Repressed Memories By Elizabeth F. Loftus

521 Words3 Pages

Repressed Memories is a new concept that shocked me because I never know about this phenomenon. In USA, this memories long-time buried in unconsciousness made many people in prison related to childhood sexual abuse reported in the article written by Elizabeth F.Loftus (Loftus, 1993).
In the article, she mentioned about many cases of repressed memories. For example, a murdered case in California, Susan kay Nason was killed by George Franklin, Sr. Eileen, his 8-year-old daughter witnessed the fact. It took her more than 20 years to remember the story. According to the theory, she was so shocking when she saw the scene, and this feeling grabbed hold of the memory in inaccessible corner of unconscious. But many years later, she has recovered while she was playing with her children. Many researchers tried to proof the authenticity of repression but it did not have scientific evidence. Even there were a lot of criticisms, the number of cases of this memories has still gone up. It is difficult to ignore this fact. Therefore, People could sue for sexual abuse during childhood lawfully (Loftus, 1993). …show more content…

But it is difficult to evaluate these findings because it changed from a person to another and it also could be a lie of the person if there was no witness. Another important factor is the therapist who always raised the issue of sexual abuse or traumatic situation during the treatment, he maybe wanted to confirm his beliefs instead of providing the real memory. Thus, this treatment could create a “false memories” which did not exist in people’s life story. In conclusion, the repressed memory is very complex and controversial. People find more difficult to find out the root of this edge cutting issue (Loftus,

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