Repression: A mistaken impression?

Abstract

How do clinical observations of repression square with experimental evidence suggesting that emotionally arousing memories are especially enduring? This discrepancy can be understood by examining three kinds of memory distortions that give the impression in a clinical context, of repression. Potentially traumatic events such as childhood sexual abuse (CSA) may be subject to ordinary forgetting. Recent research suggests people who fail to understand the sexual nature of CSA report that they remember it less well. In other words, the event occurred and it was forgotten, but not “repressed.” In addition, people may be wrong about experiencing a period of forgetting, i.e. the event occurred but was never forgotten. Finally, people may believe that a particular traumatic event occurred and was repressed when, in fact, it did not happen in the first place. Under certain circumstances, some combination of these distortions could lead to situations that are mistakenly interpreted as repression.

The impact of childhood sexual abuse on dental fear

“…Third, this report has a very long retrospect. The issue of forgetting, repressing or having false memories of sexual abuse incidents has been discussed (29). Evaluations of these aspects are beyond the scope of this article.…”

Dental fear in sexually abused women

“…ref. 27). There is much conceptual confusion concerning constructs such as repression, defensiveness, and dissociation (28).…”

Autobiographical memory specificity among people with recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

“…It is interesting to speculate about the second part of Schooler's definition. More specifically, the question arises why people have the sentiment that autobiographical details are not available to them, i.e., why they have an impression of amnesia (Loftus, Joslyn, & Polage, 1998).…”