“Recovered Memories” Cannot be Regarded as Reliable: Critical Review

Answer

“Recovered Memories” Cannot be Regarded as Reliable: Critical Review

Introduction

            The 1990s saw the development of high-profile cases where recovered memories formed the basis of accusation and even conviction of people (Otgaar et al., 2019). Recovered memories, in this case, describes the collections of traumatic experiences, often childhood abuse which a person recalls years after the occurrence (Lynn, Merckelbach & Polizzi, 2018). Notably, most memories were recovered through therapy, although others arose as a result of brain injury or spontaneously (Wager, 2017). However, the accuracy of recovered memories is not crystal clear and has caused contention in psychiatric and psychological circles (Bernstein, 2019). This paper seeks to critically evaluate whether recovered memories are reliable for applying experimental research.

False Memories:

            False memory describes situations where people recall events in a way different from the actual occurrence or in worst-case scenarios, they recall incidences that have never taken place (Wager, 2017). Memories can be fully imaginary, false or, in some cases, contain traces of facts that have been subjected to memory distortion due to incorrect recollection of the incident. The false memories can be clear and convincing based on the level of confidence with which they are presented. Factors that lead to false memories can be external such as misinformation, interference, and inferences or internal like misattributions of familiarity, similarity, and inaccurate perception (Lynn et al., 2018).

            Memory is generally thought to be similar to a video recorder, accurately documenting and storing information. However, memory is easily subjected to misinterpretation, and although people may be confident in the accuracy of their memory, it is not a guarantee for clarity and correctness of recalled information (Wager, 2017). False memory can be as mild as incorrectly remembering whether one locked the door, to severe instances where details of witnessed accidents are falsely recalled. Although memory failure is a common experience to everybody, false memories are unique because the things the subjects claim to have a distinct recollection of are either non-existent or did not occur exactly as they remember (Ulatowska & Sawicka, 2017).

            Research has established that false memories are a major cause of convictions because of information given from false recollections during police questioning or from false suspect identification (Otgaar et al., 2019; Wager, 2017). In ground-breaking research, Loftus showed how false memories form readily and easily. In an experiment, participants were shown a video of an automobile accident and were then asked questions regarding their observations (Wager, 2017). Part of the group was asked about the car speeds before they smashed into each other. The other part of the group was asked the same questions but with “smashed” replaced by “hit”. A week later, the participants whose question consisted of “smashed” were highly susceptible to false memory even recalling the sight of broken glass, which was not part of the film. According to this observation, a considerable time lapse can lead to the creation of false memories. Therefore, interviews immediately after an incident are often accurate, but with any delay, they are subject to misinformation influence (Bernstein, 2018).

Researching Childhood Sexual Abuse Forgetting and Remembering:

            Despite their questionable accuracy, memories are upheld with confidence depending on the ease of access, emotional levels, and how vivid they are (Wager, 2017). This implies that memories can be stored in the brain through motivated forgetting (Otgaar et al., 2019). According to Lynn et al. (2019), sometimes hurtful or embarrassing experiences happen to people. In such instances, the victims can make a decision not to think of them, and result into burying their experiences for years. However, if they are questioned or someone reminds them of the incidents, these memories can be retrieved (Bernstein, 2018).

            Memories can also be lost through dissociative amnesia which is a rare psychological condition diagnosed through the person’s history when other amnesia causes are ruled out (Otgaar et al., 2019). The condition, which is usually caused by stress or trauma, demonstrates the inability to recall important information about the individual that, if forgotten normally would be easily recalled (Wager, 2017). According to (Lynn et al., 2019) that dissociative amnesia occurs to individuals harbouring severe internal conflicts resulting from criminal behaviours, interpersonal difficulties that seem unresolvable and actions or impulses loaded with guilt. Treatment plans for such patients include a memory recovery through the provision of a supportive environment, and other times it may also require hypnosis (Wager, 2017). Patients are gently questioned under hypnosis to balance the mind because their recovery can be very upsetting. Questions should, therefore, be framed to avoid any suggestions of an existence of a traumatic experience existence or false memory creation (Lynn et al., 2019).

             Memories recovered through these strategies vary in accuracy depending on whether they can be confirmed externally. For instance, according to Wager (2017), in the case of Ellie who recovered childhood memories of abuse meted by her late grandfather, her mother confirmed that the sexual abuse was true and everyone in the family knew about it. Thus, the recovered memory in her case can be confirmed as true. To ensure the patient’s sense of self and identity are fully restored, any gaps in the memory recovery should be filled by seeking confirmation and additional information from people with knowledge of the event that creates a coherent narrative (Lynn et al., 2018).

            According to Wager (2017), a considerable number of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse presented evidence of amnesia for their abuse memories. Before 1992, this evidence was widely accepted by psychologists and psychiatrists on the basis that the survivor’s need to overcome the ordeal was the priority (Lynn et al., 2019). However, from 1993, cognitive therapists, such as Loftus (1993), came up with an argument that the memories recovered were false and they were a result of overambitious therapists instilling fictional experiences in the mind of patients, or patients being persuaded, from literature research, that their issues could be a result of childhood sexual abuse (Ulatowska & Sawicka, 2017; Wager, 2017). This turn around moment was spurred on by an incident where a cognitive psychologist accused her father of childhood sexual abuse based on her adulthood recovered memories of the incident (Wager, 2017). Her parents established a foundation for False Memory Syndrome to advocate for persons accused of sexual offence (Wager, 2017). The Foundation for False Memory Syndrome carried out research on highly improbable case studies and those of people wrongly convicted on recovered memories ‘evidence’. The foundation challenged the concept of recovered memories which led to various outcomes including academic literature focus shift and a change in the legal perspective concerning accusations based on recovered memories (Bernstein, 2018).

Controversies about Childhood Sexual Abuse Memories

            Recovery of memories has seen numerous individuals file for sexual abuse and others convicted of the crime on the same basis. The claims led to a controversy among the legal, psychiatric, and psychological fields over the possibility of memory repression for traumatic events only to be recovered later (Ulatowska & Sawicka, 2017). Practising therapists held that the memories of a traumatic experience can be, and in most cases are, repressed, and this was more likely for victims of childhood abuse compared to other circumstances. For childhood abuse, repression and recovery are highly likely if the abuse was committed by an adult they trusted or when it was a repetitive experience for a long time. The social and cognitive psychologists, on the other hand, contend that the psychoanalytic repression notion lacks credible support and that the events causing trauma are recalled better than any other experiences especially if they are undergone repetitively, including sexual abuse cases (Lynn et al., 2018).

            The literature presents a fundamental disagreement on the memory processes with contrasting perceptions of traumatic experiences. Wager (2017) states that it is not clear whether traumatic experiences are more likely to be repressed or recalled with ease. It is also not clear whether memories of childhood sexual abuse stand higher chances of being repressed compared to other traumatic experiences. Advocates of memory recovery argue that childhood sexual abuse memories can be repressed because of the dissociative mechanisms adopted to withstand the episodes, the unacceptable nature of involved behaviours, and the overall traumatic the experiences (Bernstein, 2018). However, critics question the repression existence as different from normal forgetting where memories are blocked temporarily to be retrieved later (Wager, 2017). Alternatively, the memory of trauma should be persistent and strong due to persistence being one of the memory’s “seven sins” (Lynn et al., 2018). The critics hold that although the details of a traumatic experience may be forgotten, the memory of its occurrence rarely goes away.

            Another controversy is based on the potential to elicit false and true memories using clinical procedures and how these procedures work upon non-traumatic and traumatic memories. There is overwhelming evidence that false memories can be elicited through clinical procedures such as survivor group participation, direct suggestion, guided imagery, dream interpretation, and hypnosis (Otgaar et al., 2019; Lynn et al., 2018). However, therapists incline to the belief that childhood sexual abuse memories cannot be created without a background, especially if they are perpetrated through satanic ritual abuse or by close family members. Research has established that horrible memories can be created if a vulnerable individual is presented with biased memory procedures and strong social influence to have a different view of reality. The creation of false memories is possible even for implausible memories although they are rare occurrences (Bernstein, 2018).

            Further controversy relates to how often memory recoveries for childhood sexual abuse are false versus accurate instances. This conflict extends beyond falsely remembering or forgetting the reality of the abuse. The specific memory repression mechanism can be disputable. However, the ability to induce false abuse memories or to rediscover the existence of abuse memories  through therapeutic practices is possible as both incidences occur in the real sense (Ulatowska & Sawicka, 2017). It is crucial to determine the base rate of occurrence for each, which is also subject to controversy. Assuming that therapeutic practices can elicit both true and false memories, then it is crucial to determine their respective rates to inform the legal system to back up claims with evidence from another source who can confirm the memories actually happened and psychotherapy patients to understand that therapy can actually instil false memories that seem true (Wager, 2017). The base rate is determined by the rate at which procedures retrieve both false and true memories and the base rate of unremembered true cases for patients who have undergone interventions.

            False memories for those who have experienced the event comprise of exaggerated and non-existent episodes embedded within the truthful experience (Bernstein, 2018). It is common for clinicians to assume that incidences of false memories are considerably lower than true memory recoveries. This suggests that therapy is highly effective in recovering repressed abuse memories (Wager, 2017). Although researchers agree that traumatic memories can be set aside for long periods of time only to be recalled later, they view the mechanism as normal forgetfulness and recalling. Consequently, researchers suspect horrific and extreme memories that cannot be covered under ordinary forgetting as false memories, especially if they are produced during therapy (Lynn et al., 2018).

Conclusion

            It is plausible that childhood sexual abuse memories can be lost for a long period and recovered later. Recovered memories are often regarded as non-plausible on the “false memories” basis which can, in some cases, deny genuine childhood sexual abuse victims justice and closure if they are unable to corroborate the information recovered. Therapy has also been established to be a cause of implanting false memories to patients, so it is essential for therapists to ensure they do not influence the patient’s recollection of events. Thus, because of existing variations, recovered memory cannot be reliable.