repressed memories
Subconscious hidden experiences
Repressed memories are recollections of traumatic events that a person has unconsciously blocked from awareness, supposedly as a psychological defense mechanism.
The concept became controversial in the 1980s and 1990s when therapists claimed to help patients "recover" such memories, particularly of childhood abuse, leading to accusations and lawsuits that were later discredited.
Most cognitive scientists now doubt that traumatic memories can be completely repressed and then accurately retrieved, distinguishing the concept from ordinary forgetting or reluctance to discuss painful experiences.
- unconsciousNot awake or aware
- psychoanalysisTreatment via unconscious exploration
- dissociationMental separation from surroundings
- childhood traumaHarmful early life events
- amnesiaPathological loss of recall
psychotherapy · talk therapy · legal implications · suggestibility · defense mechanisms · Janet · scientific skepticism · PTSD · hypnosis · trauma · corroboration · court testimony · compartmentalization · blocked · denial · nightmares · triggering event · buried
- memoriesremember, recollections, reminisce, remembrances, reminiscence
- pseudosciencehomeopathy, astrology, phrenology, numerology, palmistry
- Unconsciousid, ego, superego, dreams, impulses
- inner selfself, soul, psyche, inner being, true self
- beneath the surfaceunderground, underwater, submerged, caves, aquifers
- psychoanalysisFreud, id, ego, unconscious, Sigmund Freud
repressed memoriesflashbulb memories
Intensely vivid crisis recollections