The seven sins of Memory

1
The seven sins of Memory?

• Chris Freeman
• Edinburgh July 2005

2
Three anecdotes

• Don Camillo Guareschi
• Alien abduction
• EMDR

3
Why is memory important in psychotherapy?

• People dont tell the truth.
• Different histories at different times are the
  norm
• Memories of sexual abuse
• Memories in refugees
• Memory and the courts
• Work with stories not facts
• In trauma field we engage directly in altering
  impact of memories

4
The Seven sins of Memory

• Transience
• Absent mindedness
• Blocking
• Misattribution
• Suggestibility
• Bias
• Persistence

5
Transience

• The first few seconds
• Long term memory
• Phonological loop working memory

6
Absentmindeness

• Average person spends 30 mins day finding things
• Prospective memory

7
Blocking

• Name blocking
• Tip of the tongue experiences (TOTS)

8
Misattribution

• Psychologist accused of rape
• Had perfect alibi doing TV interview at the time

9
Suggestability

• El Al cargo plane Schipol 1992
• In study 10 months later 505 reported what they
  saw on TV
• In follow up 66 reported and gave details

10
Bias

• Memories
• May be beautiful, and yet
• Whats too painful to remember
• We simply choose to forget
• For its the laughter
• We will remember
• Whenever we remember
• The way we were

11
Charles Darwin, 1876

• I had during many years followed a golden rule,
• namely that whenever a published fact, a new
• observation or thought came across me which was
• opposed to my general results, to make a
• memorandum of it without fail and at once for I
• had found by experience that such facts and
• thoughts were far more apt to escape from the
• memory than more favourable ones.

12
Persistence

• It was inevitable the scent of bitter almonds
  always reminded him of of the fate of unrequited
  love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the time of
  cholera
• Donnie Moore Pitcher for Angels, shot his wife
  and then himself
• Jean van der Velde

13
Is repression the eighth sin?

• It is natural to thrust aside painful memories
  just as it is natural to avoid dangerous or
  horrible scenes in actuality
• Rivers, 1918 The repression of war
  experience

14
Repression

• Different from ordinary forgetting
• After expulsion Freud
• Motivated forgetting
• Knowledge isolation Freyd

15
The memory wars
16
Repression Elizabeth Loftus

• A magical homunculus in the unconscious mind
  that periodically ventures out into the light of
  day and grabs hold of a memory, scurries
  underground, and stores it in a dark corner of
  the insensible self, waiting a few decades before
  digging it up and tossing it back out again

17
Repression

• Directed forgetting is quite powerful
• Some people may be natural repressors repressive
  coping style
• Natural repressors recall less negative memories
  from childhood and less negative memories from
  recent scripts
• Forgetting is more likely after family abuse than
  stranger abuse, ( same for rape)

18
Recovered Memory?

• I didnt remember anything about the
• abuse until I was 48 years old. Thats
• when I remembered the incest. Seven
• or eight years after that, the ritual abuse
• started breaking through
• Annette Bass Davis 1989

19
Recovered Memory ?

• Before they come for analysis, the patients
• know nothing about these scenes. They are
• indignant as a rule if I warn them that such
• scenes are going to emerge. Only the strongest
• compulsion of the treatment can induce them
• to embark on a reproduction item
• Freud 1896

20
If you think you were abused andyour life shows
the symptoms,then you were

• Bass Davies, 1988, p 22

21
Recovered Memory?

• Can traumatic childhood experiences be
• completely repressed from memory for very
• prolonged periods and then be recalled in
• intricate detail with associated sounds, smells,
• feelings and images. 20, 30 or even 40 years
• later ?

22
Recovered Memory ?

• If such memories appear, are they an
• accurate recall of early experience or are they
• subject to the same rules of distortion,
• forgetting and confabulation that occur
• with less emotional non traumatic memory ?

23
Recovered Memory ?

• Can grown up children from apparently
• well adjusted families who for whatever
• reason enter therapy have such memories
• implanted in them by poorly trained,
• misguided or over-enthusiastic therapists.
• How can therapists who work in this area
• proceed in a way that is safe for them and
• appropriately therapeutic for their patients?

24
Recovered Memory ?

• Brandon, S., Boakes, J., Glaser, D. Green,
• R (1998)
• Recovered memories of childhood sexual
• abuse Implications for clinical practice.
• British Journal of Psychiatry(1998) 172, 293 - 307

25
Reported Recovered Memories of child sexual abuse

• Psychiatric Bulletin 1997, 663 665
• Council Statement

26
Recovered Memory Techniques

• Drug Mediated Interview
• Hypnosis
• Regression Therapies
• Guided Imagery
• Body Memories
• Literal Dream Interpretation
• Journaling
• Forceful or Persuasive Interview Techniques

27
Poole et al 1995J Consulting and Clinical
PsychologyRecovered Memory Techniques

• UK and US Therapist
• 71 Used some method
• 58 used two or more methods
• Correlation between number of
• techniques used and who
• recalled abuse

28
Philadelphia False MemorySyndrome
Foundation12,000 Families

• British False Memory Society
• 600 Families

29
Famous cases No 1

• Gary Ramona
• Daughter holly sued him for 500,000
• Ramona counter sued his daughter, her therapist,
  the psychiatrist and the medical centre for 8
  million
• He also sued his wife for slander
• Ramona won on a 10-2 decision and was awarded
  475,000

30
Famous Cases No 2Marilyn Van Derbur Atler

• Miss American 1958
• Father pillar of Denver Society
• Sexually abused from 5 until 18 when she left for
  college
• Remembered in her 30s
• Elder sister corroborated abuse. She had been
  abused but never forgot it.

31
Famous cases No.2Marilyn Van Derbur Atler

• Miss America 1958
• Father pillar of Denver Society
• Sexually abused from 5 until 18 when she left for
  college
• Remembered in her 30s
• Elder sister corroborated abuse. She had also
  been abused but never forgot it.

32
Famous Cases No 3Peter, Pamela and Jennifer
Freyd

• Pamela founded False Memory Syndrome
• Foundation
• Jennifer, her daughter, Professor of Psychology
• recalled abuse in her 30s after 2nd child born
• Peter and Pamela are step-siblings who married
• Peter boasted to his daughters about his
• childhood sexual experiences

33
Freyd (cont)

• He had his daughter age 9 - 10 dance naked with
  playboy bunny tails in front of his friends
• He would sit around the house with genitals
  exposed
• Kept a model of his genitals on display
• Hospitalised for severe alcoholism

34
Jennifer Freyd

• My parents have established.a pattern of
• boundary violation..invasion and control
• .. Inappropriate and unwanted sexualisation
• intimidation and manipulation

35
Bagley 1995

• Women aged 18 - 24
• Separated from Biological mother at least one
  year
• Removed from home 10 years before
• 14 of 19 remembered clearly
• Intrafamilial sexual abuse reported by girl
• and by adult
• 2 of 19 remembered but no details
• 3 reported no abuse and reported long blank
• Periods from their memory of childhood

36
Gudjonsson 1997

• Applied Cognitive Psychology
• Survey of British False Memory Society Members
• 50 had lost contact with accusing person
• 1/3 of accused had sought psychological help
• 25 accusation reported to police

37
Paternal Abuse

• Russell 1998 Handbook of sexual abuse of
• children 4.5 reported paternal or stepfather
• abuse
• Poole 1995 30 of recovered memory cases
• report paternal abuse

38
Ross Cheit Website

• Http //www.brownedu/departments/
• taubman centre
• recovermem/archive.html

39
Are Traumatic Memories Memorised Differently
?Janet 1919

• Traumatic memories consist of images, sensations,
• affective and behavioural states that are
  invariable
• and dont change over time
• Flashbulb memories Brown 1977
• Unable to make the recital we call narrative
  memory
• Janet 1919

40
Traumatic memories forgotten and later recalled

• Madakasira 1987 Natural Disaster
• Van Der Kolk 1987 Vietnam Veterans
• Wilkinson 1983 Hyatt Regency Hotel
• Skywalks

41
Post Hypnotic Amnesia

• A few words can abolish explicit memory whilst
• implicit memory remains
• Hypnotic subjects show priming effects on word
• association tests post hypnosis
• Hypnotic subjects show increased problem
• solving behaviour post hypnosis from trials
• whilst hypnotised
• Explicit memory can be abolished and restored
• with or without intervening amnesia

42
Childhood Memory

• Infantile amnesic barrier before approx 3 1/2 yrs
• Usher, Miesser 1993 highly significant events
• down to two years
• Memories rehearsed in conversation with parents
• better retained
• High IQ, high social class, good language
  ability,
• female sex related to younger age of first
• memories
• Personal memories recalled over two different
  time
• periods are quite accurate

43
VoidingCystourethrogram Fluoroscopy

• Goodman et al 1994
• Children verifiable, forced genital contact
• painful, repeated
• asked 3 years later
• age most important
• other factors maternal attention and
• compassion compensation of the event

44
Induced false memories in adults

• Loftus
• adults told story of being lost as a child in
• a shopping mall
• about half made to believe
• about 25 invented details to make story
• more complete

45
Challenger Space ShuttleDisaster

• Neisser and Harsh 1993
• Freshman students where were you, what were
• you doing?
• 11 out of 44 got zero items correct 3 years later
• Some argued they must have been wrong
• first time (24 hrs) because they were so
• certain now
• All recalled an event

46
Williams 1994

• 17 year follow up of children referred to
  hospital
• for sexual abuse
• 129 women interviewed
• 38 failed to report anything resembling abuse
• in records
• 12 no abuse experience of any kind

47
World War II Sargant 1967

• 150 of first thousand admissions after Dunkirk
• had acute hysterical memory loss
• IV sodium amytal brought memories flooding
• back
• repeated or extended trauma more likely to
• lead to amnesia

48
Memory Consolidation

• Not fixed at the time of learning
• applies to declarative memory
• located medial temporal lobe
• continues to change and reorganise as
• time passes

49
Source Memory

• Where or when was the fact encountered
• source amnesia
• occurs independently of the strength of the
• memory itself
• increases with age
• frontal lobe function
• implicit memory has no source

50
Recovered Memory?

• Much of the work on the distortion and
• fallibility of memory has been carried out on
• non emotionally charged or moderately
• stressful experiences and not on the highly
• stressful experience of childhood
• physical or sexual abuse

51
Recovered Memory?

• Highly traumatic memories which are
• continuously remembered and never
• forgotten may be more resistant to
• the distortions and omissions

52
Guidelines for Therapists

• British Psychological Society 1996
• Mollon 1996
• Royal College of Psychiatrists 1997

53
Recovered Memory ?

• False memories can be created. This does not
  only occur during the course of therapy
• but there may be particular therapeutic
• interventions which make this more likely.
• It is not known how commonly this occurs or what
  proportion of individuals are
• susceptible to it. Experimental work outwith
• the therapy setting suggests it occurs in only a
  small minority of individuals

54
Schachter 1982

• Patient who lost access to all episodic and
• autobiographical memory after a traumatic
• event
• Unable to recall any events from past
• Could recall semantic knowledge
• from all previous time periods

55
Amnesia and Violent Crime

• 25 - 60 claim amnesia
• - feigned?
• - alcohol intoxication?
• Sirhan Sirjam assassinated Robert Kennedy
• Marvin Bains

56
Recovered Memory ?

• Semantic and autobiographical memories are
• liable to omission, distortion and confabulation
• and the certainty with which something is
• remembered is not a good guide to whether it
• actually happened

57
Memory

• Emotional Situation
• Amygdala Hippocampal
• System System
• Implicit Emotional Explicit
• Memory Memory
• (Declarative)
• e.g Edward Claparedes
• demonstration of dissociation between implicit
  emotional memory and declarative/explicit memory

58
Recovered Memory ?

• Highly traumatic memories which common sense
  lead one to think are completely unforgettable
  can be completely forgotten and remembered many
  years later.
• This process does not just apply to sexual
  childhood memories

59
Recovered Memory?

• Highly traumatic memories whether they occur in
  childhood or adulthood may be encoded differently
  without a clear verbal presentation.
• They may be remembered as bodily sensations,
  emotional states, smells or sounds and may be
  difficult to access through verbal means.

60
Recovered Memory?

• How frequently this occurs is not yet clear.
• It may occur in approximately 25 of cases.
• Interestingly, this is about the same proportion
  of individuals who in an acute traumatic
  situation behave in a chaotic disorganised
  dissociated way and report acute episodes of
  amnesia.

61
Recovered Memories

• The Report of the Working Party of the British
  Psychological Society
• In a recent review of the literature on
  recovered memories, Lindsay and Read (1994)
  commented that the ground for debate has shifted
  from the question of the possibility of
  therapy-induced false beliefs to the prevalence
  of therapy-induced beliefs. We agree with this
  comment but add to it that the ground for debate
  has also shifted from the question of the
  possibility of recovery of memory from total
  amnesia to the question of the prevalence of
  recovery of memory from total amnesia.

62
What are the implications for therapy?

• It is important for the therapist to tolerate
  uncertainty and ambiguity and avoid illusions of
  knowing.
• Without other evidence you can never know that a
  memory from childhood is literally true

63

• A. Childhood experience
• B. Deep schemata of
  
• the mind,
  models of
• self and others
• C. Narratives/images experienced as
• memory

64
Implications

• Encourage discussion about the nature of memory
• Give information about the nature of memory
• Be careful in any use of memory enhancing
  techniques in therapy

65
Concluesions

• Sexual abuse is a bigger problem than iatrogenic
  false memories
• Childhood sexual abuse has going on for
  centuries and has harmed millions of people and
  is very difficult to fix.
• Iatrogenic illusory memories and false beliefs is
  of recent origin, has harmed fewer people and is
  easier to fix.