Repressed Memories: Causes, Mechanisms, & Coping Strategies In some cases, individuals may experience a traumatic event that causes a strong stress response via the sympathetic nervous system, that memory of the events becomes repressed, and generates negative emotions lead to intense sensations of: anger, depression, fear, guilt, hopelessness, or shame. These emotions didn’t interfere with cognitive function and memory processing, and cause a” gap” or lapse in memory surrounding the time of the trauma, makes some individuals forget significant details surrounding the traumatic event, while others may forget the entire experience. This memory that submerged beneath conscious perception is called “repressed memory”. What are repressed memories? …show more content…
How to Recover Repressed Memories & Heal from the Trauma? If a person wants to recover his repressed memory, he should be under the supervision of a highly-skilled psychotherapist, because the recovery of repressed memories may cause an emotional upheaval, if the person is not prepared to cope with memories and emotions. 1- Assess whether you are ready: you can recover your memory if your lifestyle is low stress and healthy, and you have social support. 2- Psychotherapy: if you want to recover repressed memories, you should do it with a professional psychotherapist. 3- Choose recovery methods(s): you can choose a method to recovery with the psychotherapist. . EMDR: Eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing is a technique employed to cope with trauma and can be used to uncover repressed memories. It is an 8-phase treatment, helps a person reprocess traumatic events and cope with their repressed memories. . Internal Family Systems Therapy: specific type of psychotherapy that targets traumatic experiences that occur in individual, couple, and family
In “Memory in Canadian Courts of Law” Elizabeth Loftus focuses on the testimonials of suspects based on victims or eyewitnesses memories to explain the issues that memories can cause in legal cases as it can result in false accusations and wrongful convictions. As a psychologist Loftus believes that false eyewitness memories are the major cause of wrongful convictions and that these “dubious” memories from witnesses can lead to innocent lives to be suffered. Loftus is informing readers there is a heavy reliance on memory and eyewitness testimony in the court system and it’s not valid methods of evidence. She wants readers to understand that it is unethical for jurors to use these methods to convict a suspect. Loftus’s article is sifted
The memories and the trauma still existed and were present each
Most events causing ptsd include direct and intense witness or experience of human suffering, causing victims to relive the memories over and over, seldom able to be comfortable and feel safe due to the fears that the condition instills on people. These people are also easily triggered at specific objects, phrases, or anything that can be traced back to the memories, whether symbolic or direct. These items are referred to as triggers, and can be anything as they are specific to the person’s case, reasons, and fears. Those affected by ptsd can sometimes act rashly due to their perception of reality being warped by the memories that they face. Treatment for ptsd includes proper coping skills, dealing with other causes of stress, and treatment of mental disorders that will worsen the issues of ptsd.
Remembering our past struggles will help us deal with many issues we have yet to face. “Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me , for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never” (32).
It is always better to face the truth and then to move on. We never know how much we have hidden inside us and how much if affects our personality subconsciously. At the surface, we might seem happy and content, but on the inside, we might be going towards depression. If a person does find triggers of having repressed memories, he/she should consult the psychiatrist and get the help he/she needs, it is much better than ignoring or thinking that they are hallucinating. I have so many painful memories that I would like to forget about and that I prefer not remembering.
There are 3 clusters to PTSD. the first cluster is re-living the event. The way the person relives the event is by having recurring nightmares and images that can happen at any time. During this cluster the victim has extreme emotion and physical reactions. The second cluster is avoiding reminders of the event.
In Yoko Ogawa's Memory Police we see that same theme throughout the novel, but to an amplified factor. Due to the main character's mother she is able to make breakthroughs when it comes to discovering the truth: “My memories don’t feel as though they’ve been pulled up by the root. Even if they fade, something remains. Like tiny seeds that might germinate again if the rain falls. And even if a memory disappears completely, the heart retains something.
The four common symptoms are re-experiencing, avoidance, arousal and reactivity, and cognition and mood. Re-experiencing symptoms include such things as flashbacks, bad dreams, and frightening thoughts. Avoidance symptoms could be staying away from places or things reminding the person of the traumatic event and also avoiding thoughts of the event as well. Arousal and reactivity symptoms include being easily startled, feeling tense or on edge, having difficulty sleeping, and having anger outbursts. Cognition and mood symptoms could include trouble remembering key information from the traumatic event, negative thoughts about oneself or in general, distorted feelings like guilt or blame, and loss of interest in enjoyable
For instance, if I had a major fallout with a family member or friend which disrupts our relationship, the thing that I always used to do was repeat the event in my mind. I used to replay the fight to see what I could have said, or she could have said that would have stopped and avoided the fight. I experienced the same thing couple of years back when I fought with my five years long best friend. Even though we do not talk anymore, I used to replay the fight over and over again to find out why did we have so much bottled up. Similarly, there are other such incidents like fights, misunderstandings, and betrayals in my life, that I found extremely hard to let go.
Instead stress or other psychological factors trigger the amnesia (McKay & Kopelman, 2009). The characteristics include retrograde amnesia (RA): the inability to remember memories previously made. This tends to affect the few years before the onset of amnesia and spares more distant memories (Reed & Squire 1998). Another symptom is slight anterograde amnesia (AA): the inability to form new memories. AA is a minor impairment within PA (Kritchevsky, Chang & Squire, 2004).
To start with the basis of understanding the memory, one must know that memories are stored in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. In a recent fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) study over the past decade, researchers found that the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex have decreased in activity. The memory is a constructive surface and not so much reproductive. It can be distorted by being influenced by bias, association, imagination and peer pressure. As one goes to recall an event, the brain will now associate that memory with what is happening around them at the time of the recall.
Intrusive, traumatic memories are of real social concern, especially for people struggling with clinical posttraumatic distress. The ability to remember specific events is not a problem in itself. Rather, it is the involuntary intrusion of these traumatic thoughts that is a serious issue. Research shows that a task can interfere with the memory of an event shortly after it happened by affecting the consolidation process. However, it is still unknown whether interfering with the reconsolidation process can reduce the frequency of intrusive memories of traumatic events without affecting the memories in themselves.
Repressed memories are memories a person subconsciously forgets but later remembers. These are typically memories one wants to forget, most commonly, childhood abuse. Many times what they are remembered is at a time when they likely did not fully understand what was going on. Many of the stories of abuse happen when the child is under the age of about 8 and they don’t know what is truly happening and that it is wrong.
Family systems therapy is basically evaluating the family system functioning as a unit and there are a few types of family therapy that uses this approach such as “structural family therapy, intergenerational family therapy and strategic family therapy” (Family Solutions Institute MFT Study Guide). The approach I think most useful would be structural family therapy which examines the family relationships, styles and common attitude during a therapy session. This allows the therapist to get a better understanding of what is going on in the family and the best way to solve
One of the limitations is the construction of the memory. The gaining of trust on how much an individual can trust the memory of recollection. While one may not remember what happen in their daily day life, how can one trust this therapy to recollect the memory many years ago. The construction of memory may include good memories and memories which can worsen the client’s life as it can be painful one. The client can take drastic decision such as pulling the person to court after the memories have been recollected.