Repressed Memories

Repressed Memorys
(Loftus, Elizibeth American Psychologist 1993, 48, 518-537 Copyright 1993 American Psychological Association)
The idea behind the notion of suppressed memory have boggled socio psychologist for decades. This idea of repression is due to a type of flight or fight response triggered when the brain comes across a situation so traumatizing that it is instantly forgotten and reproduced into the unconscious mind. Seeming as though it didn’t happen at all, these memories have been most prevelant in murder cases and even seen very likely in the cases of childhood abuse. It seems to me as these instances are even somewhat of an ephiphany to the patient a substantial time after, sometimes not being able to be remembered for up to twenty years or more. Many legal cases involve an eyewitness who is simply unable able to recall what happened, although sure they saw it happen. It’s a very strange phenomenon. Many arguments stand skeptical of this problem as well as many psychotherapist stand behind this as a natural response of the brain. The arguments against this seem to stem around the fact of simply, Where is the hard evidence. If the person and in most cases the single eye witness cannot remember the memory for 20 or 30 years, whos to say that the memory is accurate after so long. Many of us cannot remember an event in enough detail to testify a murder that is remembered vividly without any repression after up to 40 years even. I find this subject extremely intriguing due to this fact. Sometimes even dreams can be so lucid and vivid that they are seemingly real, but this is the complete flip-side to that in saying that It was a very vivid event in which you cannot remember at all. (Lofft v. Lofft, 1989, in San Diego; Collier v. Collier, 1991, in Santa Clara County). Is one example of just this as a jury trial is held for on the accounts of the defense claiming a repressed memory. Other cases as this such as ( McMillan, 1992 ) also an example of a trial where repressed memory is used as a defense. So as you can see this theory of repressed memorys is a serious and even legal argument, such as those of insanitys which hold very controversial in todays judicial system. The question is where can we draw the line between hard evidence of todays reasonable doubt and the argument of a psychoanalytic problem occurring in ones mind. Possibly it is something one day we will be able to better understand, but for now it remains controversial but yet an arguable theory.