort frequently engaged in strawmanning by employing a strictly Freudian (with all the baggage that implies!) definition, and a pretty narrowly constructed one at that. With this definition in hand they then "debunk" repressed memory in ways that imply the phenomenon in its entirety is illegitimate or unscientific. Dalenberg is helpful here:
 * "One strategy to oppose recovered memory possibility, then, is to choose the mechanism that is most difficult to prove (in this case, repression) and pretend that evidence against the mechanism is evidence against the phenomena. As an analogy, some researchers believe that viruses play a role in schizophrenia. If this hypothesis proves to be false, it does not then follow that schizophrenia does not exist."
 * My contention, then, is that not only is this article poorly written - it seems like others who are aware of the critique I'm offering have just kind of inserted text here and there in an attempt at balance which has unfortunately led to a poorly written and structured article - but that it has fallen prey to a bias that seems common in the "skeptic" community. I am all about following the science, I wouldn't be studying the things I do if I weren't! I'm also committed to maintaining neutrality. As you can probably tell, I'm highly skeptical of the entire "false memory" notion (this is not to say false accusations aren't made or that people can't have false beliefs, but that's a whole other issue and honestly I don't think false memory needs more than a stub here and a link to its own page) and Loftus' work in particular. That being said, both that concept and Loftus are critical components of this whole debate and their views - at least to the extent that they are relayed in academic, peer-reviewed sources - ought to be included, alongside scholarly critique of those views. However, as it stands I would argue that this article puts way too much weight on the opinions of Loftus et al. while largely ignoring the actual consensus opinion among clinicians, researchers and clinician-researchers. Returning to Dalenberg again,
 * "At the present point in time, in keeping with the many surveys on recovered memory and the hundreds of supporting empirical studies on stress, trauma and memory, the concept of recovered memory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. In a survey of psychologists by Pope and Tabachnick (1995), 73% stated that they had personally seen a case that they classified as a recovered memory. In a survey of both American and British professionals, Poole, Lindsay, Memon, and Bull (1995) found a similar high rate of experience with the phenomena. Polusny and Follette (1996) found that 28% of psychologists reported that they had seen a case of repressed memory in the past year. In Dammeyer, Nightingale, and McCoy’s (1997) more recent survey, only 7% of experimental psychologists, 3% of clinical psychologists with research involvement, and 2% of clinicians with no research involvement reported that they held the view that accurate recovered memories of trauma are not possible (rating the possibility of loss and recovery of a trauma memory as 1 or 2 on a 1 to 10 point scale of validity). The majority of all groups view the current evidence as supporting a more probable than not decision (6 to 8 on an 10-point scale) or are certain of the validity of the phenomenon (9 to 10). The relevant percentages for experimentalists, clinical researchers and PhD clinicians who rated their belief in the validity of recovered memory at or more than 6 were 70%, 88%, and 93% respectively. If asked for their belief in repressed memory, the number dropped slightly, but the majority of each group still fell in the more probable than not category. Fourteen percent of experimentalists, 2% of clinical researchers, and 1% of nonresearcher clinicians take the position of the extreme false memory advocates and reject the concept (rating belief as 1 or 2)."
 * Given the evidence I've provided thus far (and this is just what I could dig up in a few hours research, hopefully we can find even more up to date sources) I think that it is fair to say this article has serious NPOV issues. I'm fairly new to making significant edits, so I'll try to take things slow, familiarize myself with the process for disputing POV and make sure any edits I make are kosher. I suppose, then, that this is a bit of a heads up to anyone interested/watching this page that I'm raising this issue and planning on addressing it through whatever the proper procedures are. I'm also happy to take a look at any more recent research, especially meta-analyses and systematic reviews, on both repressed memory itself and current consensus in the field.
 * Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 15:23, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps part of a solution is to include additional, reliable, secondary sources that support the claim largely scientifically discredited. How about sourcing to some combination of this, this, this, and this, none of which (I think) are currently referenced in the article? The final source on this list speaks to an alleged dichotomy between researchers (i.e., scientists) and clinicians, but that dichotomy supports the phrase "largely scientifically discredited." Along with adding some additional sources, perhaps appending to the quoted passage something along the lines of "but accepted by some therapists" (with appropriate sources, of course) would be acceptable? I know that wording is a bit weasely, but collaboration, consensus, and all that. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:19, 30 August 2022 (UTC)


 * I'll have to take a closer look at those sources when I get a chance, but wouldn't peer-reviewed scholarship take precedence here? I'm happy to include a criticisms section covering this work, but I don't think the assertion "largely scientifically discredited" is even remotely accurate. See Recovered Memory and the Daubert Criteria: Recovered Memory as Professionally Tested, Peer Reviewed, and Accepted in the Relevant Scientific Community for more info, specifically,
 * "At the present point in time, in keeping with the many surveys on recovered memory and the hundreds of supporting empirical studies on stress, trauma and memory, the concept of recovered memory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. In a survey of psychologists by Pope and Tabachnick (1995), 73% stated that they had personally seen a case that they classified as a recovered memory. In a survey of both American and British professionals, Poole, Lindsay, Memon, and Bull (1995) found a similar high rate of experience with the phenomena. Polusny and Follette (1996) found that 28% of psychologists reported that they had seen a case of repressed memory in the past year. In Dammeyer, Nightingale, and McCoy’s (1997) more recent survey, only 7% of experimental psychologists, 3% of clinical psychologists with research involvement, and 2% of clinicians with no research involvement reported that they held the view that accurate recovered memories of trauma are not possible (rating the possibility of loss and recovery of a trauma memory as 1 or 2 on a 1 to 10 point scale of validity). The majority of all groups view the current evidence as supporting a more probable than not decision (6 to 8 on an 10-point scale) or are certain of the validity of the phenomenon (9 to 10). The relevant percentages for experimentalists, clinical researchers and PhD clinicians who rated their belief in the validity of recovered memory at or more than 6 were 70%, 88%, and 93% respectively. If asked for their belief in repressed memory, the number dropped slightly, but the majority of each group still fell in the more probable than not category. Fourteen percent of experimentalists, 2% of clinical researchers, and 1% of nonresearcher clinicians take the position of the extreme false memory advocates and reject the concept (rating belief as 1 or 2)."
 * Note that the Dammeyer, Nightingale, and McCoy (1997) study includes experimental psychologists, i.e. researchers, as well as clinician-researchers (people who both do clinical work and conduct research) and majorities of all groups expressed belief that recovered memory is likely or certain to be a real phenomenon. I'm more than happy to be flexible and make compromises where that makes sense. I think a criticisms section is absolutely warranted. But in light of this research I'm struggling to see how any claim that repressed/recovered memory is "largely scientifically discredited" is even remotely sustainable absent peer-reviewed research countering the source cited above. Again, I am very open to someone offering such sources, but until then I don't think opinion pieces should trump peer-reviewed scholarship.
 * Having looked over the NPOV tutorial, with specific attention to neutral language and space and balance, I believe that a POV dispute tag is warranted until we can come to some consensus?
 * P.S. I'm happy to share a copy with anyone who doesn't have access. I also plan on looking for more recent peer-review sources when I get the time and would appreciate recommendations, especially from those who might disagree with me! Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 17:37, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The four articles you've provided are opinion pieces in journalistic/non-peer-review sources which represent a minority opinion. There is a wealth of better quality, secondary sources that ought to take precedence. Dalenberg (2006) in particular speaks directly to the issue of consensus. Critic views should get page space, but they should not be presented as consensus. I can reinstate my original edit (removing "largely scientifically discredited") but the issue is endemic throughout the whole article, which I believe needs a serious rewrite, merger or deletion. Hope that's concise enough. Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 15:41, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Case for POV tag
Edited to add tl;dr:

I thought it might be helpful to gather sources under a new heading here where I can make my case.

Issue One: Scientific Consensus

The sentence "largely scientifically discredited" implies not only a lack of scientific consensus in favor of the existence of repressed memories, but in fact a consensus in the opposite direction. Currently the claim is backed up by a single citation to Loftus and Ketchum's The Myth of Repressed Memory: False Memories and Allegations of Sexual Abuse which is published by a non-academic publisher. According to Wikipedia guidelines for reliable sources such a claim "that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view." Furthermore, secondary sources are preferred over primary or tertiary sources and  "academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." In topics relating to medicine in particular  secondary sources which synthesize primary sources are preferred. The following are secondary sources from reputable peer-reviewed journals which speak directly to the current scientific status of repressed memory. There's nothing inherently wrong with citing this book, but there are better sources per the guidelines referred to above. At bare minimum, in addition to adding these sources and updating the language to reflect their content, I think a page number allowing reader to see exactly what Loftus and Ketchum say about the scientific consensus on this issue themselves would be helpful.



Abstract: Purpose. The debate concerning the recovery of repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is one with which academics and professionals are becoming increasingly familiar. This paper asks whether or not recovered memories require special psychological mechanisms to explain as this has implications if legal proceedings are initiated on the basis of that recovered memory.

Method. The following areas are deemed relevant when evaluating evidence based upon a recovered memory: (i) the effects of trauma on memory (an influence on memory at the encoding stage); (ii) how memory can be aided and distorted (an influence on memory at the retrieval stage); and (iii) factors likely to influence jury decisions concerning recovered memories.

Results. Cases documenting the veracity of recovered memories are few and far between. On the contrary there is sufficient evidence to be concerned about the accuracy of recovered memories in the legal context.

Conclusions. Further research is needed on the conditions under which false recollections may occur and how these may be prevented.

Relevant passages: "The evidence reviewed in this section suggests that it is possible for deficits to occur in memory functioning and memory loss over time but the available evidence does not provide unequivocal support for the theory that this is a result of primary repression. On the other hand what has been referred to as suppression (repression proper), dissociation and inhibition could be coping strategies for dealing with the discomfort caused by the memories of the trauma. Perhaps these strategies are a response to the intrusive memories of traumatic experiences rather than a response to the threatening elements of the trauma itself (Creamer, Burgess 8c Pattison, 1992). Indeed the intrusive thoughts reported by PTSD victims go against the theory of repression. There are clearly individual differences in reactions to traumatic experiences as revealed by some of the evidence considered above. Moreover, case studies show how complex it is to check the validity of these memories. As the quality of research with clients in therapy continues to improve, we may be able to develop a better understanding of the contribution of the different mechanisms. New theoretical developments in the study of the reactions of trauma victims may further improve our understanding. In the next section we turn our attention to the literature on the effects of emotional arousal on memory in order to focus more on the question of recall accuracy of emotionally arousing events." "There has been much controversy in the literature about how accurately people remember emotionally arousing events. The research presented here would suggest that the effects of emotional arousal on memory are complex. Central details of a traumatic event may be remembered well, whilst peripheral information is sometimes poorly retained. Moreover, attending to one’s emotional reactions may occur at the expense of identifying the source of the remembered information (Johnson, in press). While studies of flashbulb memories initially suggested that such memories are accurate and persistent, it is clear that even when memories are vivid and compelling they are susceptible to distortion in the same way that normal memories are. Such memories do not warrant any special mechanisms (a conclusion echoed by Hyman & Loftus, in press). Normal processes imply that normal errors may occur, and in the next section it will be shown that the conditions that influence veridical remembering map closely on to conditions that result in the creation of false memories." The focus of this section has been on the impact of retrieval conditions on remembering. A number of different paradigms have been used to demonstrate how over repeated suggestive questioning a false memory may occur. While the participants in these studies are limited to some extent in ecological validity (the participants are typically younger than clients undergoing therapy and the events being reported are fairly innocuous as compared to a sexual trauma) the interviews do simulate the social psychological pressures to comply with suggestions. Future studies of this kind may provide some clues as to the cognitive and personality characteristics of individuals that may predict vulnerability to suggestion. Moreover, much can be gained by looking more carefully at the way in which an individual’s beliefs and attributions about memory may be shaped by the experiences of remembering and forgetting. The role of attribution processes is nicely illustrated by some work recently reported by Belli, Winkelman, Schwarz & Read (1996). They showed in their studies with undergraduate students that experienced difficulty in remembering experiences of childhood are attributed to the incompleteness of memory about childhood experiences (the availability heuristic). We would urge caution in using the term ‘false memory’. As pointed out by Winograd & Killinger (1983) there is an important sense in which no memory is false, if information is part of the cognitive system and an individual’s beliefs about what happened then its presence needs to be explained. Therapists need to avoid using any suggestive practices in memory recovery therapy so that the truth can be reached without contaminating it. While some clinicians maintain that the accuracy and detail with which an account is recalled is not critical (e.g. Olio & Cornell, 1994), we would argue that knowing whether abuse has truly occurred may help therapy progress (see Pennebaker & Memon, 1996). In the forensic context, not only is it important to establish whether or not an event has occurred, but to determine precisely what happened. When presented with evidence based on a ‘recovered’ memory in a court of law, a psychologist may be called to assess the reliability of that memory based upon their ‘expert’ knowledge. They may wish to ask some questions about the nature of the recovered memory and these are likely to focus on the conditions prevalent at encoding and the processes by which the memory was recovered. In the US, rules setting the scientific criteria for the admissibility of expert evidence such as Daubert (1993) may constitute a major problem for recovered memories (see Faigman, 1995). The Daubert criteria were applied in a criminal case based on recovered memories of sexual abuse (State v. Hungerford, 1993) where the judge concluded that there was insufficient scientific evidence for repression and the lack of agreement among psychologists about the likelihood of recovery following amnesia. Moreover, the judge criticized the psychotherapy techniques used to recover memories as having failed to satisfy scientific criteria and also expressed a concern that allowing experts to testify on the accuracy of a compliant’s memory (when there was no external corroboration of abuse) would make jurors base their decisions solely on the experts’ testimony (cited in Taub, 1996).

"The aim of the research reported in this paper has been to review some of the mechanisms that may account for recovered memories and to examine their likely accuracy in relation to the literature on the encoding and retrieval of traumatic events. It was concluded that evidence for primary repression is sparse and that intentional forgetting or suppression may account for the previous unavailability of childhood memories. A similar conclusion was reached in a case filed by the Court of Appeals of Maryland in July 1996 Jane Doe et al. v. A. Joseph Maskell et al.). In this case the courts were asked to decide whether the discovery rule was applicable. The details of the case are relevant to the present discussion. Jane Doe and Jane Roe were students at a parochial school in Baltimore in the late 1960s. During their time there they had individually been referred for counselling to the school chaplain Father A. Joseph Maskell. It is alleged that Maskell subjected the girls to repeated sexual, physical and psychological abuse. Both girls were allegedly threatened with punishments if they told and they claimed to have ceased to recall the abuse after they left school in 1971/1972. The girls filed suits in 1994 claiming that in order to avoid the pain associated with recalling the abuse they had ‘repressed’ their memories and then later ‘recovered’ them. According to this they were ‘blamelessly ignorant’ and could not file suit earlier. The Court of Appeal extracted two assumptions from this: (i) there is a difference between repression and mere forgetting and (ii) the difference is a sufficient quality to operate the discovery rule. The Court reviewed the scientific literature on repression and forgetting and concluded that repression and forgetting could not be distinguished scientifically and thus should be treated the same legally. The Court concluded therefore that the plaintiffs’ suits were barred by the statute of limitations three years after they reached their 18th birthdays (1974/1975). There is no doubt that sexual abuse is a serious problem, the contexts in which it occurs and fear of consequences of reporting it makes it very difficult for victims to come forward (Browne & Finkelhor, 1986; Beitchman, Zucker, Hood, da Costa, Akman & Cassavia, 1992).7 Indeed false denials are likely to exceed false memories for this reason. Ethical constraints prevent researchers from simulating the threat experienced in real-life situations. We therefore have to rely on what we know about the vulnerability of our memories and the power of suggestion. Even Freud modified his theories when he discovered that some of the early memories his patients retrieved were fantasy-based confabulations. At the same time, Freud may have misinterpreted real memories of sexual abuse as fantasies (Powell & Boer, 1995). Bearing in mind the ease with which we may be misled, we (researchers and practitioners) should aim to create conditions where accurate recollections can be fostered while being cautious that we may be fostering inaccurate recollections under the same conditions."



Abstract: "The authors critically review the main strategies that false-memory proponents have used to challenge the admissibility of testimony regarding recovered abuse memories in the courts: that the laboratory evidence fails to prove the existence of repression, that people rarely forget trauma, and that scientific studies claiming amnesia for trauma and abuse are fraught with a variety of methodological weaknesses. False-memory proponents who have advanced these arguments have made serious logical errors in their arguments and have misused the available scientific evidence. The authors review 68 data-based studies specifically on amnesia and later recovery of memories for childhood sexual abuse, each of which presents evidence favoring amnesia and recovered memories for sexual abuse in certain individuals. These studies were conducted using a variety of methodological approaches and progressive improvements in research design that addressed and answered each criticism advanced by false-memory proponents. These studies also include a number of recent studies using a clarifying interview strategy that demonstrated that the mechanisms operative in substantial forgetting and later recovery of abuse memories typically include a mixture of dissociative amnesia, cognitive avoidance, and misappraisal of the abuse, and rarely include ordinary forgetting. Data-based studies on the accuracy of recovered memories have demonstrated that recovered memories are no more or less accurate than continuous memories of childhood abuse and generally are reliable, except when a specific pattern of suggestive influences may have contaminated the memory. The authors offer a set of evidentiary criteria by which the court can assess suggestive influences. The authors also review the Frye-Daubert standards that have been applied in the courts. They argue that the current weight of the available scientific evidence on amnesia for childhood sexual abuse clearly meets the Daubert standards of admissibility."

Relevant passages: "The false-memory position typically includes a number of largely untested assumptions such as the nonexistence of repressed memories, the unreliability of uncorroborated recovered memories, the widespread use of memory-recovery techniques that distort memory, and the reliability of uncorroborated retractor memories by those formerly alleging abuse. Although these ideas have been widely circulated, they may not meet the minimum criteria of scientific validity. The following paper reviews the range of available relevant data, specifically on the issue of substantially forgetting and later recovering childhood sexual abuse memories, in light of the customary criteria for scientific evidence and the logic of scientific conclusions. This article shows the extent to which science has asserted itself demonstrably in favor of the reality of repressed or dissociative memory. The developing judicial trend, as we discuss later, is to recognize the reality of repressed memory and to permit experts to testify about it."

"That defense lawyers and expert witnesses advocating 'false memory' could use the Pope et al. data base of 63 studies to convince judges that there is no evidence in favor of the existence of amnesia is remarkable. We are concerned that these 63 studies have been misused and in the future might be misused in the courtroom to give the impression to the court that amnesia for trauma in general, and for childhood sexual abuse in particular, lacks an evidentiary scientific basis. For example, in a recent Frye-Daubert hearing on the scientific evidence for repressed memories in Rhode Island v. Quattrocchi.' defense co-counsel entered into the record a chart of the 63 studies titled, 'Research Demonstrates That People Remember Trauma.' Most of the studies listed were labeled 'No amnesia reported.'?' Since 41 of these studies never addressed the issue of amnesia, the statement 'No amnesia reported' combined with the misleading title 'Research Demonstrates That People Remember Trauma' could be misconstrued by the court to mean that people always remember trauma and that amnesia is never found in scientific research. The facts show the opposite. When the irrelevant studies that skew the impression in favor of the view that people always remember trauma are eliminated, 18 of the remaining 21 studies clearly demonstrate that traumaspecific or injury-specific amnesia is reported in some subgroup of traumatized individuals. While occasional misreading of scientific data is understandable, Pope et al. have systematically misread the data in most of the remaining studies so as to eliminate the actual data reported on amnesia across most of the studies. When inaccurate data are submitted to the courts and are used in an attempt to deny those who claim recovered memories of abuse their days in court, what are the consequences for the judicial process, the scientific enterprise, and citizens seeking to be heard?"

"In our opinion, based upon the prevailing scientific data, the fact that the majority of people remember certain traumas does not negate the fact that a significant minority do not remember, and that dissociated amnesia, or repressed memory, for sexual abuse is a commonly observed phenomenon in some individuals across virtually all of the research that has addressed the issue."

"The fact remains that all 25 of the studies reviewed by Scheflin and Brown presented evidence in favor of dissociative amnesia for childhood sexual abuse. Piper has not presented any contrary evidence-not a single study anywhere in the world scientific literature. He has not mentioned any study designed to investigate forgetting/recovery of childhood sexual abuse memories that failed to find such amnesia. This failure is not because Piper has done inadequate research. There simply are no studies supporting his position. Either the reader accepts the evidence of these 25 data-based findings (and now 68 studies, many with increasingly sophisticated research designs)-that dissociative amnesia for childhood sexual abuse was found in all of the studies-or the reader accepts Piper's unscientific 'common sense' standard that it does not exist."

In the last decade, since the original Herman and Schatzow study, 68 data-based studies have been conducted specifically on substantial forgetting of childhood sexual abuse. In the current psychiatric nomenclature, DSM-IV clearly recognizes dissociative amnesia as a legitimate diagnostic category, and acknowledgment of the existence of this diagnostic category constitutes a standard of care that must be met by psychiatrists and all other mental health professionals. The modern challenge to repressed memories or dissociative amnesia comes from a vocal minority, who for the first time are arguing that repressed memories or dissociative amnesia does not exist. At best this group constitutes what the law considers to be a respectable minority whose views could be presented in court as such. However, as a respectable minority, the burden of proof is on them to show that repressed memories do not exist-a burden they will fail to carry unless they are able to convince the court to utilize impossibly restrictive criteria so that the greater weight of the data-based scientific studies, already generally accepted within the scientific community, should not come to the attention of the court. Nevertheless, science has responded in favor of the prevailing majority opinion. In just this past decade alone, 68 research studies have been conducted on naturally occurring dissociative or traumatic amnesia for childhood sexual abuse. Not a single one of the 68 data-based studies failed to find it. For the purpose of a Daubert hearing, the generally accepted opinion in the general psychiatric community is that repressed memories or dissociative amnesia exists. Therefore its gatekeeping function is already met. We believe the current rapidly accumulating body of data-based studies has adequately settled the question that an important minority of individuals substantially forget and later recover memories of childhood sexual abuse and other traumas. As has occurred in the scientific community, and is likely to also occur in the courts, we believe the debate may shift its focus away from proving the existence of substantial forgetting/recovery of abuse memories more toward a debate about whether or not the forgetting is involuntary or unconscious (as we document above) versus voluntary or conscious (as false-memory proponents may claim), and whether the recovered memory has been distorted by suggestive influences. Consistent with DSM-IV, the more recent studies using the clarifying-interview strategy suggest that underreporting abuse primarily is a mixture of misappraisal, cognitive avoidance, and dissociative amnesia, none of which is under full voluntary control. These data also clearly demonstrate that ordinary forgetting is not a frequently endorsed explanation for the phenomenon.



Abstract: "Research during the past two decades has firmly established the reliability of the phenomenon of recovered memory. This review first highlights the strongest evidence for the phenomenon itself and discusses the survey, experimental, and biological evidence for the varying mechanisms that may underlie the phenomenon. Routes to traumatic amnesia from dissociative detachment (loss of emotional content leading to loss of factual content) and from dissociative compartmentalization (failure in integration) are discussed. Next, an argument is made that false memory is a largely orthogonal concept to recovered memory; the possibility of one phenomena is largely irrelevant to the potential for the other. Furthermore, some aspects of the false memory research offer supportive data for the recovered memory researcher. Finally, the issue of error rates in making the Daubert case is explored. It is concluded that the weight of the evidence should allow the recovered memory victim to come before the court."

Relevant passages: "At the present point in time, in keeping with the many surveys on recovered memory and the hundreds of supporting empirical studies on stress, trauma and memory, the concept of recovered memory is generally accepted in the relevant scientific community. In a survey of psychologists by Pope and Tabachnick (1995), 73% stated that they had personally seen a case that they classified as a recovered memory. In a survey of both American and British professionals, Poole, Lindsay, Memon, and Bull (1995) found a similar high rate of experience with the phenomena. Polusny and Follette (1996) found that 28% of psychologists reported that they had seen a case of repressed memory in the past year. In Dammeyer, Nightingale, and McCoy’s (1997) more recent survey, only 7% of experimental psychologists, 3% of clinical psychologists with research involvement, and 2% of clinicians with no research involvement reported that they held the view that accurate recovered memories of trauma are not possible (rating the possibility of loss and recovery of a trauma memory as 1 or 2 on a 1 to 10 point scale of validity). The majority of all groups view the current evidence as supporting a more probable than not decision (6 to 8 on an 10-point scale) or are certain of the validity of the phenomenon (9 to 10). The relevant percentages for experimentalists, clinical researchers and PhD clinicians who rated their belief in the validity of recovered memory at or more than 6 were 70%, 88%, and 93% respectively. If asked for their belief in repressed memory, the number dropped slightly, but the majority of each group still fell in the more probable than not category. Fourteen percent of experimentalists, 2% of clinical researchers, and 1% of nonresearcher clinicians take the position of the extreme false memory advocates and reject the concept (rating belief as 1 or 2)."

"Aware of the dangers of such antiscientific and extremist viewpoints, dozens of major organizations in the United States and throughout the world have placed on record their statements that (a) recovered memory of abuse is possible and (b) that these memories do not have a protected truth status (i.e., may in some cases be false). As examples, the American Psychological Association’s (1996) Working Group on Investigation of Memories of Childhood Abuse, despite the many disagreements on less major points by its members, agreed that “it is possible for memories of abuse that have been forgotten for a long time to be remembered” (p. 933). The American Medical Society’s Report on Memories of Childhood Abuse in 1994 concluded that “research indicates that some survivors of abuse do not remember, at least temporarily, having been abused” ” (p. 1) and considered the view that recovered memories were always inaccurate to be extreme. The Statement on Memories of Sexual Abuse issued by the American Psychiatric Society in 1993 notes that children and adolescents who have been abused cope with the trauma by using a variety of psychological mechanisms. In some instances, these supporting mechanisms result in a lack of conscious awareness of the abuse for varying periods of time. Conscious thoughts and feelings stemming from the abuse may emerge at a later date. (p. 262)"The same organizations have warned that recovered memories are not inherently or especially valid when compared to continuous memories. These statements have been necessary because very early theoreticians, such as Freud, believed that a memory in the unconscious was immune to the normal processes of decay and distortion.

"Similarly, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (1998), the most central group of scientific experts on trauma, stated in their report on recovered memories that there was a consensus across the scientists of North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand that “(1) traumatic events are usually remembered in part or in whole; (2) traumatic memories may be forgotten, then remembered at some later time; and (3) illusory memories can also occur” (p. 15)."

"In the mid-1990s, at the time of or immediately after a consensus meeting on trauma and memory sponsored by NATO (bringing together clinical researchers and pure experimentalists), a dozen papers by prominent NATO scientists urged an acknowledgment of the middle road in the debate. John Briere, a clinical trauma researcher (and former president of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies) and Stephen Lindsay, a respected experimentalist and organizer of the NATO conference, coauthored a paper in 1997 (Lindsay & Briere, 1997) attempting to explain the extremism in the debate, agreeing that “the quick and easy dissemination of biased and distorted claims [via the World Wide Web] has contributed to the heat of this debate” (p. 633). Lindsay and Briere also agreed that there is no doubt that people can and do experience the recovery of memories of previously nonremembered childhood sexual abuse. It is likely that in some such cases the recollections are essentially veridical and that in some cases they are essentially false, and both of us agree that, barring exposure to suggestive influences, the former are probably much more common. (p. 639)"Indeed, Lindsay and Read (1994), two cognitive scientists, had earlier reviewed the evidence and stated,"Although cognitive researchers have differing views about the mechanisms underlying loss of memory (e.g. repression, dissociation, or normal forgetting), all would agree that it is possible that some adult survivors of childhood abuse would not remember the abusive events, and that memories might be recovered given appropriate cues. Thus we accept that some clients may recover accurate memories of childhood sexual abuse during careful, nonleading, nonsuggestive therapies. (p. 281)"The chapter on recovered memories on the Encyclopedia of the Human Brain (Sivers, Schooler, & Freyd, 2002) states that"in the new millennium, we can be hopeful that the old polemics regarding whether recovered memories are false or authentic will increasingly be replaced by a more nuanced understanding of the issue. It will be understood that recovered memories may vary in their degree of accuracy, ranging from largely accurate to entirely false, with many gradations of gray in between. (p. 183)"The authors conclude that the issue of whether a memory is recovered or continuous may have no bearing at all on its accuracy, and the two issues must be separated.



Abstract: "The issues surrounding repressed, recovered, or false memories have sparked one of the greatest controversies in the mental health profession in the twentieth century. We review evidence concerning the existence of the repression and recovery of autobiographical memories of traumatic events and research on the development of false autobiographical memories, how specific therapeutic procedures can lead to false memories, and individual vulnerability to resisting false memories. These findings have implications for therapeutic practice, for forensic practice, for research and training in psychology, and for public policy."

Relevant passages: "But scholarly analyses (e.g., Holmes 1990) were revealing that there was little in the way of support for widespread assumptions among therapists and in popular folklore that traumatic memories are particularly likely, relative to nontraumatic memories, to be “repressed” and later recovered intact through techniques such as hypnosis, guided imagery, and other suggestive therapeutic procedures. Analyses of how false memories could develop in the therapeutic setting soon followed (e.g., Lindsay & Read 1994, Loftus 1993, Loftus & Ketcham 1994, Ofshe & Watters 1994, Tavris 1993) and sparked a heated response from the therapeutic community (e.g., Alpert 1995, Terr 1994, Whitfield 1995) and alleged survivors of sexual abuse and their supporters that marked the beginning of a controversy that has been among the most vitriolic and emotionally charged in the history of psychology. This debate, known as the memory wars, has been referred to as “psychology’s most fiercely contested ground” (Crews 2004). But underlying a very practical side of the debate—centered on real-life concerns for victims of either true abuse or of false allegations—is another debate surrounding the very nature of memory and how it works: whether memory might work differently for traumatic versus more ordinary events, and whether it might be distorted or confabulated as a result of therapeutic procedures commonly employed by some therapists."

"In the following sections, we review evidence concerning the existence of recovered memories. We focus upon the controversial sense of this term, which involves memories of abuse that are “recovered” during suggestive psychotherapy. We also review evidence for the existence and mechanisms of creation of false memories and discuss how these processes apply in therapy."

"In sum, there is little support for the notion that trauma is commonly banished out of awareness and later reliably recovered by processes beyond ordinary forgetting and remembering. Although there have been some apparent instances of verified lost and recovered memories (see, e.g., Brenneis 2000, Gleaves et al. 2004), it is not clear how much scrutiny has been applied, and crucial questions of the base rate at which such verified instances occur and how it depends upon the circumstances of retrieval (through specific procedures during therapy versus as the result of a retrieval cue that occurred in everyday life) remain essentially unanswered. Yet over the past couple of decades, many persons have reported having experienced massive abuse that was repressed and recovered, which raises the question of whether some or all such “memories” might be false."

"There is little doubt that abuse can be forgotten and later remembered, although ordinary forgetting and remembering seem more than adequate to account for this. Nor can there be doubt that false memories of abuse or other trauma can be confabulated. Doubt remains, however, regarding the base rates at which each occurs and the circumstances and persons for which each is most likely. Why do some people, and not others, develop false memories? How does this depend upon the social context in which memories are triggered? And fundamentally, how if at all—are encoding, storage, and retrieval for traumatic or highly emotional content different? When traumatic material is inaccessible for a period of time, what are the processes responsible? Although progress has been made with respect to each question, much remains to be learned."

"The controversies surrounding allegedly repressed memories have created unfortunate tensions among professionals. But out of this process have come useful discussions by clinicians and nonclinicians writing together about changes in practices that would minimize the problems that false accusations can bring to all"

"involved. We found many instances where clinicians and scientists have provided useful advice that stemmed from the research we have reviewed. But we give one of the last words to a clinician, Sarnoff (2001), who has worried that a focus on “believing the victim” (p. 169) has essentially eliminated healthy skepticism as a quality to be encouraged in all who encounter questionable claims. We particularly resonate to her concerns, having learned this truth about memory: Just because a “memory” report is detailed, just because a person expresses it with confidence and emotion, does not mean that the event actually happened. Keeping that truth in mind may help to minimize harm to the many victims of the “memory wars”: the patients who were misdiagnosed, the innocents who were falsely accused, the good therapists who suffered damaged reputations, and the genuine victims of abuse whose experiences were trivialized by the dubious claims of others."



Abstract: "With the high incidence of childhood sexual abuse and the attendant serious negative consequences resulting from it clearly documented, there is a high probability that many mental health counselors will at some point in their career provide treatment to members of this population. Since memory retrieval is an integral part of the treatment protocol when working with such clients, it is imperative that clinicians have a good understanding of the controversy over recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. This article revisits the controversy, provides a detailed discussion of the issues involved, and offers practice implications for mental health counselors."

Relevant passages:

"Responding to the escalating controversy, mental health organizations established taskforces to study the issues involved and make recommendations for clinical, research and forensic practice (American Psychiatric Association, 1993; American Psychological Association, 1994; British Psychological Society, 1995; Canadian Psychiatric Association, 1996; National Association of Social Work, 1996). The final recommendations of the Working Group on Investigation of Memories of Child Abuse of the American Psychological Association presented findings mirroring those of the other professional organizatibns: (1) controversies regarding adult recollections should not be allowed to obscure the fact that child sexual abuse is a complex and pervasive problem in America that has historically gone unacknowledged; (2) most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them; (3) it is possible for memories of abuse that have been forgotten for a long time to be remembered; (4) it is also possible to construct convincing pseudo-memories for events that never occurred; and (5) there are gaps in our knowledge about the processes that lead to accurate and inaccurate recollections of childhood abuse (APA Working Group, 1998, p. 933). Each group strongly advocated for a more balanced perspective. They concluded there should be a more dispassionate approach taken to the issues involved as both sides were guilty of making pronouncements and taking action based on anecdotes and impressions rather than on systematic empirical evidence. They stressed that professional wisdom required a more restrained, tolerant and sensitive approach by all sides. They also advocated for greater effort by all to estabhsh points of commonality and much more study made on the part of all professionals involved in this area (Courtois, 1999)."

"After publication of the task forces findings the radical positions originally staked out, with the accompanying inflammatory rhetoric, were condemned openly and publicly by moderates within the profession (Allen, 2005; Brown, 2004, Courtois, 1999; Davis, 2005, Mollon, 2002; Pope & Brown, 1996; Power, 2001; Yapko, 2003). These moderate professionals searched for common ground, areas of agreement and ways to be more collaborative and less adversarial. The middle ground position was articulated succinctly by Davies and Dalgleish (2001), as well as Allen (2005) who summarized the current situation within the field as one in which, 'clinicians, researchers and professional organizations have managed to transcend acrimonious debate to arrive at a well-informed middle ground that can guide clinical practice' (p. 90). Power (2001) concluded there was evidence strongly suggesting that everyone had been on target regarding the controversies surrounding memory: memories can be forgotten and then recovered and they can also be false."

Mollon (2002), articulating on the research gathered over the years with respect to trauma and memory, indicated the following consistent themes that had emerged: (1) while memory may often be essentially accurate, it is uncertain and prone to error, (2) memory may be disturbed in various ways because of trauma; (3) in any particular case, absent corroborative evidence, there may be no way of knowing whether a particular memory of a childhood event is essentially true or essentially false; and (4) many of the dogmatic statements and generalizations found in the recovered memory dispute were spurious and misleading. In support of recovered memory, Stoler, Quina, DePrince, and Freyd (2001) reported there were at least 30 peer-reviewed retrospective studies of adult survivors of child sexual abuse which documented that between 19 and 59% of the subjects forgot and later recalled some or all of the abuse. Brown (2004) citing the above studies concluded that."the overwhelming weight of the data argues for the reality of delayed recall in the lives of many adults who were sexually abused as children" (p. 197). Further support is offered by Cheit (1998) who founded the Recovered Memory Archive containing detailed information on 101 well-corroborated cases of delayed recall, the majority involving allegations of childhood sexual abuse. Referring to the evidence supporting the forgetting or blocking out of traumatic experiences with recall at a later date, Ainscough and Toon (2000) stated, "survivors sometimes recover memories of abuse while in therapy, perhaps because their memories are triggered by talking about their lives or because they feel safe enough to allow the memories back into awareness" (p. 268).



Abstract: "The results found that by focusing on well-known imperfections of human memory, it was possible to find differing origins for recovered memory experiences; people recovering memories through suggestive therapy are more prone to forming false memories, and with people reporting spontaneously recovered memories are more prone to forgetting prior incidences of remembering. Moreover, the two types of recovered memory reports are associated with differences in corroborative evidence, suggesting that memories recovered spontaneously, outside of suggestive therapy, are more likely to correspond to genuine abuse events. The work notes that recent research on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse has shown that there are at least two types of recovered memory experiences: those that are gradually recovered within the context of suggestive therapy and those that are spontaneously recovered, without extensive prompting or explicit attempts to reconstruct the past. This paper summarizes recent research on recovered memories and opines that these scientific findings should be applied in the justice system, as well as in clinical practice. In addition to the discussion on the two types of recovered memory experiences, the paper also provides a clinical viewpoint by presenting information on source monitoring; underestimation of prior remembering; different cognitive profiles; suppression of intrusions; and corroborative evidence for recovered events. A concluding discussion on legal implications and evidentiary issues is provided."

Relevant passaged: "Several clinicians and scholars maintain that the mind is able to protect itself by expelling traumatic experiences from awareness. This in-turn makes it difficult for survivors to remember their traumatic experiences, often until many years later. Others, however, hold that traumatic events are basically imprinted in memory and are hardly ever, if ever, truly forgotten (for a review, see Brewin, 2007; Geraerts & Jelicic, 2008; Geraerts & McNally, 2008). Complicating matters further, human memory is susceptible"

"to distortion, as we all intuitively know and as has been demonstrated in so many studies now (Loftus, 2005). Precisely because human memory is fallible, therapeutic interventions aimed at recovering memories, often being suggestive in their own way (e.g. hypnosis, guided imagery, dream interpretation), may lead – at least in some cases to the creation of false memories. It were exactly those false CSA memories forming the input for legal actions that contributed to the intensity of the debate. Fortunately, it seems like the debate, which at its peak has been called the memory wars (Schacter, 1995), is decreasing in intensity and divergence, with experts engaged in the debate increasingly highlighting points of consensus (Lindsay & Read, 2001). Probably the growing number of studies on recovered memories and related issues played an important role in this development."

"The current laboratory findings point out that one cannot discuss ‘recovered memories’ as a unitary phenomenon. One should make a distinction between at least two types of recovered memory experiences: those that are gradually recovered throughout the course of suggestive therapy versus those that are spontaneously recovered, without extensive prompting or any attempts to reconstruct the past. By focusing on well known imperfections of human memory (false memory and underestimation of prior remembering), we were able to find differing profiles for these recovered memory experiences. Moreover, the two types of recovered memory reports are associated with differences in corroborative evidence, suggesting that memories recovered spontaneously, outside of suggestive therapy, are more likely to correspond to genuine abuse events. These data, however, do not imply that all spontaneously recovered memories are genuine, or do they suggest that all memories recovered in therapy are fictitious. Also, our findings do not speak to cognitive characteristics of people who recover memories spontaneously in therapy, without suggestive techniques (see e.g. Andrews et al., 1999). This population merits further study, to isolate whether some aspect of the therapeutic context itself or suggestive therapy in particular is associated to the propensity to falsely remember events that never happened."



Abstract: "The relationship between a reported history of trauma and dissociative symptoms has been explained in 2 conflicting ways. Pathological dissociation has been conceptualized as a response to antecedent traumatic stress and/or severe psychological adversity. Others have proposed that dissociation makes individuals prone to fantasy, thereby engendering confabulated memories of trauma. We examine data related to a series of 8 contrasting predictions based on the trauma model and the fantasy model of dissociation. In keeping with the trauma model, the relationship between trauma and dissociation was consistent and moderate in strength, and remained significant when objective measures of trauma were used. Dissociation was temporally related to trauma and trauma treatment, and was predictive of trauma history when fantasy proneness was controlled. Dissociation was not reliably associated with suggestibility, nor was there evidence for the fantasy model prediction of greater inaccuracy of recovered memory. Instead, dissociation was positively related to a history of trauma memory recovery and negatively related to the more general measures of narrative cohesion. Research also supports the trauma theory of dissociation as a regulatory response to fear or other extreme emotion with measurable biological correlates. We conclude, on the basis of evidence related to these 8 predictions, that there is strong empirical support for the hypothesis that trauma causes dissociation, and that dissociation remains related to trauma history when fantasy proneness is controlled. We find little support for the hypothesis that the dissociation–trauma relationship is due to fantasy proneness or confabulated memories of trauma."

Relevant passages: "For the upcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association (2010) is proposing a definition of dissociation that includes reference to the disruptive nature of the symptoms, which involve 'a subjective loss of integration of information or control over mental processes that, under normal circumstances, are available to conscious awareness or control, including memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior' (para. 1). Cárdena and Carlson (2011, pp. 251-252) have further specified that dissociative symptoms are characterized by (a) a loss of continuity in subjective experience with accompanying involuntary and unwanted intrusions into awareness and behavior (so-called positive dissociation); and/or (b) an inability to access information or control mental functions, manifested as symptoms such as gaps in awareness, memory, or self-identification, that are normally amenable to such access/control (so-called negative dissociation); and/or (c) a sense of experiential disconnectedness that may include perceptual distortions about the self or the environment." These definitions include the forms of dissociation labeled by Holmes et al. (2005) as psychological compartmentalization (lack of continuity and integration between psychological processes) and forms of dissociation labeled as detachment (altered self-experience characterized by estrangement from self and/or others). All these phenomena are included in the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES; Bemstein & Putnam, 1986), a measure of dissociation that has been used in most studies of dissociative phenomena in clinical and nonclinical samples. The Cárdena and Carlson (2011) definition is used in this review.

"In the early 1990s, the clinical syndrome of dissociative amnesia became temporarily conflated with the more general concept of recovered memory, creating heated rhetoric about the ubiquity of trauma as the cause of psychopathology on one the hand and accusations about false memories of trauma on the other (Dalenberg et al., 2007). As the polemics subsided, empirical interest in dissociation itself increased. The PILOTS database, a centralized source for research on trauma and PTSD, contains 78 peer-reviewed citations including the word dissociation or dissociative from 1986 to 1990. By 2006-2010, this number had increased by nearly a factor of 5.80 (441 citations). Consensus statements crossing theoretical divides (e.g., Lindsay & Briere, 1997) successfully spurred dissociation theorists and their critics to tighten their methodology and to test contrasting hypotheses. Inclusion of dissociation in a wide range of research led to repeated findings that dissociation was related to more severe forms of trauma-related syndromes (Alexander & Schaeffer, 1994; Allen, Huntoon, & Evans, 1999), and that dissociative symptoms were present in a variety of syndromes not generally thought to be trauma-related"

"In recent years, a number of authors (e.g., Giesbrecht, Lynn, Lilienfeld, & Merckelbach, 2008; McNally, 2003; Merckelbach, Horselenberg, & Schmidt, 2002; Merckelbach & Muris, 2001) have proposed and attempted to test an alternative to the TM. Proponents of the alternative model (hereafter the fantasy model [FM]) argue that dissociation is a psychological process causally unrelated to antecedent traumatic or stressful events. The FM posits that the trauma histories reported by individuals with dissociative experiences and/or dissociative disorders are largely confabulations or exaggerations resulting from fantasy proneness, suggestion, and cognitive distortions. As such, FM theorists acknowledge the relationship between reported trauma and dissociation, but stand the TM on its head by suggesting that dissociation overlaps with or gives rise to fantasy proneness, suggestibility, and cognitive distortion, which in tum heighten trauma reporting. Figure 1 illustrates this basic difference between how the trauma-dissociation relationship is conceptualized by the TM and the FM. In essence, for the TM, trauma leads to dissociation via various biopsychosocial mediator and moderator variables, whereas for the FM, dissociation leads to reports of trauma via various biopsychosocial mediator and moderator variables."

"Although FM theorists at times present the two views as 'contrasting' models (e.g., Giesbrecht et al., 2008, p. 622), virtually all theorists studying one or both models, including Giesbrecht et al. (2008), would agree that the propositions are not mutually exclusive: that (a) trauma may lead to dissociation and (b) fantasy proneness—among other factors—may lead to inaccurate trauma reports. Both also accept a nonrandom relationship between reported trauma and dissociation, but ascribe different reasons for the relationship."

"Inherent to the FM is the hypothesis that the dissociative individual is prone to the construction of fantasies of abuse that are mistaken for memories (Loftus & Ketcham, 1994; McNally, 2003). The TM differs here by predicting that dissociation is in fact related to objective trauma and that self-reports of trauma are generally accurate. In fact, although TM theorists warn against the use of suggestive language with traumatized clients, particularly in the context of a potential history of exploitation by authority (Courtois, 1999; Dalenberg, 2000), there is no strong prediction made by the TM that dissociative individuals will be prone to false memories."

This article has reviewed the evidence for eight predictions made by the TM and FM of dissociation. The evidence from all eight areas more strongly and consistently supports the TM than the FM

"Finally, in future research, we recommend the careful analysis of varying alternative causal models; attempts to differentiate mediators, moderators, and risk factors; the avoidance of use of outlier studies to make theoretical arguments; and attention to measurement issues in all conceptual areas (dissociation, fantasy proneness and false memory) to further this complicated and fascinating dialogue. Our review of current research suggests that trauma and dissociation are connected for psychological and neurobiological reasons, and fantasy proneness is not the explanation."



Abstract: "In the 1990s, repressed and recovered memories were at the heart of intense debates within the clinical field as well as in academia. Recent data suggest that this controversy has not yet been resolved in the clinical field. However, it is unclear to what extent repressed and recovered memories are studied in peer-reviewed outcomes in the 21st century. The current article examined the volume of publications and citations regarding repressed and/or recovered memories during the years 2001–2018. Analysis of the 145 articles retrieved shows that these issues are still being investigated within the academic sphere. Proponents and opponents of repressed memories regularly published articles, and these were cited as often as articles published during the 1990s. These issues were also multidisciplinary (i.e., social/clinical/experimental psychology, psychiatry, and law) and often dealt with dissociation, child abuse, and/or false memory. The results are encouraging for furthering the research field and for the understanding of traumatic memory mechanisms."

Relevant passages: "Scientific debates surrounding the mechanisms of traumatic memories and memories recovered during the course of psychotherapy led to vigorous and vivid exchanges between opponents and proponents. This heated controversy is commonly referred to as ‘memory wars’ (Crews, 1995). The ‘memory wars’ occurred during the 90’s and the vast majority of the scientific outcomes that contributed to this debate was published during this decade (see references cited supra). Quite recently, several articles provided evidence that the ‘memory wars’ were not over within the clinical field. In a 2014’s study, large numbers of lay individuals as well as mental health practitioners expressed beliefs that people may repress memories of past traumatic events, despite that the validity of such a mechanism was—and is—still to be supported with empirical evidence (Patihis, Ho, Tingen, Lilienfeld, & Loftus, 2014). Furthermore, researchers have demonstrated that the prevalence of recovered memories during psychotherapy in the U.S, where the ‘memory wars’ begun, remains significant during the last decade (Patihis & Pendergrast, 2018a). It is however unclear to what extent the repressed and/or recovered memory controversy prevalent within the academic arena in the 21st century."

"The present article provided a situational analysis of peer-reviewed articles on repressed and recovered memories in the 21st century. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to describe the 21st century literature on these specific topics in terms of volume of publications and citations. Previous analyses highlighted that this controversy is not over in the field (Patihis & Pendergrast, 2018a; Patihis et al. 2014). This bibliometric analysis provides evidence that these topics are still the subject of research and discussions, with both proponents of repressed memories (e.g., Brand, Collins, & McEwen, 2018; Freyd et al., 2007) and opponents (e.g., Loftus & Davis, 2006; Lynn, Merckelbach, & Polizzi, 2018; Lynn et al., 2014) having continued to publish on these issues between 2001 and 2018. Although the quantity of articles published each year has known a peak during the period 2003-2007, the volume diminished but remained stable between 2009 and 2017, before a sudden increase of 16 publications in 2018."

"Further evidence that repressed and recovered memories are still worthy of interest is that the mean number of citations per article was not statistically different between the articles published in the 21st century and the ones published during what is commonly called the ‘memory wars’ that occurred during the 90’s. Of course, there are several articles that deal with wider issues than the specific matter of repressed and/or recovered memories (e.g., dissociation, see infra) which need to be taken into consideration. Therefore, several citations may have been made for other reasons than contributing directly or indirectly to the recovered memory debate. However, when looking at articles cited more than 50 times—contributing for almost around 48% of the total amount of citations— it is clear that most of them are closely related to the specific issue of repressed and/or recovered memories."

"This part of the discussion on the content of the articles is an opportunity to address the main limitation of this research. The way we analysed the content of the retrieved publications is specific to bibliometric analyses (i.e., counting keywords; e.g., Plusquellec & Denault, 2018). Despite the fact that we briefly evaluated whether authors presented repression as a satisfactory mechanism underlying recovered memories, we did not assessed it precisely enough to draw detailed conclusions. For instance, we did not assess what kind of evidence the authors presented (e.g., empirical, experimental, clinical, theoretical), or did not further investigated why sceptics seem to publish more than the two other sides (e.g., are their manuscripts more accepted, or do they submit more papers?). We only showed that some publications are sympathetic to memory repression, while others are rather opposite or neutral. We believe that an in-depth analysis would be beyond the scope of the current bibliometric analysis and would merit a specific publication in its own right. We therefore encourage memory researchers to engage in this work. However, our brief analysis confirms that while sceptics seem to publish more than ‘believers’, the issues of repressed and recovered memories are still scientifically debated in the 21st century—all the more so as the different sides of the controversy (i.e., sympathy, scepticism, and neutrality) are equally cited."

"In conclusion, the results of this bibliometric analysis are encouraging on at least three levels. First, it has shown that repressed and recovered memories are multidisciplinary research areas, which suggests upcoming research and better understanding of traumatic memory processes. Second, the number of publication per year since 2016 has increased and we hope that this article will encourage scholars to engage in new research on these issues. Third, so far, the 21st century has seen the publication of numerous high-quality empirical outcomes to inform therapists, legal practitioners, and the general public on the latest findings regarding recovered traumatic memories. These works should thus be used by scholars to reduce, as far as possible, beliefs about memory processes that are still shared, even among psychology and psychiatry professionals (Dodier & Payoux, 2017; Magnussen & Melinder, 2012; Patihis et al., 2014), including expert witnesses (Dodier, 2018; Melinder & Magnussen, 2015). It is critical that therapists, legal practitioners, and even policy makers are made aware of the fact that the controversy surrounding repressed and recovered memories is not yet over in the clinical field (Patihis et al., 2014; Patihis & Pendergrast, 2018a) and that research continues."

Of these eight peer-reviewed metanalyses and systematic reviews, the vast majority support the claim that acceptance of some form of the "repressed memory" hypothesis is widespread in both the experimental and clinical communities. Dalenberg (2006) addresses this most directly, citing three studies surveying experimentalists, clinicians and clinician-experimentalist. Significant majorities of all groups expressed that some form of the "repressed memory" hypothesis was either probably or certainly true. Dodie (2018) - which it should be noted leans towards the "anti-repressed memory" camp - definitively debunks any claim that this issue is "largely scientifically discredited" because it demonstrates that as of 2018 research interest in the topic was at least as strong as during the so-called "memory wars" of the 1980's and 1990's. Loftus and Davis (2006) represent the most significant detraction from this consensus. However, they exclusively "focus upon the controversial sense of this term, which involves memories of abuse that are 'recovered' during suggestive psychotherapy." While this may be the most controversial sense of term, it is hardly how it used throughout the relevant peer-reviewed literature.

This definitional issue is not only critical for resolving the neutrality and confusing structure of this article, but is also an important part of story of "repressed memory" itself that the article is intended to cover. To quote Dalenberg et al. (2012) again,

"In the early 1990s, the clinical syndrome of dissociative amnesia became temporarily conflated with the more general concept of recovered memory, creating heated rhetoric about the ubiquity of trauma as the cause of psychopathology on one the hand and accusations about false memories of trauma on the other (Dalenberg et al., 2007). As the polemics subsided, empirical interest in dissociation itself increased."

As currently written the article insinuates that there is no meaningful difference between dissociative amnesia and "repressed memory" while also insinuating that the former is just a sneaky way of referring to the latter. For one, this undermines the very argument the article is trying to make - and let's be clear, this article is taking sides here - in that it would imply that the DSM-5 recognizes "repressed memory" as a legitimate phenomenon by way of its inclusion of dissociative amnesia. Secondly, the fact that a minority of critics believe these concepts to be essentially identical and inherently illegitimate should not be allowed to overshadow the consensus represented by both the statistics cited in Dalenberg (2006) and the inclusion of dissociative amnesia in DSM-5. The consensus in the field, as demonstrated above, is quite clearly that a minority of people do in fact experience some kind of delayed recall of actual childhood abuse and that this is better described as dissociative amnesia than "repressed memory" due to the heterogeneity of these experiences and the mechanisms underlying them.

Issue Two: Undue Weight

As argued above, the majority consensus view on repressed memories/dissociative amnesia is that people can forget and then later recall traumatic memories and pseudo-memories can be constructed, particularly when specific suggestive therapies are used. Despite this, by my rough count this article contains 36 inline citations from 6 primary authors representing the minority view and only 23 inline citations from 15 primary authors for the mainstream view. Moreover, 36 citations representing the minority view are heavily skewed towards just three authors - McNally (15), Loftus (8) and Otgaar (8) - while the 15 authors representing the majority view mostly have one citation each, with Bessel van der Kolk topping the list at 3 citations. Additionally, the Otgaar citation is to a single reference which is cited eight times throughout the article. These issues are also representative of the overall structure of the article, which gives significant weight to these three authors who espouse a minority view. I believe this constitutes a clear case of Undue Weight.

Issue Three: Poor Sourcing - Non-academic sources,  primary sources and potential  original research

As I think I've demonstrated above, there are plenty of peer-reviewed secondary sources to rely on for the article. Despite that, it uses numerous primary and non-academic sources. As previously noted, the first inline citation is to Loftus' non-academic book. Given that Loftus is a fairly prolific publisher of peer-reviewed scholarship, including at least one secondary source, surely we can rely on that instead. The claims that can be made in a popular press book are not the same as the claims that can make it through peer-review. Unless there is some good reason to do otherwise, I would think it is best to stick to the academic secondary sources, given how many of them there are. Furthermore, roughly 20 of the about 80 sources cited in the article are peer-reviewed secondary sources. Notably, it appears that many of the primary sources used are from the minority side and are for claims that could be supported via better, peer-reviewed secondary sources. Again, this inflation of citations for the minority point of view gives the impression that it has more support than it does, and indeed makes it seem like not just the majority opinion but the only scientific opinion. One example of this is in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the introduction. This sentence ends with six citations which makes the borderline fringe view that "most research psychologists who study the psychology of memory dispute that repression ever occurs at all" seem far more well supported than it is. The "most" here is largely McNally and a handful of supporters. Furthermore, the citations appear to be a mix of secondary and primary sources, the latter of which appear to only serve the purpose of giving this claim more weight than it deserves. Finally, the prevalence of primary sources in some sections raises concerns about original research, although it's possible the substance of these sections would need little changing and we just need to find better secondary sources.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This is a sensitive and controversial issue about which people tend to dig their heels in on. However, Wikipedia requires us to represent what the science says on this matter, not our own feelings. The scientific consensus here is clear: some portion of child abuse survivors forget the abuse only to recall it at some later date. That is what this article ought to be about. Not, primarily, whether people can come to falsely believe they were abused (yes) or whether certain therapeutic techniques can encourage that process (yes) or whether there are concerns about when and how recovered memories ought to be allowed into court (of course there are). Those issues are secondary. I am not saying they shouldn't be included in an article about "repressed memory". What I am saying is that, as it stands, this article not only falsely implies that the phenomenon described above has been scientifically discredited, but also that all recovered memories are the result of quack therapies and most or even all are false. This simply does not reflect the preponderance of academic literature on the subject. Worse, by casting unwarranted doubt on the testimonies of many abuse survivors this article is no less dangerous than if it were to go in the opposite extreme (support for quack therapies, all recovered memories are inherently true, etc). The research community has pretty clearly staked out a middle ground on this issue, so too should this article.

...well... at least if others think this article should even remain. If so, I believe that it requires a significant rewrite to meet NPOV. However, I think an argument could also be made for merging much of this into dissociative amnesia, recovered memory therapy and/or memory inhibition. And that is assuming this article isn't simply replicating - in an often very poorly structured, confusing and misleading way - content already present in those or other pages. Regardless, I think I've made my case pretty extensively lol, so I'm going to go ahead and flag the issues I've covered now.

Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 05:01, 1 September 2022 (UTC)


 * ... this is absurdly long. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 14:45, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Happy to better organize/condense if you've got any advice on how. This is basically my first attempt at a major edit, and it's on a page that seems to elicit strong emotional reaction, so just wanted to make sure I've got all my ducks in a row. Appreciate any help!
 * -Donnas's Cyborg, editing from phone 2604:CA00:13A:CA83:0:0:1261:3A75 (talk) 15:00, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The main problem is that this is a huge wall of text, with too many verbose direct quotes, and not enough "this is what needs to be changed in the article" for one post. It reads more like an essay than a specific suggestion for article changes. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 15:38, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * EDIT: In fact, I'd argue that some of these quoted passages are so long they risk falling afoul of WP:COPYVIO. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 15:40, 1 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I urge you to read WP:TLDR. No editor is going to read the above tome, and indeed it should probably be hatted because it likely violates WP:NOT (a WP policy) and WP:TPG (a WP guideline). If you do not hat it I will probably do so later today. Please also consider the real possibility that you are not going to get what you want (i.e., please also read WP:RGW) no matter how verbose and "right" your comments might be, and that a better path going forward here would be to make concise, explicit content suggestions. I did so in the previous section, and I request that you provide there a brief, targeted response that includes your own suggested content/prose/phrases/whatever. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 14:52, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Please stop revising the hat & attempting to have a conversation via the Edit Summaries. I won't revert your latest change to the HAT, but it's not helping matters.
 * To the topic at hand: as others pointed out before, I believe you're conflating different topics by claiming that dissociative amnesia covers the same material in a better manner.
 * This article is specifically about the false idea some charlatans spread, where they claim to help people recover lost memories, but they're really just pushing the subject into a suggestible state where their mind conjures up scenarios that never happened. This is distinct from amnesia or other actual medical issues around memory recall, and the articles you pointed to deal with those topics. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 19:16, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * As I have repeatedly stated, there is already a recovered memory therapy article covering those issues. If this article is indeed intended to cover only those therapeutic technique and their issues then this article is superfluous and ought to be either merged or deleted. As it stands the article reads as if it is about the very existence of any kind of repressed memory, whether spontaneously recovered, recovered in the course of normal therapy or recovered via fringe memory therapies, not just about the latter of those three. Furthermore, almost all of the articles I have cited are explicitly about recovered memory in and of itself, regardless of the context of recovery. Again, part of the issue is precisely this conflation of repressed memory in general and those subset of memories produced through questionable therapeutic techniques.
 * I apologize if the length of my post violated Wikipedia etiquette, but the entire reason I ended up with a "mega-tome" was to avoid precisely this issue, which seems to come up over and over again.
 * Edit: Took a look at WP:RGW and I just wanted to thank you for the good laugh. You've criticized me for posting a "mega-tome" which, as it happens, is chock full of secondary sources, including abstracts and relevant passage about the scientific consensus on this issue. I'm not trying to right any wrong, if I were I'd be offering a much more biased, "fringe feminist" opinion for what the article should look like. I am, in fact, trying to get this article in line with mainstream consensus on the issue. If you think I'm wrong about what that consensus is I would suggest you respond to the several secondary sources I have offered.

Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 19:45, 1 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The mega-tome wound up burying your point, if that's what you were trying to convey.
 * Look, we fundamentally disagree. You seem to believe this article covers all repressed memories. The rest of us are pointing out that no, it doesn't, it's about the specific fringe topic.
 * This is the same problem we had over on Satanic Panic for years, where a few people would keep showing up to demand we merge it into religious abuse. They're not the same topic, and merging it into that article would not serve to cover the fringe problem.
 * You're coming at this as trying to support the scientific consensus... which is good! But you're doing that by essentially trying to throw out the article and claim it is part of the scientific consensus model which... this isn't. This is about a particular fringe type of charlatan technique. We want to make that clear and keep it apart from the scientific consensus models which you linked, because it's not anywhere near real medicine. The topic of this article is more like homeopathy, in that it's pretending to be a scientific technique, but has no resemblance to the real science.. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 19:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The article is absolutely about repressed memories in general. If it isn't supposed to be, what's up with this paragraph:
 * "In part because of the intense controversies that arose surrounding the concepts of repressed and recovered memories, many clinical psychologists stopped using those terms and instead adopted the term dissociative amnesia to refer to the purported processes whereby memories for traumatic events become inaccessible, and the term dissociative amnesia can be found in the DSM-V, where it is defined as an 'inability to recall autobiographical information. This amnesia may be localized (i.e., an event or period of time), selective (i.e., a specific aspect of an event), or generalized (i.e., identity and life history).' The change in terminology, however, has not made belief in the phenomenon any less problematic according to experts in the field of memory. As Richard J. McNally, Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, has written: 'The notion that traumatic events can be repressed and later recovered is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry. It has provided the theoretical basis for 'recovered memory therapy'—the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era.'"
 * The entire point of this text is that dissociative amnesia - i.e. the loss of memory which may or may not be recalled later - is just a sneaky way of saying repressed memory. However controversial the DSM-5 may be, it is basically the definition of psychiatric scientific consensus. And again, if this article is about a "fringe type of charlatan technique" then it is redundant with recovered memory therapy which is already about fringe techniques for recovering memories. This is why I didn't start with a simple "hey, let's merge this with recovered memory therapy", because it is in no way clear that this article is supposed to be about only that.
 * I don't mean to seem like a jerk, but please read the page, you seem to not be aware of how it is currently written. Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 20:16, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * sigh That section is explaining why the scientific community moved away from the term we cover in our article, because it was abused by charlatans. Quit being so damn insulting with comments like please read the page. Frankly, you seem to be taking the most unflattering reading of the page possible to make your argument and I'm done going back and forth with you. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 21:19, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It's not an "interpretation" lol, it's what the page is patently saying on the face of it. But I agree that this back and forth isn't helping, it's in fact pretty crazy making. So instead I'm going to point out yet again, for seemingly the half dozenth time, that there is already a page about fringe therapy techniques at recovered memory therapy. So I'm happy to simply accept your idiosyncratic interpretation and move on to suggesting that this page be deleted and or merged with recovered memory therapy. Do you have any objections with that? Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 22:39, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, for multiple reasons. You've provided no reasoning for deletion. If you feel that strongly about it WP:AFD is thataway, but I am confident it will not have consensus.
 * Second, I see no reason to merge. Your argument has not been persuasive and you do not have consensus for it.
 * I'm done with this. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 11:48, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Alright, so before I go and bring this up in two other pages - especially given that personally I'm unsure whether a delete and merge is in fact the best option - I want to give this one last go and if we can't agree to find some consensus I'd like to get a third opinion. I have clearly failed at being concise and moreover I don't think I've done a good job of being specific enough about what I think needs changing on the page. On that note, if you're willing, I would also love advice on what to do with my large initial thread, which is likely just taking up space at this point.
 * I believe there is a POV issues with this page. My concern is that the page represents the minority opinion that all repressed/dissociated memory theories are pseudoscience as opposed to the mainstream consensus opinion that fringe memory-recovery therapies can induce pseudomemories and that traumatic memories may be repressed/dissociated and recovered later absent any inappropriate therapy techniques, or indeed any therapy at all. It can be difficult to separate these issues out given terminological issues and disagreements in the scientific literature itself. However, in order to accurately represent scientific consensus it is important not to conflate them.
 * If I understand your argument correctly (and I don't think I've actually seen the other editors here make that argument, but correct me if I'm wrong), the page is in fact meant to refer only to those memories recalled via fringe therapies. I have argued that this is an idiosyncratic interpretation given the page's heavy reliance on a handful of minority position critics (Loftus, McNally, Otgaar, Pope and a few others) who have explicitly called dissociative amnesia nothing more than a trojan horse for repressed memory and argued that it should not be in the DSM, as well as material throughout the page about dissociative amnesia which relies on sources which are similarly explicitly about dissociative amnesia , and I am concerned that the page itself does not clearly communicate what you believe it is intended to. Nevertheless, in the name of consensus and collaboration, I am willing to compromise and accept this interpretation.
 * There are a number of significant edits that I believe need to be made so that this intended meaning is more clear. This would involve including language which makes it explicit that the page is referring only to those (pseudo)memories recovered via quack therapies and not to the very existence of any and all repressed/dissociated memories of trauma in general. Given that the term "repressed memory" has historically been used in both the research literature and pop culture to refer to a much wider range of phenomena than just those (pseudo)memories recovered via quack therapies it may be a good idea to change the page's name itself to reflect the intended narrower meaning.
 * Firstly, the ' History' section is about Freud who did not use the term repressed memory in this narrower sense. It could be replaced with a history focusing on how those who were/are explicitly and publicly engaged in quack therapies (hypnosis, age regression, etc) have appropriated and used the term, as well as the shift to dissociative amnesia by the relevant scientific community.
 * Second, the ' Case studies' section could be removed all together. The parts about Corwin need to be removed given that he did not use any quack therapies (at least in this case, don't know otherwise) but rather asked the young woman whether she remembered having made accusations of sexual abuse when speaking to him as a child and then showed her the tape of her making those accusation. The next paragraph about the Pope et al. (2006) study similarly is about repressed/dissociated memories in general, arguing that it is a culture-bound syndrome. The third and fourth paragraphs in this section are not even about specific case studies and instead summarize (1) an argument made by the minority critics that forgetting and then remembering trauma does not imply repression and (2) a largely methodological disagreement between those holding the mainstream position and their critics regarding the trust worthiness of self-reports about previous access to the purportedly repressed/dissociated memories. These paragraphs might well be moved to the dissociative amnesia page if the information isn't already covered there and this material could be replaced with a section on the legal cases specifically involving quack therapies.
 * Third, the section on ' Mechanisms' is again about repressed/dissociated memories in general. Also, its opening sentence begins "Those who argue in favor of the validity of the phenomenon of repressed memory have identified three mechanisms..." but then goes on to cite Otgaar et al. (2019) which is explicitly an argument against both repressed memories and dissociative amnesia (this is the source which claims the later is a trojan horse for the former). This section should be removed and any material not already present in dissociative amnesia should be moved there.
 * Fourth, the section ' Effects of trauma on memory' is again about repression/dissociation in general. The first half, which summarizes the majority view, cites Jennifer Freyd and Bessel van der Kolk, both of whom are decidedly proponents of the majority position. The second half, which summarizes the views of the minority of critics is similarly about repression/dissociation in general. This should be removed and any material not already in the dissociative amnesia page should be moved there.
 * Fifth, the section ' Legal status' is also about repression/dissociation in general and not specifically memories recovered via quack therapies. It also refers to 'false memory syndrome' which has never been in the DSM and is arguably a fringe theory itself. This section could be rewritten to focus specifically on the legal status of memories recovered via quack therapies - i.e. are there any laws, precedents or what have you that explicitly affect testimony if it can be proven that it relies on memories recovered through specific quack therapies?
 * Lastly, the ' Summary' section is simply a summary, or in fact potentially verbatim copy, of the statement by The Working Group on Investigation of Memories of Child Abuse of the American Psychological Association. This represents the mainstream opinion that "[m]ost people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them" and "[i]t is possible for memories of abuse that have been forgotten for a long time to be remembered."
 * I'm not sure how small this page would be after such edits or whether it would be better merged at that point or not. Happy to defer to those with more experience on that issue. I do, however, strongly believe that something along the lines of the edits suggested above are necessary to get this page in line with scientific consensus and ensure it communicates what you have suggested it is intended to communicate.
 * On a final note, I want to acknowledge that I have at times let my frustration get the better of me here. I apologize if I've offended you and will try to do better. With that said, I would also like to express that as a newbie I have at times felt a little bitten. I genuinely want to make Wikipedia's coverage of these issues better. Heck, even if I end up going the WP:3O route and getting smacked down, I would still at least like to clean up and re-organize this article a bit. I mean that summary section at the end is just... kinda out of nowhere with no clear purpose? And apologies if this is still too long, but it's at least an improvement, no?  Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Fourth, the section ' Effects of trauma on memory' is again about repression/dissociation in general. The first half, which summarizes the majority view, cites Jennifer Freyd and Bessel van der Kolk, both of whom are decidedly proponents of the majority position. The second half, which summarizes the views of the minority of critics is similarly about repression/dissociation in general. This should be removed and any material not already in the dissociative amnesia page should be moved there.
 * Fifth, the section ' Legal status' is also about repression/dissociation in general and not specifically memories recovered via quack therapies. It also refers to 'false memory syndrome' which has never been in the DSM and is arguably a fringe theory itself. This section could be rewritten to focus specifically on the legal status of memories recovered via quack therapies - i.e. are there any laws, precedents or what have you that explicitly affect testimony if it can be proven that it relies on memories recovered through specific quack therapies?
 * Lastly, the ' Summary' section is simply a summary, or in fact potentially verbatim copy, of the statement by The Working Group on Investigation of Memories of Child Abuse of the American Psychological Association. This represents the mainstream opinion that "[m]ost people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them" and "[i]t is possible for memories of abuse that have been forgotten for a long time to be remembered."
 * I'm not sure how small this page would be after such edits or whether it would be better merged at that point or not. Happy to defer to those with more experience on that issue. I do, however, strongly believe that something along the lines of the edits suggested above are necessary to get this page in line with scientific consensus and ensure it communicates what you have suggested it is intended to communicate.
 * On a final note, I want to acknowledge that I have at times let my frustration get the better of me here. I apologize if I've offended you and will try to do better. With that said, I would also like to express that as a newbie I have at times felt a little bitten. I genuinely want to make Wikipedia's coverage of these issues better. Heck, even if I end up going the WP:3O route and getting smacked down, I would still at least like to clean up and re-organize this article a bit. I mean that summary section at the end is just... kinda out of nowhere with no clear purpose? And apologies if this is still too long, but it's at least an improvement, no?  Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how small this page would be after such edits or whether it would be better merged at that point or not. Happy to defer to those with more experience on that issue. I do, however, strongly believe that something along the lines of the edits suggested above are necessary to get this page in line with scientific consensus and ensure it communicates what you have suggested it is intended to communicate.
 * On a final note, I want to acknowledge that I have at times let my frustration get the better of me here. I apologize if I've offended you and will try to do better. With that said, I would also like to express that as a newbie I have at times felt a little bitten. I genuinely want to make Wikipedia's coverage of these issues better. Heck, even if I end up going the WP:3O route and getting smacked down, I would still at least like to clean up and re-organize this article a bit. I mean that summary section at the end is just... kinda out of nowhere with no clear purpose? And apologies if this is still too long, but it's at least an improvement, no?  Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * On a final note, I want to acknowledge that I have at times let my frustration get the better of me here. I apologize if I've offended you and will try to do better. With that said, I would also like to express that as a newbie I have at times felt a little bitten. I genuinely want to make Wikipedia's coverage of these issues better. Heck, even if I end up going the WP:3O route and getting smacked down, I would still at least like to clean up and re-organize this article a bit. I mean that summary section at the end is just... kinda out of nowhere with no clear purpose? And apologies if this is still too long, but it's at least an improvement, no?  Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 03:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)


 * WP:3O would be inappropriate because, including the last two sections on this Talk page, at least four editors are/have been involved. I will try to help you one more time here. Long walls of text are not helpful (see WP:WALLS). Repeating the same argument multiple times is not helpful (see WP:REHASH). Please read WP:BRINK, please consider if your approach here is having an effect opposite of what you desire (see WP:TE), and please reconsider consulting, as I suggested to you on your Talk page, independent editors at the Teahouse (WP:TEAHOUSE) before going any further. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 14:00, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I was told - completely understandably! - that my original post was way to long and vague. As such, I felt that one last attempt aiming for conciseness and offering specific edits - something that I was asked for by you all - would be helpful. Don't worry, I'm not planning on continuing to debate this absent someone addressing the actual substance of my critiques and proposed edits.
 * I also understand this post was still a bit long. However, my entire point is that there are significant problems with the page requiring significant edits. As stated above, I was asked to offer clear suggestions for edits. Hence the length. I have in fact read the pages you have directed me to already. Re: WP:TE please see:
 * "'Making accusations of tendentious editing can be inflammatory and hence these accusations may not be helpful in a dispute. It can be seen as a personal attack if tendentious editing is alleged without clear evidence that the other's action meets the criteria set forth on this page, and unfounded accusations may constitute harassment if done repeatedly.'"
 * As for 3O, I felt it appropriate due to this section, "3O is usually flexible by allowing a few exceptions, like those involving mainly two editors with an extra editor having minimal participation," given that Hand has been the only one to engage substantively with me. Apologies if I have misunderstood the policy.
 * Finally, I had also read WP:BRINK before making this final attempt. Can I gently suggest that you engage in the same self reflection? Has your approach to me and my critiques of this page gotten the response you're looking for? What is that response? Because from my perspective it's "shut up and go away". If that's not what you're trying to communicate to me then please consider that it is how it has been received.
 * All the best,
 * Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 14:35, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That you interpret my edits here, here, here, and here as me telling you to "shut up and go away" means, among other things, that I have apparently been wasting my time trying to help you. Good luck going forward. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 18:37, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Concurrence

 * I agree with Donna&#39;s Cyborg. This is an opinion piece masquerading as an unbiased article. If it were up to me, I would simply delete the article since its (pertinent, reliably sourced) content is already addressed in other Wikipedia articles. But we all know that (deletion) will never happen. Therefore, a rigorous pruning is probably the best solution, very much along the lines proposed by Donna's Cyborg (above). Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 08:21, 4 September 2022 (UTC)


 * You seem to have encouraged her to turn False memory syndrome and False Memory Syndrome Foundation around too. I posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology and Fringe theories/Noticeboard again. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:37, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I made pretty minor edits there, as per advice I've been given, and all with sourcing. If you have issues with them I'm happy to hash things out on those talk pages. Donna&#39;s Cyborg (talk) 13:49, 5 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I reviewed Donna&#39;s Cyborg's edits to those two articles. I do not see any unwarranted edits. I slightly modified two: (1) Restored "traumatic" to a sentence (diff); and (2) Changed "claimed" to "said" (diff). Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 17:01, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the help! Yeah, the "traumatic" one is bit tricky, since whether what is done in lab experiments can constitute "trauma" is one of the disagreements. Your edit seems like a good compromise. Donna's Cyborg 🏳️‍⚧️(talk)(contribs) 17:21, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

First sentence should be a definition
I see from the sections above that this article is very controversial and its current state is disputed, but what I immediately notice is that the opening sentence fails even to define what "repressed memory" means, per WP:FIRST. I'm glad I can read French, because I was able to find out by reading the opening of fr:Mémoire traumatique refoulée. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:01, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree. Controversial or not, it really does require a definition. HiLo48 (talk) 22:58, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I've added a definition. Do with it what you will. (Apart from just completely deleting it.) HiLo48 (talk) 04:47, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Repressed memory is an inability to recall autobiographical information Actually, the repressed memory is the memory of the autobiographical information that one is unable to recall. But it is understandable, and clearly an improvement. I have no non-clumsy suggestion for further improvement at the moment. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:31, 7 December 2022 (UTC)