Questioning the Reliability of Recovered Memories in Court

Abstract

Recovered Memories are not Reliable or Credible Student`s Name Professor’s Name: Recovered Memories are not Reliable or Credible Introduction Repressed memory has existed since 350 B.C. In the contemporary society, we are aware of memoir. There are two diverse types’ memories, such a short term memory, and long term memory and how we can react with memories, like repression. Recently, repressed memories have been questioned if they are truly valid in the psychology field, many confusing them as false memories. Repression is the action of restraining a thought or feeling to initially forget it. False memory is remembering events that did not happen. The paper will constitute 10 articles that will provide and prove more information and evidences to show that repressed memories are valid. The purpose of this argument is to assess the articles for their value and relevance to the validity of repressed memories. Problems with the memory, creation of false memories during intervention, and lack of evidence to back their usefulness makes recovered memories unreliable and should not be presented as a credible source of evidence in court. Most people remember bad things that happened to them when they children but in some cases extreme trauma will be forgotten. When the forgetting becomes more extreme , a dissociative disorder may develop such as dissoactive fugue , dissociative amnesia or depersonalization disorder. Are the recovered memories necessarily true? There is a lot of debate about this. Some therapists who work with trauma survivors believe that the memories are true because they are accompanied by such extreme emotions. Other therapists have reported that some of their patients have recovered memories that could not have been true (a memory of being beheaded, for example).Some groups have claimed that therapists are "implanting memories" or causing false memories in vulnerable patients by suggesting that they are victims of abuse when there was no abuse. Some therapists appear to have persuaded patients that their symptoms were due to abuse when they did not know this was true. This was never considered good therapeutic practice, and most therapists are careful not to suggest a cause for a symptom unless the cause is reported by the patient. There is some research to suggest that false memories for minor trauma can be created in the laboratory. In one study, suggestions were made that children had gotten lost in a shopping mall. Many of the children later came to believe that this was a real memory. Note: It is unethical to suggest memories of severe trauma in a laboratory setting. Retrieval Process Repressed memory is associated with diverse patterns in unbiased activity. The evidence from the article “Memory Repression: Brain mechanisms underlying Dissociative Amnesia” (Kikuchi et al., 2010), confirms that repressed memory in dissociative amnesia is linked with a modified outline of neural actions. The facts that repression and dissociative amnesia are very similar basing on their meanings, is a vivid indication of its validity. Dissociative amnesia is thought to reveal reversible discrepancy in memory retrieval perhaps as a result of memory repression. Another argument that can confirm this claim is the pre-frontal cortex which has a fundamental key function in preventing the action of the hippocampus in memory repression (Kikuchi et al., 2010). According to this argument, dissociative amnesia typically pursues a demanding occasions and cannot be attributed to explicit brain injure and major parts of retrieval process is connected to repressed memory. People’s attachment approaches manipulates memory development. The brainwashing and retrieval of information based on the actions that occurred can justify the validity of the repressed memories. This evidence is outlined in the article “Does attachment anxiety promote the encoding of false memories? An investigation of the processes linking adult attachment to memory errors” (Hudson & Fraley, 2018) which demonstrated how people in high attachment evasion position their attention away from connection stimuli and be unsuccessful encode. Anxious people are more probable to structure false memories which are not the case for the repressed memories. The false memories are usually manipulated because of attachment anxiety, not avoidance. The attachment anxiety prior to encoding can result to the victims experiencing more many false memories more than unprepared peers (Hudson & Fraley, 2018). However, introduction of attachment anxiety prior to retrieval or through maintenance developments had no influence on false memories. So generally, people experiencing attachment avoidance tend to direct their focus from relationship-relevant motivations and are unable to encode it in memory, hence providing clarifications that indeed people can repress memories. Traumatic/Upsetting Repressed Memories are Vivid therefore harder to Forget Psychological impact of the traumatizing experiences of people can explain the repression memories. Majority of people can move on from traumatizing circumstances through repression. This evidence is outline in the article, “Suppressed and Repressed Memories among Armenian Genocide Survivors” (Saroyan, 2015), which explains the effects of the Armenian genocide, and the people affected by it and how they deal with it. The survivors from the genocide were able to proceed with their lives because they coped with their trauma, such as denial, avoidance, distraction/over activity, rationalization or detachment through repressing the bad memories. These unwanted memories were not always deliberately forgotten. To confirm this argument, repressing these traumatic memories helped the survivor’s emotion stability and performance since it is a defense mechanism. This argument clearly reveals that their repressed memories are valid and have been repressed to overcome a dark part of the experiences. The controversial significances of recovered memories are confirmation of repressed memory. This illustration is from the article, “Recovering Memories of a Murder by a Child, or ‘Getting a Way with Murder’” (Roth, 2015). Mr. T was still a child at the time when he killed someone. When he was ten years old, he killed his Nazi father. His memories provide for repressed memories and prove they can be valid. He repressed the memory for a reason, a clear revelation that, repressing out memories renders them invalid. Defense Mechanism Repression in law and psychology are diverse. These vital subjects can confirm the validity of repressed memories. The evidence of this argument can be derived from article “Impossible to Forget: Maness V. Gordon Alaska’s Response to the Repressed Memory Controversy”, (Bender, 2016). Examining an enhanced understanding of the arguments around repressed memory syndrome in the scientific community plus the comparison of the Alaska’s new law is a confirmation of repressed memory. Despite many Alaska’s Supreme Court failure to notice the issues of discovering repressed memories, it cannot change the rate of sexual violence within the state. Furthermore, people use this mechanism to keep traumatic/painful memories from conscious awareness especially at young age where memory repression is more acceptable and occurs all the time. Memory can increase and decrease overtime. The decline of memories can be deemed as defense mechanism while the increase is similar to the recovery process. The evidence of this argument is from the article “The ups and downs of memory” (Hugh, 2010). Both defensive and recovery repression are generally compliant in scientific psychology. Sometimes the traumatic memories might be hard to forget at first and victims are likely to feel unease and unable to relax because of these memories. Successful repression should yield amnesia and the retrieval effect can actually enhance your memory from trauma, and hypnosis. State of amnesia is a confirmation that the memories repressed are very valid. Counterarguments/Problems The perception of involuntarily repressing the memory of distressing experiences is controversial. The dilemma is from the facts that limited research can provide support to discernment of the unconscious occurrence of repression. This counterargument evidence is derived from the article, “Repressed or False Memories” (Kinnear, 2007). An illustration is the mental health professionals who are not sure how back-up repressed memories can be valid; since there is no much research that was done on it. There are some who believe there is a checklist you must have in order to set profile in order for a valid repressed memory. So many researchers are not as ready to acknowledge repressed memories as valid; they justify this claim by explaining that doctors just go through a checklist and even help a person believe he or she was sexually abused as a child (Kinnear, 2007). However, The American Psychological Association (APA) believes that most adults who were sexually abused as a child can remember the abuse but forget how exactly or why it could have happened. Researchers believe that you can forget a memory and then recall them, a clear indication that the repressed memory is valid. Testimony on thoughts and verdicts is another counterargument. Majority of court system do not really believe in repressed memories. This is well illustrated in the article, “Expert Testimony in recovered memory trials: Effects on mock jurors’ opinions, deliberations and verdict’s”, (Buck, 2010). Thoughts and verdicts in a fake trial involving recovered/repressed memories of sexual abuse from when they were children were considered invalid. The mock trials and testimonies dealing with childhood sexual abuse have always been difficult to determine, each person is different (Buck, 2010). However, jurors usually support the idea of recovered memories. Self-defining memories plus the defensiveness are representation of repressed memory. The different self-defining memories, separate differences in repressiveness like high amount of defensiveness and low amount of anxiety. The article, “What is the Nature of the Self-defining Memories of Repression-prone individuals?” (Lardi et al., 2012) provides the necessary evidence to the argument. It is proven that repression prone people are less likely to pick meaning from their memories and can retrieve more self-defining. They define repression as a copying style and identify people who repress as people based on their anxiety and defensiveness. Compared to more adjacent people, repression-prone people...