Myth: Memory operates like a videotape. Everything is stored permanently in the "unconscious mind" and can be accurately replayed.
Reality: "The assumption, however, that a process analogous to a multichannel videotape recorder inside the head records all sensory impressions and stores them in their pristine form indefinitely is not consistent with research findings or with current theories of memory."
Myth: Memory recovery therapy is safe and effective.
Reality: "Loftus (1997) reviewed 30 cases selected at random from 670 claims submitted to the Washington Victims Compensation Program. Twenty-six had 'recovered' a memory of abuse through therapy. All 30 were still in therapy after three years, 18 for more than five years. After treatment 20 were suicidal compared with three before treatment began, 11 were hospitalised (cf. two before treatment), eight engaged in self-mutilation (cf. one before) and marriage break-up occurred in almost all. It appears that in these cases, recovery and abreaction had serious adverse effects."
Myth: Hypnosis can "reverse amnesia" or "recover memories."
Reality: "Contrary to what is generally believed by the public, recollections obtained during hypnosis not only fail to be more accurate but actually appear to be generally less reliable than nonhypnotic recall."
"There is no evidence that the use of consciousness-altering techniques, such as drug-mediated interviews or hypnosis, can reveal or accurately elaborate factual information about any past experiences including childhood sexual abuse."
Myth: Techniques such as sodium amytal interviews, hypnosis, age regression, guided imagery, dream interpretation, journaling, or the diagnosis of 'body memories' can be used to accurately recover forgotten or "repressed" memories.
Reality: "Psychiatrists are advised to avoid engaging in any 'memory recovery techniques' which are based upon the expectation of past sexual abuse of which the patient has no memory. Such 'memory recovery techniques' may include drug-mediated interviews, hypnosis, regression therapies, guided imagery, 'body memories', literal dream interpretation and journaling. There is no evidence that the use of consciousness-altering techniques, such as drug-mediated interviews or hypnosis, can reveal or accurately elaborate factual information about any past experiences including childhood sexual abuse. Techniques of regression therapy including 'age regression' and hypnotic regression are of unproven effectiveness."
Myth: A therapist could never suggest a false memory without intending to.
Reality: "Doctors should be aware that patients are susceptible to subtle suggestions and reinforcements whether these communications are intended or unintended."
Myth: The emotional intensity of "recovered memories" is evidence for their historical accuracy.
Reality: "Memories, however emotionally intense and significant to the individual, do not necessarily reflect actual events."
Myth: The intensity of a person's belief in their memories is evidence for their historical accuracy.
Reality: "The evidence shows that memories of events which did not in fact occur may develop and be held with total conviction."
Myth: "Age regression," with or without the use of hypnosis, enables people to accurately relive past events as they happened.
Reality: "It is the consensus of the Panel that hypnotic age regression is the subjective reliving of earlier experiences as though they were real--which does not necessarily replicate earlier events."
Myth: False memories only develop in people who are in one-on-one or group therapy or who undergo hypnosis.
Reality: "[I]t is important to emphasise that distortion of memory may occur in any therapeutic situation."
"Leslie Hannegan provides an example of a self-made repressed memory survivor who convinced herself, largely without a therapist's assistance, that her father had committed incest on her. She read Christian Survivor self-help books and interpreted sleep paralysis and panic-induced choking as evidence of returning memories. Later, Hannegan promptly dumped a therapist who expressed skepticism about whether her father had really committed these acts."
Myth: "Sure, medicines and surgery can kill people, but a therapist could never hurt someone just by talking to them."
Reality: Bad therapy kills. More frequently, it fails to address a person's real problems, wastes their time, money, and emotional energy on ineffective, counterproductive, and dangerous techniques, breeds dependency, disrupts a person's relationships with trusted others in their lives, and drives a person into depression or suicide attempts. If you don't think irresponsible or incompetent therapy can be dangerous, read the retractor and family stories on this site. Then, read Beware the Talking Cure by Terence Campbell, Ph.D. for more examples of tragedies of therapeutic incompetence and irresponsibility.
Myth: Therapists can interpret the meaning of dreams.
Reality: "There is no evidence that dreams are a 'royal road' to historical accuracy and interpretations usually reflect the training and personal convictions of the therapist. It is frequently observed that patients dream to fit the theoretical model of their therapist. Since dreams are generally agreed to contain a residue of the day's events, it is at least plausible that, if the day is spent in an attempt to prove or disprove previous sexual abuse, one's dreams may come to reflect that preoccupation."
"In formulating their symbolic interpretations, analytic therapists do not rely on any body of scientific research to verify them; such research simply does not exist. More than anything else, symbolic interpretations reflect the personal idiosyncrasies of the therapists who indulge in them. Ten different analytic therapists could make ten different interpretations of the same dream, thought or fantasy."
Myth: It's the unlicensed therapists who are causing all the problems.
Reality: This is a self-serving rationalization promoted by psychiatrists and psychologists who don't wish to acknowledge the damage that their own colleagues are doing, and it's completely false. Licensed psychiatrists and psychologists have led the way in spreading the scientifically groundless misinformation upon which the memory recovery movement is founded and in rushing those misconceptions into practice in the therapy room without prior testing for safety, effectiveness, and validity. For well-documented examples, see the newspaper articles on this site. The scandal is not that unlicensed therapists use dangerous, irresponsible techniques; one would expect that. The scandal is that licensed therapists often use exactly the same techniques, and that this situation is tacitly condoned by the failure of professional licensing boards to act!
Myth: Every person has an 'inner child.'
Reality: "As a result of its relentless promotion through books, lectures, and tapes, the 'inner child' is now a fact of life to countless Americans. They talk to it, write about it, interpret its dreams, indulge it in carefully constructed fantasies, and most of all, they try to fix it. 'Healing the inner child within' has become the goal of therapists across the country, and a handy, highly publicized framework from which to launch their clinical practices and workshops. In the past month alone, I have received brochures advertising workshops entitled 'Healing the Child Within,' 'Learning to Nurture Your Inner Child,' and 'A Healing Workshop for Adult Children of Affluent Parents.' The trauma of wealth?
So, what's the problem? There is no inner child! It is a metaphor, a representation, a suggested way of thinking about your experience; it is not the experience itself. But, for some people, the suggestion has transcended mere metaphor and become a reality. When I have publicly discussed it as an illusion, I've seen these people become angry and defensive, as if I've just called into question the legitimacy of one of their most precious beliefs. To be truthful, I have. Isn't it interesting, though, how so arbitrary a perspective can assume such personal importance and intensity?"
Myth: Studies of the hippocampus (a part of the brain) show physical evidence for the theory of massive repression and later recovery of memories.
Reality: "The business about the branches that connect neurons in the hippocampus shriveling up from stress and later recovering has provided an irresistible metaphor to some folks who believe in 'recovered memory.' The term describes a controversial scenario in which victims of horrendous traumas utterly repress all memory of the experience, only to recover it years or decades later. Lives have been destroyed over this incendiary issue-- either those of the trauma victims (in one interpretation), left to wait decades for justice because of the workings of memory, or, in the counterview, those of the victims of false accusations, consumed in this season's witch-hunt. Civil war has nearly broken out among neuropsychologists over this issue, so let me tread lightly here--I will simply say that I have seen no scientific evidence for how such recovered memories might work, no supported cases of it documented to be legitimate in a way that should satisfy a rigorous scientist, and plenty of scientific explanations for why various claims have not been legitimate."
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Postado originalmente por afsalagoas
Não entendi bem o ponto sem conotação religiosa.
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