...Recovering memories after a traumatic experience is a controversial issue that researchers study for a long time and there are opposite opinions on that matter. Some psychologists believe that after having an appalling experience as children, the mind in order to protect us repress these memories and we can only recover them in older age. Others though oppose to this opinion that such experiences can never be forgotten. One question that arises is that if repressed memories can be recovered or are they after years false memories. Having this in mind Richard J. McNally and his colleagues have contacted many studies, in order to examine which are the mechanisms that may be responsible for people to either repress and recover memories of trauma or create false memories of trauma. For their studies they used four groups of women. The first was the “repressed memory” group. In this group, the subjects were women that they thought they had been sexual abused as children but had no memories of it, just some indications. The second group was the “recovered-memory” group. In this group, women said that even though there was a long period of time that they had not thought about their abuse they...
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...revealed about how the different areas of the human brain support cognitive function. I will also discuss the characteristics of primary memory, the process of memory from perception and retrieval and the unreliability of memory retrieval. Phineas Gage Phineas gage is known as one of the most famous documented cases of brain injury. This brain injury occurred on September 13th, 1848 while Gage was working on the railroad excavating rocks with a tampering rod in the State of Vermont. An explosion occurred on the job-site that caused a tampering rod propelled at an extremely high speed to enter and penetrate Gage’s skull. This tampering rod entered his skull under his left cheek bone and exited through the top of his head; it was later recovered with bits of brain matter and blood on it. The amazing thing is that throughout this horrific accident, Mr. Gage never lost consciousness, in fact, by January of the following year; he had started to live a normal life. However, it was noted that around this time, Mr. Gage was considered to be suffering from some major changes in his personality. What Phineas Gage’s Accident Reveals about Cognitive Functions “Cognition refers to the higher order functions that are needed for learning and interacting with a person's environment. Each human brain is capable of multiple cognitive functions, such as memory, attention, executive functions and language. Each of the cognitive brain functions is highly interconnected, with an exchange of information...
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...In this article Carla Clark explained that this is one area that we have no solid proof that it exist, at the same time, we cannot totally denial it. The reason for this is that some memory resurface are upheld in the court of law, while some are not. With is kind of situation, there will be most likely events that innocent people may be jailed and abusers let go freely. Scientists and researchers are working very seriously to get to the root of this matter. Repressed memories, what is it? Fact or fiction? Hypothesis According to this article, repressed memories is one of the ways individuals cope with traumatic conditions, by pushing them away so as to enable the child to live freely with whom they depend on for survival. The American...
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...193.30 In dealing with trauma, people have had different perceptions of trying to handle their situation. Some people think that they tend to face things as it is. It’s as if they are boldly charging into a hurricane of feelings and memories without anything shielding them or holding them down to the ground. Mostly, these people think of things as if they just want to get things over with. Treating memories as if it’s an object, people makes the most out of memories and then simply throws it away as if it’s something useless or dilapidated. Others try to suppress whatever memory they kept as if burying a time capsule, in a place they seldom go to, hoping that the time capsule won’t resurface by itself as time passes by. Contrary to what people usually think, memory and trauma are not objects that can be disposed; memory and trauma are things that stick to us, become dormant and subtly resurfaces in different ways. From the material, ”Remembering, Repeating and Working Through,” we see concepts the repeating and working through as ways of dealing remembering memories, especially trauma. Diving into the paper, just like familiarizing one’s self with a map, it’s best to discuss the terms that are going to be the main points before using it again and again in the paper. Repression is the conscious (or unconscious) suppression of a memory. In simpler terms, we try to hide memories, bury it and try to seal it mostly because the memory being hid is a trauma that we experienced. Resistance...
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...1) Explicit memory is a memory that can be intentionally and consciously remembered. With implicit memory, is a functional form of memory that cannot be consciously recalled. 2) An example of explicit memory would be learning a new topic in school and reciting the information the next day. An example of implicit memory is hearing and recognizing a song and singing it. 3) An example of context dependent memory is when you lose an item and recall where you left it. 4) By characterizing good feelings with studying is a good way of helping to recall the information, for example someone who likes chocolate, could eat It while they study in turn helping them recall the information. 5) An example of proactive interference would be someone getting...
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...Survivors of war often suffer from post-war trauma, and this “unworked” pain is transmitted to second generation survivors. Author David Bergen, in the novel, The Time In Between depicts this viscous cycle through the relationship between the protagonists, Charles and Ada Boatman. After his experience in the Vietnam War, Charles fails to put his past behind him, which persistently haunts him in the form of guilt and shame throughout the novel. This has a negative influence on Ada, Charles daughter, who is exposed to intergenerational trauma via him. Charles is unable to fulfill an “ideal” father-figure role towards his children; thus, Ada takes on the role of a caretaker within the family. A role reversal is evident in Ada and Charles relationship;...
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...Amnesia is a defect in memory caused by brain damage, disease, or psychological trauma. Amnesia can also be caused temporarily by the use of various sedatives and hypnotic drugs. The memory can be either wholly or partially lost due to the extent of damage that was caused. There are two main types of amnesia: retrograde amnesia and anterograde amnesia. Retrograde amnesia is the inability to retrieve information that was acquired before a particular date, usually the date of an accident or operation. In some cases the memory loss can extend back decades, while in others the person may lose only a few months of memory. Anterograde amnesia is the inability to transfer new information from the short-term storage into the long-term storage. People with this type of amnesia cannot remember things for long periods of time. These two types are not mutually exclusive. Both can occur within a patient at one time. Research has shown that when areas of the diencephalon are damaged, amnesia can occur. Recent studies have also shown a correlation between deficiency of RbAp48 protein and memory loss. Scientists were able to find that mice with damaged memory have a lower level of RbAp48 protein compared to normal, healthy mice. In people suffering with amnesia, the ability to recall immediate information is still retained, and they may still be able to form new memories. However, a severe reduction in the ability to learn new material and retrieve old information can be observed. Many...
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...A Literature Review: Memory Distortions, Repressed Memories, and Autobiographical Memory Psych. 560 June 17, 2013 Prof. Pitt A Literature Review: Memory Distortions, Repressed Memories, and Autobiographical Memory Memory helps to build and shape you into the person that you have become. It allows you to identify people, places that you have been, what things are, when things are supposed to happen or have happened, and it also allows you to piece knowledge together so that you can make perceptions or assumptions as to why things happen the way they do. Your short term memory helps you to recollect things in your present day life while your long term memory stores things for retrieval at a later time. Although you rely on your memory to recount information day to day, there are also instances in which your memory denies retrieval in the way that it was stored or retrieve the information just as you stored it. Memory distortions, repressed, memories, and autobiographical memory each describe different ways in which your memory responds when you try to recall the information. “Memory distortion refers to a memory report that differs from what actually occurred” (Bernstein & Loftus, 2008). Repressed memories occur when traumatic events are unconsciously recorded in the mind as a defense mechanism to avoid anxiety or other issues that might arise from the occasion. Autobiographical memory suggests that a person retains and retrieves information...
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...being conducted in reference to the memory of childhood abuse. Do repressed memories actually surface at some point in time? That is the question that the researchers are addressing in this article. The research is stated as being hard to discuss because it’s not a practice to subject a victim of abuse to tests to uncover the memories. It could prove to be quite traumatic. So researchers are trying to find other ways to develop their theory. It is stated that children understand and respond to trauma very different than adults. Trauma in childhood is stated to possibly lead to problems with memory storage and retrieval processes. The first sort of analysis that is discussed is that of disassociation. Disassociation means the memory is currently not available or remembered but may later be recalled. Disassociation is stated to be a way that the victims actually protect themselves from the actual pain of the memory. The consensus on sexual abuse is that most remember all or part of it but that the victims generally don’t admit to it and definitely don’t understand it. That is understandable. No child should be expected to be able to digest or fully understand why this type of awful act was done to them. It is often thought that children construct pseudo-memories, or false memories, for these horrid events. As the controversy unfolds in helping members of the psychological community understand what causes these types of memory issues, it has been determined that...
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...Child Sexual Abuse Versus False Memory Syndrome People can experience sexual abuse memories from their childhood. These individuals believe that they went through such a traumatic experience of this kind. By remembering how these events occurred in details, these memories are truly experienced by all of these individuals’ emotions and beliefs. Research shows than child sexual abuse memories can occur in the form of repressed childhood experience and/or in the form of False Memory Syndrome. Personally, I identify both of these matters as important psychological and social problems. This is due to the fact that too many innocent children go through sexual abuse by their relatives. With today’s technology, societies are still not able to recognize it, prevent it, and threat it accurately in the timely matter. For instance, those sexual abused traumas cannot be identified easily because of the child emotional bounding to their loved ones. These facts cause children to repress their unacceptable emotional and physical memories into their unconscious mind, which increases the likelihood to develop other psychological disorders. On the other hand, people are mistreated by their therapists and develop False Memory Syndrome. I considered this a serious psychological and social problem. Due to that fact, many professional workers use their educational advantage against individuals who in the need for medical help. These help seeking people’s health and well-beings are highly...
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... Symptoms, Biological, Mental. The symptoms of PTSD are …. The biological symptoms of PTSD are. One of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder is the constant feeling of danger. The symptoms are increased anxiety, experiencing the event again through flashbacks or nightmares. Another symptom is avoidance of things that remind you of the event, being unable to remember some parts of the event, and also loss of interest and feeling detached from others. Memories of the event will be intrusive. The physical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are dizziness, shortness of breath also possibly chronic pain and tightness in the chest. A common symptom is a feeling of intense fear. Other symptoms are persistent depressive feelings and dissociation. This disorder often coexists with anxiety or eating disorders, or depression. In the case study Andy’s initial symptoms after the event were distress and feeling upset. Then 17 years later when faced with...
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...PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH Caitie Pearce Q1. Describe the main assumptions of the psychodynamic Assumption One: The personality is comprised of three parts The id, or ‘pleasure principle’, is with us since birth. According to Freud, a new born baby is completely selfish. Its main priority is to survive. It has no room for good or bad, only pleasure or pain. Without the id, babies wouldn’t cry when they were hungry or needed attention, and people wouldn’t do things purely for enjoyment The ego, or ‘reality principle’, appears around the age of three. Children become aware of the feelings of those around them and that they can’t always have their own way. The ego is the scales of the personality; it balances the id’s need for immediate satisfaction with the expectations of society, and the superego’s need to be moral with the id’s need for pleasure. The superego, or ‘morality principle’, develops around age five. The child internalises their parents sense of morality. The superego is also responsible for the ‘ideal self’. “The ideal self (or ego-ideal) is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be, and represents career aspirations, how to treat other people, and how to behave as a member of society.” (McLeod, 2008) When a person acts in accordance with their ideal self, the superego can reward them with a feeling of pride. However, if one falls short of this expectation by giving into the demands of the id, they may experience feelings of guilt for failing. If there’s an imbalance...
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...and later on, agencies as well. The noun describes the "locality" that, according to the first topography, is set against the preconscious-conscious system. Both the adjective and the noun imply that psychical life is in conflict (the dynamic point of view); that memory exists without interest, that the energetics, indeed, the structure of psychic processes is determined, on the whole, beyond consciousness (the economic point of view); and that finally inaccessibility to consciousness is undeniable (the descriptive point of view). Freud transformed philosophical and psychiatric tradition with these ideas and his refinement of the terms (Hartmann, 1931; Whithe, 1961). When he advanced the theory of repression and the psychoneurosis of defense in 1894, Freud managed without the word unconscious. Thus ideas (or representations) that were intolerable, irreconcilable, repressed, durable, and pathogenic were beyond association, forgotten, outside of consciousness. Freud then made use of the term unconscious three times in Studies on Hysteria and called for research: "The ideas which are derived from the greatest depth and which form the nucleus of the pathogenic organization are also those which are acknowledged as memories by the patient with greatest difficulty. Even when [. . .] the patients themselves accept the fact that they thought this or that, they often add: 'But I can't remember having thought it.' It is easy to come to terms with them by telling them that the thoughts were...
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...particular moment, your present perceptions, memories, thoughts, fantasies, feelings, what have you. Working closely with the conscious mind is what Freud called the preconscious, what we might today call "available memory:" anything that can easily be made conscious, the memories you are not at the moment thinking about but can readily bring to mind. Freud suggested that these are the smallest parts! The largest part by far is the unconscious. It includes all the things that are not easily available to awareness, including many things that have their origins there, such as our drives or instincts, and things that are put there because we can't bear to look at them, such as the memories and emotions associated with trauma. According to Freud, the unconscious is the source of our motivations, whether they are simple desires for food or sex, neurotic compulsions, or the motives of an artist or scientist. And yet, we are often driven to deny or resist becoming conscious of these motives, and they are often available to us only in disguised form. We will come back to this. The Libido, or Psychic Energy, in Freud David B. Stevenson '96, Brown University Freud conceived of the mind as having only a fixed amount of psychic energy, or libido. Though the word libido has since acquired overt sexual implications, in Freud's theory it stood for all psychic energy. This energy fueled the thought processes, perception, imagination, memory, and sexual urges. In Freud's theory, the...
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...can be filled with joyful emotions or frightening imagery, focused and understandable or unclear and confusing. Why do we dream? What purpose do dreams serve? While many theories have been proposed, no single consensus has emerged. Ernest Hoffman, suggests that, a possible (though certainly not proven) function of a dream to be weaving new material into the memory system in a way that both reduces emotional arousal and is adaptive in helping us cope with further trauma or stressful events. Psychoanalytic theory of dreams: Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams suggested that dreams were representation of unconscious desires, thoughts and motivations. Dreams allows us to be what we cannot be, and say what we cannot say in our daily life. According to Freud’s psychoanalytic view of personality, people are driven by aggressive and sexual instincts that are repressed from conscious awareness. While these thoughts are not consciously expressed. He suggests that they find their way into our awareness via dreams. In his famous book ‘The Interpretation of Dreams’ Freud wrote that dreams are disguised fulfillments of repressed wishes. He also describes two different components of dreams: Manifest content and latent content. Manifest is made up of actual image, thoughts and content contained within the dream, while the latent content represent the hidden psychological meaning of the dream. Activation- Synthesis Model of dreaming: According to this theory, circuits in the brain...
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