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Spiritual Quandaries Panel: Recovered Memory Therapy
It's time for another Spiritual Quandaries panel discussion, this time on Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT).
At one time, memory researchers believed that human memory worked like a video recorder. All one had to do was to find the right tape, play it back, and relive the memories precisely as they were originally experienced. However, subsequent research showed that this model was very inaccurate. In fact, most memories are simply forgotten and cannot be recalled. Few people have real memories of events that occurred before their 3rd birthday. For those memories that are actually remembered, the mind stores only elements of the actual events and reconstruct full memories later when the memories are recalled. The act of recalling memories can change them so that at the time of the next recall, they are somewhat modified. Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT) was quite popular during the 1980s and 1990s but is now rarely used. It is a therapeutic technique based on the belief that traumatic memories of abuse -- typically sexual abuse experienced during childhood -- can be forgotten or repressed and later recovered during therapy. No matter how memories were recalled, they were believed to be accurate. Many suggestive techniques were used to reconstruct what appeared to be memories; however they are generally unrelated to real events from the past.
Our questions:
- Is ‘Recovered Memory Therapy’ a pseudo-science that perverts real memory by tainting it with the subject’s belief system(s)?
- Do you think in the 80s and 90s when this therapy was widely used that the therapist influenced their subjects? And is this the reason why so many negative memories of childhood (child sexual abuse) surfaced?
- Do you think the judicial system during this time should have treated these ‘Recovered Memory Therapy’ memory recalls as witness testimony? And were innocent family members jailed?
- Did ‘Recovered Memory Therapy’ damage its subjects?
Now, enjoy the show…
For more information email our host at [email protected], or leave us a message on our contact page via tomspod.com!
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By Sharon Ann RowlandIt's time for another Spiritual Quandaries panel discussion, this time on Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT).
At one time, memory researchers believed that human memory worked like a video recorder. All one had to do was to find the right tape, play it back, and relive the memories precisely as they were originally experienced. However, subsequent research showed that this model was very inaccurate. In fact, most memories are simply forgotten and cannot be recalled. Few people have real memories of events that occurred before their 3rd birthday. For those memories that are actually remembered, the mind stores only elements of the actual events and reconstruct full memories later when the memories are recalled. The act of recalling memories can change them so that at the time of the next recall, they are somewhat modified. Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT) was quite popular during the 1980s and 1990s but is now rarely used. It is a therapeutic technique based on the belief that traumatic memories of abuse -- typically sexual abuse experienced during childhood -- can be forgotten or repressed and later recovered during therapy. No matter how memories were recalled, they were believed to be accurate. Many suggestive techniques were used to reconstruct what appeared to be memories; however they are generally unrelated to real events from the past.
Our questions:
- Is ‘Recovered Memory Therapy’ a pseudo-science that perverts real memory by tainting it with the subject’s belief system(s)?
- Do you think in the 80s and 90s when this therapy was widely used that the therapist influenced their subjects? And is this the reason why so many negative memories of childhood (child sexual abuse) surfaced?
- Do you think the judicial system during this time should have treated these ‘Recovered Memory Therapy’ memory recalls as witness testimony? And were innocent family members jailed?
- Did ‘Recovered Memory Therapy’ damage its subjects?
Now, enjoy the show…
For more information email our host at [email protected], or leave us a message on our contact page via tomspod.com!