Repressed Memories.

Englishman

Some years ago, I visited a hypnotist in an effort to stop chewing my nails. The habit had become so ingrained that I didn't even know when I was doing it.

Well, I was a wiliing patient, and the lady hypnotist led me down into a beautiful imaginery garden, filled with flowers and birds where I could be at peace. She got me totally relaxed, and explained that she was going to see if there were any concealed anxieties that were causing me to be a plucker of my nails, which, she said, could be a sign of a repressed memory.

I attended for several weeks, by which time I had told her every fleeting thought that was taking place within my mind. She pursued all sorts of avenues, and I told her, in my dreamlike state, of how I imagined I had been chased by my grandfather when he had been annoyed with me, how I sat as a small child on my fathers lap and pulled his nose, how I enjoyed climbing into my parents bed with them on a Saturday morning.

The upshot of all of this was that the therapist told me that SHE knew what was wrong, but I had to discover the truth for myself. Great.

So, I went to see her a few more times. We talked a lot about my fathers nose. What colour was it? How long was it? Was I frightened of my fathers "nose"? Now I'm getting the picture, isn't a nose a sort of phallic object?

Why also was I being chased by my grandfather, what did he want from me? When he caught me, did he lay down on top of me? Hmm, was I a potential victim of some serious assault here?

OK, this climbing into my parents bed, now, isn't this unusual for a BOY to be doing this?

So now a picture is evolving. Am I a victim of sexual abuse? Am I repressing terrible memories? My God, surely not!

After a few weeks of wracking my brains and "opening myself" I was no nearer to finding a repressed memory. The fact is that I had always made a game of pulling my fathers nose, in fact he had always been a most amiable father, right up until he became a witness when I was aged 8 years.

Funny that, I was 8 years old when I started to bite my nails, just about the time we became JW's...could there be a connection?

So how about being chased by my grandfather? A little family history revealed that my grandfather had his leg amputated shortly after my birth, so that had to be a false memory, unless he could hop faster than I could run.

And climbing into my parents bed? That too stopped when I was age 8, we were up early to go on the magazine work!

So, after my own experiences, I have come to the conclusion that what we have stored in our memories is a mixture of fact, fantasy and fear,just like the 3 situations just mentioned, and that these key ingredients can be mixed up, by our own desire, to produce whatever cake it is that we want others to consume.

Personally, I have my doubts that repressed memories of child abuse are accurate. If they are, IMHO then the number of persons with TRUE repressed memories is likely to be only a small percentage of those who claim to have had their repressed memories uncovered by hypnotherapy.

Englishman.

Edited by - Englishman on 13 October 2002 13:49:29

Mulan

This is a very interesting subject.

I was a victim of repressed memories too, until I was about 25. I repressed the memory of being molested at about age 10 I think. The man and his family had moved away, and at a district convention, I was walking through the crowd with my baby (Princess) and he came up behind me, and said "Hello, Marilyn". I freaked out and started to run............I was crying and nearly hysterical because the sound of his voice brought it all back to me. I repressed it again for another 20 years, when the man's daughter in law asked me if he had raped me, kind of out of the blue. I asked her why she asked me that, and she said he had molested nearly every girl in the congregation, where we had grown up. She was investigating because her daughter was about 10, and didn't want to be around her grandfather, so she was putting 2 and 2 together. It all came back again. That time, my husband and I pursued the memory, and the man was still molesting children in a nearby state, and was still an elder, but this time they disfellowshipped him, at age 80. I hope he is dead now.

My point is my memories were accurate.

I am editing this to say that the man molested me one time, very briefly (I would say less than 30 seconds) and I got away from him. He told me that no one would believe me, so I needed to forget it. I think some pedophiles are very clever and perhaps employ a form of hypnosis, without knowing that's what they are doing.

Edited by - mulan on 13 October 2002 13:58:17

DJ

Hi E-man,

I agree with your opinion about your experience. I guess you still bite those nails too, eh? I don't know enough about this repressed memory issue. From your experience though, it sounds as if all of us would be able to be easily led to questioning our childhood. I know that I was not sexually abused as a child. I would be quite angry if a therapist insinuated otherwise. Thanks for telling this story. I have no opinion as to whether or not a person can be convinced that they were abused if they were'nt but anything is possible. I would have never believed that I could have been fooled by the watchtower but I was. Love, Dj

JanH

Englishman,

A very interesting story. It is scary how quack therapists can manipulate human memory. Our memory isn't really like a tape recording. Our perception of the past is continuously changed by the present. Cognitive psychologists today fully reject the "repressed memory" theory. It has still many believers among clinicians. As a friend of mine said, if we don't get rid of homeopaths, we aren't very likely to get rid of the respressed memory quacks any time soon. A lot of them are struggling with law suits from former patients who had their lives and lives of others ruined by their quack-practices.

- Jan

Blogging at Secular Blasphemy

DJ

Hi Mulan,

I don't understand....sorry......my head is in a fog lately, I guess because my dad is so ill right now. Anyway, are you saying that because of the memory of crying when you heard this voice again~~that's what you based the conclusion on? or are you saying that that memory triggered the rest of the experience to come to mind and you now have total recall of the incident. I hope I made sense>>.Maybe I oughta just go back to bed today, it is raining after all.........Love, Dj

DJ

As a friend of mine said, if we don't get rid of homeopaths, we aren't very likely to get rid of the respressed memory quacks any time

JAN.........Do you agree with the opinion about homeopathy. It worked wonders for my husband's allergies. he no longer suffers. He had terrible nasal allergies from childhood until age 30. He hasn't had any problem with his allergies since he took a product by Boirion. That was 8 years ago. We have had great success with other minor ailments as well. Dj

larc

DJ, for what you discussed, I would say maybe. It could also be the placebo effect. That can account for about 20% of cures. It could also be just a coincidence. I have had allergies come and go for no apparent reason or change in my life style. Sometimes, it can be ascribed to our body's natural ability to heal itself. With a sample of one, it is impossible to tell. With that said, if it worked for your husband, whatever did it, that's fine.

larc

Back to the original subject - repressed memories. It is dangerous and unethical for a therapist to attempt to guide a patient to a conclusion the way the therapist did to Englishman. The profession needs to be more thorough in policing its members to rid the profession of this clear danger.

target

It is not just memories that can be faulty, so can our dreams when we do not want the truth to be the truth. My father was a very nice person well liked by everyone, and he was good to me. I have fond memories of my father. I also kept having dreams about an older brother who is a real asshole and was always mean to me. In one dream in particular I am in the old farm house I lived in as a small child and my mother and I are watching my older ass hole brother put a blanket over the only heat register in the house, blocking all the heat. My mother says to me "he had no right to do that to you". I was never sure what the dream meant until just recently I realized that I had been dreaming about my father and not wanting to believe that he would have hurt me so badly when I was little. I switched him with my brother who I had no problem believing it about. My father had 10 children, I was #10 and he was 53 when I was born. Needless to say, he was not happy about it and like so many people, he did not realize that little children listen and are affected by what grown ups say. I constantly heard him say "If it weren't for all these damn kids...." and then he would go on about how much better his life would have been. Since I was number 10 I felt I was the most at fault for ruining his life. I felt very unwanted, unloved and a burden to my parents. It was as if someone put a blanket over my emotions. I constantly thought about running away so as not to be a further burden to them.

And yet my father would take me on his lap and read the sunday comics to me and play his harmonica for me. I knew he loved me, he was always good to me so it was very hard to accept that he did so much harm.

I also grew up biting my nails. And I got sucked into the JWs because I thought I had finally found family who wanted me. Now that I am in my mid 50s I finally know the truth about how I was affected by my father (who died 29 years ago) and the truth about the JWs.

A lot of therapy goes on in our dreams, if we just pay attention.

Mulan

I guess it wasn't clear what I meant.

The sound of his voice brought it all back to me, and I started crying. That's all.

Repressed Memories.

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