Psychoanalytic Psychology 2001, Vol. 18, No.

1, 161-164

Copyright 2001 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 0736-9735/01/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//0736-9735.18.1.161

Repressed Memories Avoiding the Obvious

Bertram P. Karon, PhD
Michigan State University

Anmarie J. Widener, MA, MSW

University of Michigan

Sorting out the distinctions between reality and fantasy in terms of apparently recovered memories and reconstructions is at least as puzzling as sorting out current realities. In responding to C. B. Brenneis's (1997, 2000) challenge to the existence of the phenomena of repression and of recovered or reconstructed memories, the authors point out the data from the Recovered Memory Archive web site, the data from World War I and World War II battlefield neuroses, as well as the clinical observations of psychoanalysts. The articles by Brenneis seem very thoughtful and carefully elucidated. But they avoid the obvious. Brenneis (1997, 2000) reviewed some of the relevant studies, citing some data and logic that supposedly discount the evidence for repressed memories. He says there are very few real cases, and "no larger sample of verified cases exist" (Brenneis, 2000, p.74). Brenneis appears not to be aware of the existence of the False Memory Archive web site, set up by Professor Ross Cheit of Brown University. In this readily available public document, there are 66 docuBertram P. Karon, PhD, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University; Anmarie J. Widener, MA, MSW, School of Social Work, University of Michigan. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Bertram P. Karon, PhD, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824. Electronic mail may be sent to karon@msu.edu.

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mented cases of recovered memories where the truth has been externally validated by medical evidence, by eyewitnesses, by other victims, or by a confession by the perpetrator. Professior Cheit began the archives after being puzzled by many statements (like those of Brenneis, as well as the False Memory Society) that there are no documented externally validated cases. In a few hours, a research assistant found 6 documented externally validated cases in easily available public documents. This led to setting up the False Memory Archive, which also refers to numerous research articles about repressed memories in general, as well as articles about Holocaust survivors and repressed memories, phenomena specifically denied by skeptics of repressed memories. (Cheit, 1999). All of these data may be reviewed at www.brown.edu/Departments/Taubman_Center/Recovmem/ Archive.html In previous articles, we (Karon & Widener, 1997, 1998, 1999a) have discussed the hundreds of documented battlefield neuroses in World War II regularly discussed in the textbooks of the 1950s, where memories of battlefield trauma (witnessed by others) were repressed and retrieved in treatment with symptomatic improvement. Usually, the symptoms were of conversion hysteria. Recently, Van der Hart, Brown, and Graafland (1999) published a similar historical article about the data concerning World War I battlefield neuroses and their treatment. Given the nature of research on repression (commonly involving traumatic memories), Brenneis seems to overvalue peer-reviewed journals of experimental data as the only way to get at what is "true." No ethical person would be willing to subject children or adults to a rigorously controlled experiment wherein participants are traumatized in the laboratory with random assignment and a control group and then observed for years to determine whether they repress the memories of the experiment. If that is the required standard of evidence, then critics of repression are safe forever. He also undervalues clinical observations or even observations made openly outside the clinical situation. He even seems to believe that changes in specific case histories made to protect confidentiality somehow invalidate the accuracy of other described observations of clinicians. Moreover, his apparent attention to detail is belied by the fact that he apparently has confused Williams's (1995) data with Herman and Schatzow's (1987) data (Brenneis, 2000, p. 66). It is axiomatic in psychoanalysis that anything the patient says about the past may be a reflection of the ongoing therapeutic relationship (e.g., see Langs, 1976) as well as that anything the patient says about the

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therapeutic relationship may be a reflection of the patient's past. Brenneis (2000) tends to discount the discovery of the past in psychoanalysis by assuming that memories or reconstructions of intrusive boundary violations in childhood must reflect only intrusive boundary violations in the therapy. This is simple-minded. That memory in general involves processes of transformation, summarization, analogues, and reconstructions is interesting, and both clinical and experimental data help to illuminate an accurate understanding of these processes; however, that does not invalidate the concept of repression. Nor does the fact that apparently remembered material may reflect the dynamics of the ongoing relationship. Repression, as usually defined, refers to the psychological process of keeping something out of awareness because of unpleasant affect connected with it. The "something" may be a memory (or part of a memory), a fantasy, a thought, an idea, a feeling, a wish, an impulse, a connection, and so forth. It is hard to conceive of practicing psychoanalysis without regularly observing the reconstruction or return to awareness of previously forgotten material. Moreover, patients regularly confirm the accuracy of their newly recovered memories or reconstructions, as most patients try to obtain evidence of the accuracy of their memories and reconstructions insofar as they concern externally observable events, if it seems possible and safe to do so. Repression may be massive. Thus, B. P. Karon (Karon & Widener, 1999b) treated a patient who, on entering treatment, could not remember anything before the middle of high school. (He had always thought of this as normal and not as a symptom.) He had very serious symptoms. These symptoms remitted during the course of dynamic therapy in which he remembered the earlier years of his life, many details of which were validated by others. On the other hand, repression may be specific, as it was in the patient (of B. P. Karon) who sought therapy for irrational violence: "I hurt people and I don't want to." He described beating up a girlfriend for no reason. The only conscious reason he could give was because she had performed fellatio on him without his asking. Associations led to her being a "bad woman" and that his mother, who "was like the Bible, she always knows what's right," had warned him that there would be "bad women like that" and had showed him what they would do (performed fellatio on him). The anger about the sexual molestation was repressed and displaced toward other women because it conflicted with his need to have an idealized image of his mother. He remembered the child abuse simply as moral

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instruction. Awareness of his previously repressed anger connected with this child molestation led to a permanent disappearance of violent assaults against women. Repression is one of the coping mechanisms people use to survive. There are interesting theoretical questions about the conditions under which repression takes place and the conditions under which it can be undone or the repressed material reconstructed as well as the effects of doing so (accurately and inaccurately). There are also interesting questions about the meaning of memories of events that never happened both in patients and in people not in therapy (e.g., Karon, 1996). But avoiding the obvious and focusing only on details does not help the discussion. References Brenneis, C. B. (1997). Final Report of APA Working Group. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 14, 531-547. Brenneis, C. B. (2000). Evaluating the evidence: Can we find authenticated recovered memory? Psychoanalytic Psychology, 17, 61-77. Cheit, R. E. (1999). Junk skepticism and recovered memory: A reply to Piper. Ethics and Behavior, 9, 295-318. Herman, J. L., & Schatzow, E. (1987). Recovery and verification of memories of childhood sexual trauma. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 4, 1-14. Karon, B. P. (1996). On being abducted by aliens. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 13, 417-418. Karon, B. P., & Widener, A. J. (1997). Repressed memories and World War II: Lest we forget! Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 28, 338-340. Karon, B. P., & Widener, A. J. (1998). Repressed memories: The real story. Professional Psychology: Research andPractice, 29, 482-487. Karon, B. P., & Widener, A. J. (1999a). Repressed memories: Just the facts. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 30, 625-626. Karon, B. P., & Widener, A. J. (1999b). The tragedy of schizophrenia: Its myth of incurability. Ethical Human Sciences and Services, 1, 195-211. Langs, R. (1976). The therapeutic interaction. New York: Jason Aronson. Van der Hart, O., Brown, P., & Graafland, M. (1999). Trauma-induced dissociative anmesia in World War I combat soldiers. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 33, 37-46. Williams, L. M. (1995). Recovered memories of abuse in women with documented child sexual victimization histories. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 8, 649-673.