[blauditore]

Fun fact: Suppressed/hidden/lost memories due to trauma that appear to re-surface through therapy are not a real thing, as previously thought (and still by some psychotherapists). Nowadays it's understood by psychology that any memories "re-surfacing" in therapy are in fact newly created, although the patient themselves cannot tell the difference. Allegedly, whole accusations of childhood abuse may have been created out of thin air, without the victim realizing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered-memory_therapy (see research section)

[pcthrowaway]

Sure it's a real thing for memories to surface that were previously buried. It's happened to me.

If it happens in therapy, that doesn't mean the memories are "implanted". And not all memories lack the ability to validate them... for example, if you've forgotten someone's name, then remember it later, you can call out to them by their name to confirm that you've correctly remembered it.

Memories tumble around in the brain all the time, not all memories are easy to access, but that doesn't mean they're inaccessible.

The point that memories can also be implanted or fabricated during therapy is absolutely an important one, but dismissing the possibility for memories to resurface (and conflating any situation where this might happen with a specific type of discredited therapy) is needlessly reductive.

[dbspin]

The problem is not that memories can't be repressed. There's plenty of research demonstrating repression does exist as a defence mechanism. The problem is that even highly evocative memories can also relatively easily be falsified, or modified through elicitation and reframing. Since there's no neurological stenographer, there is no mechanism even in principle to identify the difference between the two. With potential consequences like the satanic panic of recovered and elicited memories of sexual abuse. That's what Elizabeth Loftus and others have shown, and shown so thoroughly that eye witness testimony should never be trusted.

[saltcured]

As a counterpoint to this, I am replying here because I can't make myself write a polite response to the GPP.

Yes, witness testimony is always potentially flawed.

But knowing "some repressed memory recovery is false" does not justify saying that repressed memories are not a real thing. Repressed memories do happen. They do come back sometimes. When they do, they are just as valid as any normal memory that a person thinks they always had.

I know because I had them myself. Mine were of trauma in the age range from 5-9. I had a high "ACE score" when I eventually looked into this. I did not have any therapy session prompting the recall, I just remembered them spontaneously around age 15 when I was empathizing with a schoolmate who told me about domestic violence. It was a sickening feeling to have this whole phase of my past come unlocked.

Amazingly, it submerged into repression again. I next remembered it at about age 20. In between, I had years of basically not remembering/knowing that I had any of this trauma or that I had experience the earlier recall. They all came back together, again triggered by an empathetic moment in college. Again it was disorienting to have this whole aspect of my past reopen.

At that later point, I confronted people who were around my childhood and got enough of a painful discussion, confession, and apology to know that these memories were not invented.

I had other forms of childhood trauma that never submerged. I don't know why this one section did.

I find it very offensive for someone to make broad statements that these phenomena do not exist.

[blauditore]

Distancing yourself from a trauma (as a coping mechanism), not having any thought of it for years, and then have it re-surface is not the same as fully suppressed, inaccessible memories as discussed in the article.

If it takes long, intense therapy to "bring back", it's almost cerainly untrue or falsified. There was a case of accused childhood abuse among close relatives of me, by someone who found out about this in therapy. It tore apart the family. I cannot take any sides because I was not there and cannot know the truth, but it checks all the boxes of falsified memories. It has destroyed multiple lifes. That's how I even learned about that stuff, and why I care.

Btw, better source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory (I originally mostly read stuff in my native language, so I didn't what to look for initially)

[oceanplexian]

You might "think" you had a repressed memory but it could all be completely made up. You might even get other people to believe it, because human memory is incredibly faulty. Shared delusions are literally a "known bug" of human biology. Wikipedia has a whole page on them (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux). The Seattle Windshield Pitting Epidemic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_windshield_pitting_epi...) is yet another example

The thing that changed though is since the 2010s everyone has a high definition camera in their pocket. Everything you do is recorded online. Kids that grew up in the last few years will have their entire childhood recorded in some way or another. Every movement tracked by GPS. Therefore, while I don't agree completely, I wouldn't be surprised if some assumptions about psychology are upended and a great deal of so called repressed memories turn out to be bogus when we can easily disprove them.

[JohnMakin]

The person you’re responding to said they did the work of verifying themselves with third parties. Do you not believe that too? People dont suddenly just admit to committing severe abuse because they were convinced to do so. In fact, usually the opposite happens with abusers - they delude themselves into thinking the abuse never happened and believe/defend this very aggressively.

This whole thread is gross. I’d say you should be ashamed of yourself but you likely lack the prerequisite self inspection.

[saltcured]

Malicious suppression and gas-lighting are also known functions of human biology.

Yes, real life is messy and ideals like justice are quite difficult or impossible to achieve.

Don't assume you can cleverly deduce a nice, absolute and comfortable answer. That's just another coping mechanism called rationalization.

[eiginn]

This mirrors my experience as well of multiple instances over my life of repressing childhood trauma and some event or conversation suddenly bringing it back to the surface.

[jimmaswell]

Not to minimize your experience or anything like that, I'm just thinking out loud: What's typically the delineation between repressed and "not on the mind at the moment"? We naturally "forget" things all the time because there's no need for them to be in our current context window, e.g. I can't recite every coffee shop I've been to, but maybe if you start talking about a coffee shop with uncomfortable seats, I'll remember the one I went to with uncomfortable seats. Not a comparable experience in general of course, but one wouldn't say I repressed the coffee shop. Is it more like if I started at "uncomfortable coffee shop", nothing came to mind, but then I later remembered only after smelling some special flavor of coffee beans they had had?

[saltcured]

A repressed memory and its associated knowledge and entailment is "not there" until triggered properly. To the extent that our autobiographical memories construct our sense of identity, repressed memories have been censored from ourselves. And, I think it is censored for a purpose, not because it was one too many bits of trivia to keep in ready memory. I think it is a coping mechanism like very deep and targeted denial or dissociation.

When such memories come back, it can be like a mini identity crisis. You suddenly know things that are counter to your self-identity from the moment before. Once I was able to absorb the whole picture and not recoil back into repression, it became a permanent and unpleasant part of my self. .

There can be flashbacks of related events, some of which I also might feel are remembered for the first time in a long time. Those little flashbacks might be like remembering your specific uncomfortable cafe. The overall memory recovery is like suddenly realizing I spent years in a theater of war, that happened to have such cafes in it.

[JohnMakin]

IME for me repressed is “not on the mind at the moment” but like so constant that any attempt to access it, your subconscious fights to divert your attention from it. it’s kind of like dim stars you can only see out of the corner of your vision.

the craziest one I had, my reaction wasn’t “oh my god i never knew i had this memory” it was “wow, i cant believe i havent thought about that in 25 years.” I knew and had known it was there all along, I just literally never thought of it to the point my other thoughts just didnt collide with it, ever. It’s almost like your brain just puts it in storage in a dark corner of your garage.

I understand it isn’t the same for everyone, but that was how it felt for me.

TLDR for me it was dissociation, and the only treatment that ever worked was scraping the corners of my mind for stuff like this and it got so much better the issues basically went away. I used a great deal of meditation, particularly tibetan buddhism.

[mrsvanwinkle]

I can objectively say your reply minimizes the previous two posts who shared childhood traumas by the objective fact that you are implying (if they are not able to satisfy your Scientific Endeavor) that, if there is no delineation, then their repression of childhood trauma is equivalent and minimized or perhaps exalted if coffee is your religion to the repression of your religious experience of this coffee shop. If you were perhaps a child victim in this coffee shop maybe? You literally erased the trauma part. That is the delineation if you still need to think about this out loud

[mrsvanwinkle]

Thank you so much, the parent thread was truly an uncomfortably disturbing read and your post is a necessary contrast to "rational" "objective" "minds" armchairing something so delicate with gross finality.

[JohnMakin]

Thanks so much. I was wanting to write a scathing response as well but you calmly explained what I wanted to. I had severe childhood abuse that was documented by third parties I’d completely forgotten about - when I remembered them in therapy, my therapist thought they were fake or delusional too and sorta gaslit me about it. I had to go hunt down the receipts, which for me was traumatic in and of itself and permanently severed a few relationships with my family members, which didn’t have to happen. I fired her over it.

The comments in this thread are indeed disturbing. Clearly many on this forum have led blessed lives and can’t imagine people having it differently,

[blauditore]

Repressed memory due to trauma is "scientifically discredited" nowadays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory

[DiscourseFan]

There are two types of repression, however. The notion that primarily repressed memories--say, those of being breastfed, of being potty trained--could ever resurface is bogus of course. But it is that original violence, first of being cared for, and then having that care taken away and even, in many cases, transforming into authoritarian violence in order to be socialized properly, that precipitates all other "secondary" repressions like Freudian slips, even screen memories or rationalizations. No, most people traumatized past the age of say, 5, won't readily forget it. But perhaps they will have a way of reconciling with that trauma in an unhealthy or not fully conscious manner (consider self-harming, or drug abuse, making up a narrative in order to stay with a partner who violently abuses them). And they will not readily connect their traumatic experiences with their unhealthy coping mechanisms. And we could say that the connection between unconscious behaviors and trauma, when revealed, could be considered a "re-surfacing." Even if I can't remember being breastfed, I know that I find the warm embrace of another's arm's comforting and soothing, and this perhaps relates to my original state of relaxation as a child in my mother's arms, for instance.

[drdeca]

Why would it relate to your past experience of being held in your mothers arms, rather than to whatever inbuilt tendencies that lead one to respond well to being held in one’s mother’s arms while a baby?

Like, if kissing is derived from impulses relating to breastfeeding (which is a hypothesis that, AIUI, is in good standing, though not the only one in good standing nor necessarily more favored than a couple others), I wouldn’t think that therefore someone who was only ever bottle-fed as a baby would therefore not get anything out of kissing. The appeal of “my lips on another person” should be there regardless, just as it was for the first time a baby is breastfed (though, of course, it is also a cultural thing: not all cultures have had kissing as a standardized way of expressing affection, so whether one grows up in a context where kissing plays a role, that probably also plays a part in whether one finds it appealing to have one’s lips on another person).

[layer8]

People can remember things that hadn’t re-entered their mind for decades. It certainly happened to me a number of times (completely trauma-unrelated and not actively elicited).

[Aurornis]

A valid memory spontaneously re-entering your mind is different.

The idea of "repressed memories" was that people had hidden memories that they couldn't access, even if they tried. According to the theory, even if someone brought up the past event and tried to remind the person about it, they would be unable to recall it happening because their brain had blocked it out.

The idea was that only intervention by a therapist or some other special event could help the person "unlock" the repressed memories, making them available for remembering again.

What was really happening was that some therapists were leading people into "remembering" things that didn't happen through aggressive prompting and pushing, much like what happens when an aggressive investigator convinces a vulnerable person to falsely confess to something they didn't do.

[tehjoker]

I wouldn't be surprised if there are inaccessible, partly corrupted memories encoded in the hippocampus. I suspect most of them cannot be prompted by a therapist though, and likely there is no practical way to recover them.

[strbean]

I think it's all a matter of finding a trigger (or reference) to grab the memory. A therapist talking to you almost certainly wouldn't achieve that, but walking down the street and smelling an odd smell might.

[rkhassen9]

I once found a recording of a lab session in high school physics. A day I completely forgot about. A moment that had no bookmarks in my brain.

Other things about that day were surfaced. How my braces felt and the fear I felt about forgetting a textbook.

All real, but unsurfaced until then.

[t0mas88]

That makes sense considering that human memory is strongly based on associations. Activating nearby memories can bring things back.

If you hear the first tones or words of a song you're much more likely to be able to tell the lyrics that follow compared to being asked to say those lyrics based on the title.

[tehjoker]

I think it depends on the stage of degradation and whether the network is still connected to something that can interpret it.

[GuB-42]

This is a more precise statement than just "you can recall things you thought you forgot".

It is specifically about trauma, and generally you don't forget traumatic events and that's often a big part of the problem. We are not talking about trivial things like the name of your maths teacher in high school, which have a tendency to come and go.

It is also specifically about therapy, that is an environment where you are actively encouraged to recall memories. We know how easy it is to make up memories, especially with the help of a third party (here, the therapist).

Combine the two: memories that are hard to forget and an environment conductive to making false memories and it becomes very likely that the "lost" memories are completely made up.

[theshackleford]

> and generally you don't forget traumatic events

That depends on how many you endured really. Only so much room in the old noggin with everything else important going on.

[Muromec]

>It is specifically about trauma, and generally you don't forget traumatic events and that's often a big part of the problem.

Oh, of course you can.

[worldsayshi]

My guess is that long term memory recovery is inherently a reconstruction from the pieces that you have retained. So it is not unlikely to include dreamed up parts.

[Aurornis]

The debunked recovered memory therapy was something different: They would use different techniques and leading questions to try to get a patient to think they remembered something that may not have happened at all.

Some of the techniques included hypnosis or even giving the patients (including children) sedative-hypnotic drugs before pressuring them with the leading questions.

If they could eventually get the person or child to claim to have some memory of the event (after asking a lot of leading questions and maybe even drugging them) they considered it to be a recovery of the memory.

[bpj]

This has been my experience as someone who has experienced childhood trauma, and what I've inferred from my therapist. He taught me that the memories I have are typically exaggerations of what happened and it's hard to pin down what truly happened. The only evidence I have that has any merit is my siblings can corroborate with similar experiences since it happened to all of us, and I'm sensitive to things related to these traumas. Almost every day I can feel the things that happened, and on my worst days these areas are much more sensitive.

On top of that, I have legitimate memories that were not traumatic, but still related to the same traumas because said person attempted to encourage these activities throughout my young life on rare occasions. I didn't remember what happened as a kid, but I knew something wasn't right and I wasn't comfortable. It wasn't until I was almost 30 that I had my first "flashback" which was a fractured memory, I still remember it looked like a faded photograph in my mind, and it was accompanied by an extremely uncomfortable feeling.

The re-surfacing memories aren't real in a sense, but in my case they aren't entirely fake either.

I wonder if it's possible that things can be completely imagined with absolutely no basis what-so-ever in certain circumstances, and I also wonder how difficult it is to discern that. It seems to be a difficult concept to manage.

[layer8]

The accuracy of recollection can certainly vary, but the point is that some information is retained long-term even when it isn’t made use of in the meantime. Of course one could argue that actually it is being made use of unconsciously, but I’m skeptical of that, given the relative irrelevance of the details that can be recollected. It’s also not that difficult to imagine that some memory-representing micro-structures in the brain just happen to be stable over decades even when they remain untapped.

[warmedcookie]

Indeed. I was browsing a Nintendo fan site I made in 1998 on archive.org when I was just 11 years old. I don't remember every detail about making it, but my brain had no problem stitching all the pieces it did retain back together.

On the other hand, I do have some Gandalf "I have no memory of this place" moments for other things.

[kulahan]

They won't remember it accurately anyways, so it's kind of a moot point.

Though you're right - a specific scent can easily call up an ancient, forgotten memory.

[elmomle]

The statement "there is evidence of black swans" does not justify the conclusion "every swan is black".

[fsckboy]

if you specialize in looking for black swans, and you've looked for more black swans than anybody ever, and all the black swans you thought you'd found have turned out to be sooty white swans, people might be interested in reading about your experience and have their faith shaken that black swans actually exist.

I'm reminded of the story of dragon sightings in Great Britain: after the printing press and newspapers and newspaper reporters chasing stories emerged, as news distribution out from city centers into rural areas increased, it seems dragons picked up and moved farther away, only being spotted in the hinterlands without news.

You apparently would keep your mind open to the idea that dragons don't like the smell of newsprint as no other conclusion could be more plausible sheerly on the basis of logic?

[musicale]

Dragons are smart, and wary of human civilization. They still remember St. George and his ilk.

[bollocks9]

What about Dr. Jim Tucker’s two child psych cases, James Leininger and Ryan Hammons?

One remembered memories of a WWII pilot named James Huston Jr. and the other a deceased Hollywood agent named Marty Martyn.

Putting aside the reincarnation hypothesis for the moment, do you think the kids invented the details and coincidentally happened to match to a real person or were they fully coached? Maybe they didn’t get enough sleep or got too much sleep?

[layman51]

This idea of unconscious memories perhaps being a type of fantasy is also discussed in this article too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud%27s_seduction_theory

[agumonkey]

I beg to differ, or at least I'd need clarification, some people experience traumatic visions from what is assumed repressed memories (with or without therapy)

It might be something that one might not understand if he/she doesn't live through it I guess

[bozhark]

Careful with this absolute assumption. The brain rationalizes. Though irrationally.

Sometimes yes, created to validate, sometimes no, unlearns to disassociate

[DANmode]

I can see both existing, regardless of my interest in debating probability of incidence of each.

[ghurtado]

> any memories "re-surfacing" in therapy are in fact newly created,

You're saying that those memories are exactly the same as all the other memories.

Every time you "recall" something, you are not pulling up some file that is always the same. You are actively recreating the memory.

There's nothing "fun" or insightful about this, this mechanism has been known for a long time.

Obviously it's not unique to psychotherapy.

> may have been created

Most things that "may" have happened do not warrant absolute statements such as "that's not a thing" (which, incidentally, is a particularly empty statement in any context, since every thing is a thing)

[slater]

Gonna need some citations on that “fun fact”

[blauditore]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered-memory_therapy (especially the research section)

[ghurtado]

Claim: "modern cancer research is a scam"

Proof: "colloidal silver has been used to attempt to cure cancer".

Solid logic.

[svnt]

That is extremely weak to nonexistent counter-evidence that seems to focus on supporting Loftus, who has put a lot of effort into the defense of her public persona. I don’t disagree that it is possible to manufacture memories but the evidence isn’t there to support your conclusion or the converse.

[Aurornis]

Recovered-memory therapy (the topic of the Wikipedia article) is very clearly quack science and has been discredited.

Some of the techniques used in the therapy include giving patients sedative-hypnotic drugs to put the patient in a waking dream-like state while the therapist asks leading questions to get them to "remember" an event. The same drugs they used are known to be associated with false memories, like when someone falsely recalls something from a vivid dream as having actually happened.

[svnt]

It has fallen out of favor based on a lack of evidential support, for sure. It has not really been dismantled publicly scientifically, but mostly quietly, perhaps in order to protect its practitioners, perhaps because the research cannot currently be ethically conducted.

I am not advocating for it, just stating the near total lack of substantive scientific evidence presented either in support or opposed.

[ghurtado]

People downvoting a request for supporting evidence is peak Hacker News.

[fsckboy]

people demanding supporting evidence without expending any effort themselves is peak internet.

[jjk166]

The onus of proof lies on those making a claim. If you're unwilling to back up what you say, don't say it.

[fsckboy]

on a discussion board? no, there is no onus of proof, because nothing is riding on it, just as you don't need proof to reject the ideas.

demanding citations is the favorite trick of people who want to waste your time precisely because they disagree with you and no matter what you come up with, they'll never give in. therefore, one should never give in to it.

rather, doing your own research and contributing it to the discussion is the lifeblood of online communities.

[jjk166]

> demanding citations is the favorite trick of people who want to waste your time precisely because they disagree with you and no matter what you come up with, they'll never give in. therefore, one should never give in to it.

That's incredibly dumb.

First, unless you are making a baseless claim, you have supposedly already done the research, so presenting evidence of your claim ought to not be any more of a burden on your time than making the claim was.

Second, you don't need the other party to accept the evidence you present, particularly if they are disagreeing in bad faith. No one can use the "asking for evidence" trick if you have presented the evidence.

Third, which is more efficient: having one person who made the claim present the evidence to back it up, or to make every single person who comes across the claim look up the evidence independently? Making baseless claims wastes everyone's time (and coincidentally is the actual favorite trick of those who want to waste your time because they disagree with you).

Fourth, if you give up on doing things you ought to because you're worried there will continue to be assholes on the internet afterwards, you'll never do much of anything at all.

Fifth, which type of comment do you prefer to read: the one that makes a claim without evidence which maybe you'll double check at some point if you have time, or the one that quickly gives you the evidence right there? Write the type of comments you like to read.

[nwienert]

In science. On a casual forum you have no obligation and I’d rather someone leave a short comment so I at least know, if I’m interested I’ll go look and verify myself.

[theshackleford]

It’s not my job to track down proof only every bullshit claim thrown at me.

[anal_reactor]

Most people think that when their memory fails it's just the act of not remembering something, but misremembering something happens equally often, and completely making up shit also does happen. It's just like LLM hallucinations.