Motivated forgetting
Sigmund Freud, Joseph Breuer, and Pierre Janet continued with the research that Charcot began on hysteria.
[5] The treatment that Freud, Breuer, and Pierre agreed upon was named the talking cure and was a method of encouraging patients to recover and discuss their painful memories.
[6] Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud had similar views on the idea of repression of memories as a form of self-preservation.
[6] The publication of Freud's famous paper, "The Aetiology of Hysteria", in 1896 led to much controversy regarding the topic of these traumatic memories.
[5] The term post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was introduced upon the appearance of similar cases of memory disturbances from veterans of the Korean War.
Forgetting, or the inability to recall a portion of a traumatic event, was considered a key factor for the diagnosis of PTSD.
[8] Ann Burgess and Lynda Holmstrom[9] looked into trauma related memory loss in rape victims during the 1970s.
This has created much controversy, and as the use of this form of evidence rises in the courts, the question has arisen as to whether or not recovered memories actually exist.
One might assume that a child abuse case one heard about actually happened to one, remembering it with the imagery established through the therapy.
[24] The idea of psychological repression was developed in 1915 as an automatic defensive mechanism based on Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic model in which people subconsciously push unpleasant or intolerable thoughts and feelings into their unconscious.
[26] There have been numerous studies which have supported the psychoanalytic theory that states that murder, childhood trauma and sexual abuse can be repressed for a period of time and then recovered in therapy.
An example of repression would include a child who is abused by a parent, who later has no recollection of the events, but has trouble forming relationships.
The goal of treatment was to bring repressed memories, fears and thoughts back to the conscious level of awareness.
[29] Intentional forgetting is important at the individual level: suppressing an unpleasant memory of a trauma or a loss that is particularly painful.
[32][33] The Bjork Learning and Forgetting Lab and members of the Cogfog group performed much important research using the paradigm in subsequent years.
[29] To support this theory, researchers did an experiment in which they asked participants to record 2 unique events that happened to them each day over a 5-day period in a journal.
The Retrieval Inhibition Hypothesis states that the instruction to forget the first list hinders memory of the list-one items.
[29] This hypothesis suggests that directed forgetting only reduces the retrieval of the unwanted memories, not causing permanent damage.
[29] The Context Shift Hypothesis suggests that the instructions to forget mentally separate the to-be-forgotten items.
[29] Motivated forgetting encompasses the term psychogenic amnesia which refers to the inability to remember past experiences of personal information, due to psychological factors rather than biological dysfunction or brain damage[40] Psychogenic amnesia is not part of Freud's theoretical framework.
[citation needed] The memories still exist buried deeply in the mind, but could be resurfaced at any time on their own or from being exposed to a trigger in the person's surroundings.
[47] The intraparietal sulcus possesses functions that include coordination between perception and motor activities, visual attention, symbolic numerical processing,[48] visuospatial working memory,[49] and determining the intent in the actions of other organisms.
[51] The other key brain structure involved in motivated forgetting is the hippocampus, which is responsible for the formation and recollection of memories.
[45] Motivated forgetting has been a crucial aspect of psychological study relating to such traumatizing experiences as rape, torture, war, natural disasters, and homicide.
[54] The number of cases of motivated forgetting was high during war times, mainly due to factors associated with the difficulties of trench life, injury, and shell shock.
One soldier, who entered the hospital after losing consciousness due to a shell explosion, is described as having a generally pleasant demeanor.
Many cases of abuse, particularly those performed by relatives or figures of authority, can lead to memory suppression and repression of varying amounts of time.
[57] Cases of Mary de Vries and Claudia show examples of confirmed recovered memories of sexual abuse.
HCSA refers to allegations of child abuse having occurred several years prior to the time at which they are being prosecuted.
False memory syndrome claims that through therapy and the use of suggestive techniques, clients mistakenly come to believe that they were sexually abused as children.
