Repressed Memories Book Review

Nomsa Senda Moyo
Repressed Memories
University of the People In a study conducted by Elizabeth F. Loftus (1993), an American psychologist, titled The Reality of Repressed Memories she made an effort to leave no stone unturned on the subject of repressed memories. She made mention of many popular published articles like that of an eight-year-old girl named Susan Nason who was murdered in 1969. Her then best friend Eileen Franklin remembered the horrifying murder of her best friend by her father George Franklin Sr. Eileen’s repressed memory started coming back to her bit by bit and later it came like a flood. The memory came back when she was playing with her children one afternoon and she remembered her father sexually assaulting Susan before

Sources of details that could affect memory include books, therapists’ suggestions and accounts, client accounts, litigation accounts and taped interviews. The book The Courage to Heal suggests to its readers that if they cannot account for a certain time in their lives there is a great chance that they are repressing memories. It goes to the extent of suggesting ways of retrieving these memories. The way that the repression of memories is presented in this book is suggestive that almost everyone has gone through an abusive childhood in their lives and are repressing their memories. Secret Survivors goes on to list possible symptoms of signs that one has repressed memories. Therapists play a crucial role in making their clients believe that they are victims of incest or satanic ritual activities depending on symptoms like depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, etc. or by suggesting that their clients’ symptoms are likened to those that have experienced incest or satanic ritual activities in their childhood. Clients’ accounts are mostly based on what the therapists suggest to them. An attorney called Greg Zimmerman went for therapy to deal with his father’s suicidal death and there he was repeatedly and suggestively told that he had repressed memories of satanic ritualistic abuse which led him to the pursuit of uncovering these repressed memories which might never have been there to begin with. Litigations accounts include the case of a daughter who accused her father of incest crimes after attending about 30 sessions with her therapist to uncover these memories. She claimed to have memories of her father abusing her from the time that she was 7 months old. Although her father compensated her for the accusations she placed on him, he sternly denied having abused his daughter. Taped interviews played a role in proving that a man accused of sexually abusing his daughter was suggestively told