How reliable is your memory? Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, who studies false memories, shared some fascinating stories and statistics in her talk that might challenge your concepts of knowledge and retrieval. Pay special attention to the ethical considerations she raises and think about how these might apply to counselling! (Loftus, 2013) |
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MEMORY REPRESSION
When an individual experiences an extremely painful or distressing situation, the phenomenon of repression may occur within the brain (Ormrod, 2016). The information surrounding the painful event is not consciously retrieved from long-term memory as a method of avoiding the pain and discomfort of that experience (Ormrod, 2016). However, there is disagreement regarding the accuracy of traumatic memories when they were experienced during childhood. As Ormrod (2016) posited, repressed memories cannot be checked for accuracy, and “although a hypnotic state may increase people’s confidence and willingness to talk about past events, it doesn’t necessarily improve their memory for what transpired” (p. 220). Largely, traumatic experiences and PTSD impact the way in which people store, encode, and retrieve traumatic and non-traumatic memories, often as protection from a high-anxiety state (Ormrod, 2016).