Recovering memories of childhood abuse.

In recent years, the explosion of reports of childhood abuse in men and women has raised questions about the nature of memory for traumatic events, the occurrence of amnesia for childhood abuse, and the validity and accuracy of recovered memories. According to researchers most people who were sexually abused as children remember all or part of what happened to them although they may not fully understand or disclose it. However, others argue that repression and dissociation is far from clear, their use has become idiosyncratic, metaphoric, and arbitrary.
Many clinicians accept recovered memories of childhood abuse as essentially valid reports of early experiences, and clinical work with recovered memories has proved to be useful in some patients. Recently, however, a number of investigators have questioned the validity of recovered memory of childhood. A heated debate has emerged regarding therapists' role in the retrieval of previously unremembered memories of childhood abuse. However, despite evidence that memory content can be influenced by suggestion, emotional arousal, and personal meaning, the bulk of memory research actually supports the accuracy of memory for the central components of significant events. Research evidence shows that it is not for people who were sexually abused in childhood to experience amnesia and delayed recall for the abuse. And according to this article has shown that over time memory for events can be changed or reinterpreted in such a way as to make the memory more consistent with the person's present knowledge and/or expectations. According to the theory's proponents, repressed memories may sometimes be recovered years or decades after the event, most often spontaneously, triggered by a particular smell, taste, or other identifier related to the lost memory, or via suggestion during psychotherapy. Yet, conclusive studies cannot determine who is right or who is wrong.