FLASH MEMORY

PSYCHOLOGY TERM PAPER

Memory is the main faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. A repressed memory, is one that is retained in the sub

conscious mind, in which one is not aware of it but where it can still affect both conscious thoughts, memory, and behavior.

When memory is distorted, the result can be referred to what has been called the "False Memory Syndrome"(Thomas Billing Publishing

1995)

: a condition in which a person's identity and interpersonal relationships are entered around a memory of traumatic experience which is

obviously false but the person strongly believes that it isn't. However, the syndrome is not only characterized by false memories alone.

We all have memories that are inaccurate. Instead, the syndrome may be diagnosed when the memory is so severely disoriented that it

changes the individual's entire personality and lifestyle, therefore, disrupting all sorts of other behaviors. The means of personality

disorder is on purpose. False memory syndrome is especially destructive because the person carefully avoids any confrontation what so

ever with any evidence that might challenge the memory. So this syndrome takes on a life of its own, keeping itself to be alone and

resistant to correction. The person may become so focused on the memory that he or she may be effectively distracted from coping with

real problems in his or her life.

There are many models which try to explain how memory works. Nevertheless, we do not know exactly how memory works. One of

the most questionable models of memory is the one which assumes that every experience a person has had is "recorded" in memory and

that, "some of these memories are from traumatic events too terrible to want to remember"(Thomas Billings Publishing 1995).

. These terrible memories are locked away in the sub conscious mind, (i.e. repressed, only to be remembered in adulthood when some

triggering event opens the door to the unconscious). Both before and after the repressed memory is remembered, it causes physical and

mental disorders in a person.

Some people have made an effort to explain their pain. Even Cancer, was known to form in some through repressed memories of

incest in the body. Scientists have studied related phenomenon such as people whose hands bleed in certain

religious settings. Presumably such people, called stigmatics, "are not

revealing unconscious memories of being crucified as young children, but

rather are demonstrating a psychogenic abnormality that springs from their conscious fixation on the suffering of Christ(Copeland

Publishing 1989). Similarly, it is possible the idea, that "one was sexually abused might increase the frequency of some physical symptoms,

regardless of whether or not the abuse really occurred"(Peter Bedricks Publishing 1994).

This view of memory has two elements: (1) the accuracy element and (2) the causal element. The reason why this memory is

questionable is not because people don't have unpleasant or painful experiences they would rather forget, nor is it claiming that children

often experience both wonderful and brutal things for which they have no right or wrong sense for and are incapable of understanding

them, much less relating it to others. It is questionable because, (a) one is having problems of functioning as a healthy human being and

(b) one remembers being abused as a child therefore, (A) one was abused as a child and (B) the childhood abuse is the cause of one's

adulthood problems.

There is no evidence that supports the claim that we remember everything that we experience. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to

support the claim that it is impossible for us to even recall to all the elements of any given experience. There is no evidence to support

the claim that all memories of experiences happened as they remembered to have happened or that they have even happened at all. We

can never even say how accurate our memories really are. Finally, "the connection between abuse and health or behavior does not

conclude that ill health, mental pain, is a 'sign' of having been abused."(Peter Bedricks Publishing 1994).

However many psychologists don't believe in this theory by the 'False Memory" experts. Here are a few of the unproved, unscientifically

researched notions that are being discussed by the doubtful psychologists: "If you doubt that you were abused as a child or think that it

might be your imagination, this is a sign of 'post-incest syndrome'. If you can not remember any specific instances of being abused, but

still have a feeling that something abusive happened to you, 'it probably did'. When a person can not remember his or her childhood or

have very fuzzy memories, 'incest must always be considered as a possibility'. (last), If you have any suspicion

at all, if you have any memory, no matter how vague, it probably really happened"(Copeland Publishings 1989). It is said, that it is more

likely that you are blocking the memories, denying and that it ever happened.

There have been many symptoms that suggest that they were from past abuse. These symptoms range from headaches to irritable

bladder. In fact, there was a list of over 900 different symptoms that had been presented as proof of early abuse. When they researched

the expert view, they found that not one of the symptoms could be shown to be a solid indication of a previous abuse. Therapists must be

careful in declaring that abuse has in fact occurred.

Whole industries have been built up to really look into the cases of sexual abuse of children. Therapists who are supposed to help

children recover from the trauma of the abuse are hired to interrogate the child, in order to find out if they have been abused. But often

the therapist suggests the abuse to the child, has 'memories' of being abused.

Increasingly throughout the continent, grown children under going therapeutic programs have come to believe that they suffer from

"repressed memories" of incest and sexual abuse. While some reports of incest and sexual abuse are surely true, these delayed memories

are too often the result of False Memory Syndrome caused by a disastrous "therapeutic" program(Thomas & Billing Publishing 1995)

. False Memory Syndrome has a devastating effect on the victim and produces a continuing dependency on the very program that creates

the syndrome. False Memory Syndrome proceeds to destroy the psychological well being not only of the victim but through false

accusations of incest and sexual abuse on other members of the victim's family.

The dangers of the memory are visible: not only are false memories treated as real memories, but real memories of real abuse may be

treated as false memories and may provide real abusers with a believable defense. In the end, no one benefits from a memory which is

untrue.

Whatever the theory of memory, if it does not support evidence and attempt to verify claims of recollected abuse, it is a theory which

will cause more harm than good.

Carl Jung, an early Freudian disciple, extended this model of memory, by adding another area of repressed memories to the

unconscious mind, an area that was not based on past experiences at all: the "collection

unconscious" (Peter Bedricks Publishing 1995). The collective unconscious is the deposit for acts and mental patterns shared either by

members of a culture or by all humans. Under certain conditions these become viewed as: images, patterns and symbols, that are often

seen in dreams or fantasies and that appear as themes in mythology, religion and fairy tales. Under these conditions it avoids the

problem of determining whether or not a memory is accurate by claiming that the memory is not of a personal experience at all. It also

confuses several types of mental states. It completely blurs the distinction between dream states and conscious states by eliminating the

difference between remembering a sense experience one actually had and remembering a sense experience one never actually had. The

story of Hansel and Gretel might be pulled in for "scientific" support of the idea. Assumptions might be made regarding the unconscious

desire of all children to be loved by their

parents: as children, love could only be understood in terms of ego satisfaction but as adults love is understood primarily in sexual

terms. Because of our mental restrictions, we can not bear the thought of wanting to be loved sexually by our parents, so this desire must

be expressed in a totally different way: our parents love us sexually. But there is no

evidence for this based upon our past or current relationship with our parents, so the mind creates the evidence by remembering being

sexually abused as a child.(Copeland Publishings 1989)

Thus, the memory we have as adults of being sexually abused by our parents is actually the expression of the desire to be loved by our

mother and father (in most cases). It has nothing to do with any real experience; it has everything to do with a human desire. It also

serves as a convenient excuse to relieve us of all responsibility for our

failures and incompetence.

How accurate and reliable is memory? We're often wrong in thinking we accurately remember things. Studies on memory have shown

that we often construct our memories from others that help us fill in the gaps in our memories of certain events.(Thomas & Billings

Publishing 1995)

That is why, for example, a police officer investigating a crime should not show a picture of a single individual to a victim and ask if

the victim recognizes the assailant. If the victim is then presented a line up and picks out the individual whose picture the victim had

been shown, there is no way of knowing whether the victim is remembering the assailant or the picture.

Another interesting fact about memory is that studies have shown that there is no connection between the result feeling a person has

about memory and that memory being accurate. Also, opposed to what many believe, hypnosis does not aid memory's accuracy because

subjects are unconscience while under hypnosis.(Copeland Publishing 1989)

It is possible to create false memories in people's minds by suggestion.

Why would someone remember something so horrible if it really did not happen? This is a haunting question, but there are several

possible explanations which might shed light on some of the false memories. A pseudomemory, for example, may be a kind of symbolic

expression of troubled family relationships. It may be that in such a position people more readily believe things happened when they

didn't. When people enter therapy, they do so to get better. They want to change. People also tend to look for some explanation for why

they have a problem. Victims come to trust the person they have chosen to help them. Because they are trying to ge