Carla Clark at Brain Blogger on repressed memories: bullshit or not?

The idea is that repressed memories are different to suppressed memories. Suppressed memories we have pretty solid proof of, although some of us are better at it than others, which in some scientific circles, as we mentioned in a recent article on how best to control intrusive thoughts, has resulted in these proficient thought controllers being dubbed ‘natural repressors’.

Suppressing a memory involves some form of consciously directed effort – a choice – to attempt to not think about it or not. A bona fide repressed memory on the other hand is often considered to happen without free will in response to traumatic events, or has been

I’m reminded by a Facebook conversation that there are people who still believe in “repressed memory.” (I’m reminded – see what I did there?)

An interesting article from 2008 talks about it as a cultural phenomenon:

ARE SOME experiences so horrific that the human brain seals them away, only to recall them years later? The concept of “repressed memory,” known by the diagnostic term dissociative amnesia, has long fueled controversy in psychiatry. During the 1980s, claims of childhood sexual abuse based on recovered memories led to a spate of highly publicized court cases. A number of the supposed victims retracted their allegations in the early 1990s, admitting that they had been swayed by therapeutic techniques. Yet the scientific