Patri's Journal: Current
This is Patri's current journal. It is kept on LiveJournal as patrissimo, but you are reading the archived copy on patrifriedman.com.
Memories: repressed or just plan made-up? (comment on this entry at LiveJournal)
Entry Date: 2004-08-25 23:06:00
Logged: 2004-08-25 23:10:18
Current Mood: sleepy
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In an extra-credit homework assignment, for example, Loftus’ students went home and said to younger siblings things as simple as “Hey, do you remember the time you got lost in the mall when you were 5 years old?” and then recorded the ways in which the “memory” would take on a life of its own in the succeeding days, becoming more vivid, more detailed, with each conversation. At a more advanced level, using research subjects in a lab, students successfully created memories of mildly traumatic childhood experiences — such as being temporarily separated from one’s parents — that never actually occurred.
...
“Once I started being skeptical of those repressed-memory accusers and the therapists who helped them get this way,” Loftus says, her voice tinged with an emotion somewhere between resignation and bewilderment, “the hate mail began flowing in.” [LA Weekly article]
"Loftus is in the unenviable position of trying to bring evidentiary standards to a witchhunt by proving that just because a therapist can get you to believe something happened years ago doesn't necessarily mean it happened. That she should elicit such anger is unsurprising--such supposed memories often serve powerful emotional needs for both therapist and patient." [Commentary at Reason's Hit And Run blog]
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