For this assignment, listen to the Act 1 of the This American Life episode #215 called As An Expert. If you have a smartphone or tablet, the easiest way to listen to this, and all the other radio shows for the class, is to download the This American Life app. Once you have the app you can quickly find shows (by title or episode number) and listen right then and there. You can also go to the websitewww.thisamericanlife.org and search on episode number. I've found it for you here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/215/ask-an-expert click on launch player and listen to the show.
How did this episode make you feel? According to what you know about scientific aspects of memory as presented in your textbook, are there elements of recovered memory that make sense or that you think might have some validity? What questions do you still have about recovered memory or the recovered memory movement (from the perspective of practitioners using it or legal scholars trying to fight it)?
Provide the psychology terms you used in your response at the bottom of your comment.
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This piece was really interesting to me. I’ve always been under the impression that therapists can unconditionally and without exception fix any emotional or mental issue a person has. This, though a childish and naïve point of view, is a hopeful one. This segment, however, opened my eyes a little bit to the cruel reality of the world. This was a fascinating segment, not only because of the revelation it brought to me about all this new information, but also because This American Life attempted to lessen biases by showing the opinions of therapists and victims of this phenomenon both.
This episode made me feel a little silly, for having believed what I had previously believed about therapists, but what it really made me feel was simply sadness, and perhaps a little anger. The anger stemmed from Beth’s therapists prodding to a point that Beth created terrible memories about her own childhood, memories that were indisputably horrific and fabricated. It made me feel sad due to the sheer severity of the repercussions of this mistake. Not only did Beth lose touch with her family, she lost her job, lots of weight, and her sense of self. Her parents lost credibility, friends, and jobs. The repercussions rippled for a long time, and it’s disappointing and frustrating that this occurred due simply to the overzealous encouragement of one woman.
The psychological side of this segment is based off of repressed memories. Though repression, as stated by the textbook and the radio segment, is entirely possible, it is rare, and for a person to use odd dreams to configure this idea of false trauma is maddening. For those people who actually do recover memories, it brings to mind the question: are they really better off this way? I mean, sure, there may be some “healing” repercussions, but is the pain brought on by remembering these terrible repressed memories worth the healing that may occur from talking about them? No matter the validity of these memories, is it worth the emotional or familial pain and repercussions that uncovering would cause? I suppose it depends on the memory and the specific conditions, but the situation brings up some serious questions that should be addressed at all costs.
I suppose if I had any questions regarding how to fight false repressed memories, I would ask: How can you tell if the memories or discussions with patients are based off of real events? And if it is determined that these events are real, how can one even begin to heal? I would ask these because I think they bring up not only practical but also important points. If this is such a common occurrence, how on earth do you stop it? If psychologists can’t be easily policed for correct methods, and if it is impossible to test the validity of clients’ statements, then how is anyone to know how to solve this perpetual issue? And t will be perpetual if no one stands up and make a point to stop it.
therapists
biases
victim
memories
psychological
repressed
trauma
validity
The further into this episode that I listened the more I hurt for the families. I found myself feeling very sad as I heard about all of the things that these patients were “remembering” and how those events shaped how the families lived the rest of their lives. If someone did not know the importance of watching what they say on a day to day basis this episode gives countless examples of how words can hurt and damage relationships. I was happy that the therapist that was interviewed in the episode did come out and explain her line of thinking and why she did the things she did. It was very courageous of her to be willing to share that she was wrong and actively go to each of her patients to ask for forgiveness. It was also extremely mind changing for me to think that a lot of the times scientists and people in general take information as fact and not theory. This leads to situations like this which are very detrimental. This will impact how I look at information in the future. This episode exposed to me that a lot of the memories that I remember may not be completely accurate. I am not as accurate in my recollection of things as I might think I am.
This episode gave a good example of how recovered memory fails us. To me there may be many instances in which recovered memories fail us and are not accurate or correct. As witnessed through the stories in the episode, these leave deep scars that take a long time to heal. There are areas of recovered memory that I believe that make sense, however, these ideas are hard to test based on the complexity of how each person stores memories and how each memory affects a person. For example, I believe that the idea of the special memory mechanism makes a lot of sense and has many experiments backing it, however, how do we know if a memory uses this mechanism to be stored in long-term memory? This makes it increasingly difficult to determine which memories are accurate and which are not. The mechanism of emotional memory and special emotional memory mechanisms also make sense along the lines of recovered memory and how memories stored by these mechanisms have a great chance of being recovered accurately than those stored by other means.
One of the most confusing parts of this episode was the idea of how practitioners really know how to decipher a persons recovered memories. It makes sense that situations that are totally out there and do not make any sense in context could be ruled out but what about the situations that come closer to real life? How do scientists decipher these memories? Along those lines is there any way for scientists to determine which mechanism a memory was stored by? Overall, this chapter and episode were extremely enlightening along with being increasingly confusing. The idea of recovered memory and memory in general is extremely complex and something scientists are still trying to figure out piece by piece.
Vocabulary: memory, recovered memory, special memory mechanism, emotional memory mechanism, special emotional memory mechanism
At the beginning of this episode, I was somewhat convinced that memories do get repressed and can get brought back up through therapy. I suppose that this comes through some of the reading in the textbook. We read about motivated forgetting in the textbook where if someone tries hard enough, they can completely forget that an event ever happened. Additionally, in past chapters we had discussed Freud and his psychoanalytic theory and his discussion about the unconscious mind. I remembered reading about how things get buried so deeply that they are not remembered but can often present themselves in dreams. This is what Beth’s dream about her father chasing her with bears reminded me of. I would imagine that part of the recovered memory therapy is based off of some of Freud’s work. I think that the text book doesn’t do that great of job at emphasizing the extreme incredibility of Freud’s work which led to me thinking that some of this could be true.
However, as the episode went on, I realized that the recovered memory therapy is almost 100% crap. The episode pointed out that memories are extremely susceptible to suggestion and that hypnosis and guided imagery can plant suggestions in a patient’s mind even with just asking them to think about a certain thing. In Beth’s case, her therapist suggested new meanings behind her childhood memories that made her question if what she believed was really what happened. The effects of this suggestion are extreme and very long lasting. The episode gave great and terrible examples of people believing that they were sexually abused (like Beth), witnessed murders, or were subject to satanic rituals. In my opinion, the fact that hundreds of people just happened to have horrible repressed memories should have been a warning sign to psychologists that perhaps these were not real memories. However, this didn’t occur to psychologist like Linda until far after they had already done incredible damage to their patients’ lives.
This episode made me very sad and upset over all the trouble that these people were put through. They went into therapy to resolve one issue in their lives and ended up being thrown into a far worse situation. Aside from being sad for Beth and others like her who ended up losing their close relationships with loved ones and harming their loved ones’ lives as well, I was very scared and alarmed. The idea that memories can be manipulated so easily and so drastically is something that really does terrify me. Because memories are so fragmented and so vague, I began to wonder whether or not the memories that I have are completely accurate. Over the years the suggestions of my parents, viewing pictures, or just forgetting specific details could have drastically changed them from what they originally were. This definitely makes me not want to be a therapist. I would not be able to handle the extreme pressure that comes with being responsible for a patient’s mind and memories.
Vocabulary: motivated forgiving, psychoanalytic theory, unconscious mind, dream, recovered memory, memory
This episode made me really sad. I have a really good relationship with my parents, and I was raised in a really great home. Beth’s story really hit home with me, because her family sounds a lot like mine. When she was describing how horrifying it was to think that these things really happened to her, it made me really sad because I imagined myself doing the same thing. I didn’t understand how this could happen, but hearing how persuasive the therapist was, I can see how Beth eventually just gave in. The part about her parent’s hearings made me really sad, and really angry. This therapist made her think those things, and I know it wasn’t the therapist’s fault, but it still made me angry. I don’t really understand how someone could believe that this pattern of thinking and method of therapy would be okay to do to someone, and that is something I would like to ask the practitioners using it. I am very glad that there are people fighting this awful practice. This episode is from 2002, and I would like to know if this is still going on.
After reading the chapter, I really understand how this could happen. It reminds me of the section on eyewitnesses exposed to new information when asked about what they remember. This information is often false, called misinformation, but people confuse it with their past memories and let it influence them. The practitioners can also cause source misattributions, because they tell their patients that certain behaviors are indicative of a past abuse or traumatic event. Patients could forget where this idea came from, and think that it is true and really happened to them. Practitioners tell their patients that these memories have been repressed because they were too painful, but in reality they never happened in the first place.
Terms: memory, misinformation, source misattributions, repression
I found this episode heartbreaking. I had a wonderful childhood, and I’m very close with my family. It would kill me if something like this happened to me, and ruined all of that. Not only did it completely change Beth’s life, it ruined her father’s as well. It took his family, his career, everything away from him. I think the recovered memory might make sense in the case of semantic coding. For example, a child may feel neglected by their parent when the parent doesn’t listen to a story they’re telling. Although they may not remember it when they grow up, that lingering feeling of rejection or neglect may still remain with the individual. At a later time, when pushed to remember where this emotion comes from, they may simply remember the details (or the whole situation) incorrectly, simply because they remember the meaning on the situation based on semantic coding.
I think it can be helpful to dig up repressed memories to find answers for certain individuals, but only by a benevolent professional who is aware of the possible consequences and who is willing and able to protect their patient from said consequences. I think it should be made illegal to purposely force, push or nudge a patient into “recalling” or fabricating memories. How would it be regulated? I don’t know, especially if the patient is not aware of this phenomenon, as many are not. (Side note: I was so angry that a professional would exercise this kind of practice on an unsuspecting patient. It really made me question how easily I would trust any old psychologist.) Perhaps these recovered memories, real or not, could cause more harm than good, depending on the patient and the situation.
Terms: semantic coding, repression
Listening to this episode brought about a lot of emotions within me. Those of disgust, heartache, anger, and despair. It deeply trouble me to know that the people, therapists and psychologists, who are charged with the ability to possibly make our lives better were instead single-handedly ruining countless numbers of lives. We trust these people because we believe them to be professionals and should know what is best, and therefore fall subject to horrible mistakes such as the recovered memory movement. In the professionals’ defense, many, such as Linda, were extremely ignorant to the fact that they were in fact doing anything wrong. This does not take away, however, from the horrible mental and emotional impacts that there wrongdoings had on many people, such as Beth. I cried when Beth cried, I felt guilt and remorse when Linda did, I felt despair and hopelessness when Beth’s dad did. This episode had a great impact on me but it also was very eye-opening and extremely informative.
According to what I have read in the textbook, as well as information presented in the episode, I still find it very unlikely that the idea of recovering “repressed” memories is a valid concept. While repression of certain memories can occur, as suggested by Freud, the manner in which these memories are recovered, in the practice of the recovered memory movement, strongly suggests that these memories are highly unlikely to be true. In the recovery memory movement, many of the memories that were “uncovered” were under high suggestion from the patient’s therapist. This, as is explained in the book, can lead to exposure to misinformation and therefore distorted or completely newly manufactured memories. As was in Beth’s case, as she talked about her childhood, her therapist gave her lots of suggestions of possible events, which could then cause Beth to mold these suggestions into her actual memories to then create new memories that in fact aren’t even true. Beth also got exposure to misinformation through the books she was assigned to read. From these stories, she adopted some scenarios and pieces of information and used them to inadvertently change her own memories. While I’m using Beth as a specific example, this occurred all throughout the recovered memory movement and caused a countless number of people to also change their memories based of suggestions and exposure to misinformation by their own therapists. Because of the vast amount of information and research that supports that memories can easily be altered from exposure to misinformation I do not believe that there is any validity in the idea of the recovered memory movement. However, when it comes to repressed memories in general, I do believe that repressing embarrassing or traumatic events is possible, though as explained in the episode, extremely rare. I believe this simply because there is so little research to back up these claims.
One big question I have about the recovered memory movement is simply how it started in the first place. Who decided that there are enough people with repressed memories that we need to train therapists and professionals on how to recover these memories? It seems like such a big leap to take, and such a radical idea, that it boggles me how it could have come about in the first place. This then directly relates to my question as to how practitioners can still view this as a legitimate form of treatment. It seems to me that there is much more evidence against it being effective, as opposed to it being useful, that modern practice of this idea should be dissolved.
Terms: Memory, repression, exposure to misinformation, suggestion
I thought this episode was very weird. It sounded too fake, almost like a scam; hint at a possible problem and have the client return week after week in order to make some easy money. When Beth mentioned the second time she went to the therapist, she talked about her legitimate problem for about half the time and was explaining the weird dream she had and the way she described the therapist’s response made me feel like she was trying to lead her to come back for another meeting even though Beth felt good and like she didn’t need another one.
It also felt very obvious (at least from the way it was presented to me) that the therapist was putting words into their clients mouth. I was waiting for a lawyer to stand up and yell “Objection! The therapist is leading the client!” I was also very surprised that the therapist who was being interviewed was learning about a technique that had not been tested. And also, that the seminar she learned it from never thought to mention that fact; it sounded very unprofessional and unsafe.
I remember reading in the textbook about Freud’s theory of repression and reading that the “…research has failed to demonstrate consistently that people repress unpleasant events.” And when I read that, I was surprised because it’s one of those things you hear a lot about, even if you aren’t a psychologist; hearing it on a T.V. show or in a movie, or reading about it in a book.
Looking back at the scientific elements of memory in the textbook, I’m even more surprised that these recovered memory techniques weren’t discontinued sooner. The section about exposure to misinformation talked about how easy it was to manipulate the memory of a test subject just by changing a single word.
The textbook also listed three theories of forgetting: Decay, interference, and motivated forgetting. The events mentioned in the podcast would not be the type of memory that would be forgotten simply by decay; besides the alleged “repeated” happenings of such events, those events would be too big to simply forget. With the Interference theory, I believe that the actions preceding the event or after event would only support this type of memory even more. Finally, the motivated forgetting theory suggests that trying to forget something will lead to eventually forgetting it. Unfortunately, motivated forgetting seems to only work passively – if you actively try to forget a memory, you only think about it and rehears it more and more further keeping it in your memory.
Repression
Forgetting
Decay theory
Interference theory
Recovered Memory seems like a touchy subject. The human mind is a very malleable thing and putting memories into people’s heads seems all too easy. While I’m sure there have been cases where actually memories could be retrieved from the deepest parts of the mind where they had pretty much been forgotten, it seems like more often than not, the events being “remembered” are just traumatizing false memories. What I am curious about is how, in those certain cases where the memories recovered are true, we could actually KNOW that they are true. It seems like the fact that our brain can formulate so much false information takes away from ANY validity that recovered memories might have. There is just too much of a chance that parts of them aren’t true to actually trust any recovered memory. Also if memories are so easily altered than how can we trust any eye witness testimonial in court? Except in cases where the person personally knows the person they saw commit a crime then how do we know that the description of the criminal is accurate at all? This homework assignment worries me a little thinking about all of the things I could possibly be incorrectly remembering or thinking about things I remember that might not have actually happened at all.
Recovered Memory, retrieved, remembered, traumatizing,
The more I listened to this podcast, the more frightened I became. Hearing the stories made me question my own memory which led to slight panic. I can’t imagine being tricked into creating horrific memories and being told that they are real, it is almost as if I were to create monsters in my mind that are supposed to be fake but others believe are real. It obviously isn’t the patient’s fault but I don’t want to believe that the therapist, someone who you can supposedly trust, can betray their patients. The experiences that they talked about were truly terrible and not only did I feel immediate heartache for those who had this experience but I felt hatred toward those who did this to innocent, normal people. The therapists during this time kept pushing their patients into believing something that just wasn’t there, thinking that they were helping but little did they know they were ruining their lives. Perhaps the most sickening thing is that they made their patients accuse their family members of something that they didn’t even do. It makes me wonder about its effectiveness in court today.
Memory is a tricky subject one its own. I never thought about this type of problem in recalled memory therapy occurring but now it makes me not want to ever have to go and talk to a therapist. It is exactly these types of stories that make me paranoid and question the trust of professionals. Not only this but this podcast surely made me think about the validity of my own memory. What if I created a memory in my head and then ten years later I find out it isn’t true?
Vocabulary: Memory, recalled-memory therapy
Most of the psychology that I have heard about occuring more often than anything is cognitive awareness therapy. Therapy is usually suggested by a doctor or parents who are concerned for the child/patient that they are worried for. While this episode was very interesting to me because I could understand a lot of what was going on. My impression of psychologists and therapists is that they can not fully fix a person who has any emotional or mental issue, they can just help them and help treat them so that they can control their problem because this is something this person has to live with for the rest of their life. This segment was heartbreaking to me, I had not actually learned too much about recovered memory therapy before this and just listening to this was sad.
Therapy is used for people who act out or people that are wanting help in getting control of their life. It should be used to help somebody and this just showed that these psychologists do not understand dreams just like a regular person does not. Beth’s psychologist should not have said that this is exactly what it is, this psychologist should have said, “well it could mean this. . . “ Not everybody is abused and these psychologists just grouped these people together, these people put their trust in you and if you put them in a hypnotic state and probe them with questions literally leading them makes this ridiculous. What these psychologists did was horrible and gives repercussions not only to the patient but to their families as well. I find the fact that Beth’s psychologist decided to force her to sign over a document saying that she was molested as a child and have it sent to the police appalling. Her psychologist has no right to do that unless Beth was still under the age of 18 which from what it sounds like she was not. It is within Beth’s right to do that, but all her psychologist is supposed to do is listen to her and talk to her about her problems, unless she is having thoughts of suicide.
Truthfully I do not think psychologist looking for repressed memories have any validity. I think this has more to do with these psychologists leading these patients wherever they want to take them and then making them believe that yes this is what you said and it’s true. The fact that Beth’s psychologist decided that she was deteriorating because of the fact that she was not trying to bring on her repressed memories when truthfully she was deteriorating because her psychologist was pushing false memories on her. This was not sound counseling, I do not believe that a psychologist or any practitioner for that matter can decipher a person’s recovered memories, at least not correctly.
How would you treat this in therapy? How can a psychologists tell if the memories that a person has had during these sessions are based on real life events? How can a person be treated for the repercussions of the false repressed memories?
Vocabulary: psychologists, therapists, patients, repressed memories, cognitive awareness therapy, hypnotic state.
After listening to this episode of This American Life and reading through some of the previous posts my classmates shared I realized that my views had some similarities, but they also greatly contrasted on a few significant points. I've always been what you would call, the "devil's advocate", because I like to argue more than one point and see all sides of a story. Even if I wholly agree with someone, I still like to offer up another view just as a "what if", which can be very frustrating (and annoying) to others.
I did feel very sad for all of the heartache that Beth, her family, and the rest of these patients and their families went through. I can't even imagine how devastating it must have been to realize that the memories that you "recovered" and led you to stray from your family, were simply untrue. I'm sure that they became very mistrusting of therapists in the future, even if they did end up forgiving Linda.
It's true, the recovered memory movement was an epidemic in the 1990s that caused catastrophic results for many families everywhere. The therapists were making suggestions to their clients which could persuade their thoughts and cause them to believe something untrue. They were given readings about horrific events and eventually began dreaming about them. They also even began to imagine themselves in place of the characters in the book. This constant and recurring exposure to misinformation resulted to distorted and in most cases, altogether new memories of events that had not happened.
The movement tore families apart and did more harm than good. Beth always remembered having a great relationship with her parents. She never remembered a time in which she felt scared of her parents or mistreated by them. She didn't understand why she was having nightmares of her father and bears chasing after her then. She decided to see a therapist about it and eventually it caused the crumbling apart of her family. Her therapist, Linda, would continually ask her, "are you sure" that nothing ever happened? It took a really long time, but Beth finally came to believe the suggestive comments of her therapist after about 18 months. She thought she could remember her father sexually abusing her and was simply devastated by the newly recovered memories. She slowly began to remover herself from her family.
I do think that Beth's story is extremely sad and must have been difficult to go through but I would like to take a look at Linda's point of view. I think that she honestly did not know the damage that she was causing these people. She thought that she was doing a great job and helping them. She had been trained that way so why should she question it? I think about it like this: In the field of athletic training and sports medicine, players who were thought to have a concussion could return to play as long as they no longer had symptoms after 15 minutes. We now know that it takes the brain cells much longer to recovery from the damage and players often sit out a week or more after receiving a concussion. These health professionals had no idea what damage they were causing. It was just a lack of research and information at the time. It is the same case with these therapists.
I don't think that these people like Beth deserved to go through everything that they did, but I also do not think it is fair to put the blame solely on her therapist. She felt extremely guilty and even spoke up about it whereas others would not. Does that not deserve any recognition at all?
Vocabulary Terms: recovered memory movement, therapist, misinformation, memories, remember, dreaming