General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: There's a concerted rat fucking operation going on in VA against Democrats right now [View all]obamanut2012
(29,367 posts)And, I just read on her Fairfax's accuser bases her version of events on "repressed memories," which most legit medical folks dismiss as false memories. Lots of innocent men -- and women -- went to prison over repressed memories of child molestation and rape during the Satanic Panic.
Wikipedia:
The existence of repressed memories is an extremely controversial topic in psychology; although some studies have concluded that it can occur in a varying but generally small percentage of victims of trauma, many other studies dispute its existence entirely.[3] Some psychologists support the theory of repressed memories and claim that repressed memories can be recovered through therapy, but most psychologists argue that this is in fact rather a process through which false memories are created by blending actual memories and outside influences.[3] One study concluded that repressed memories were a cultural symptom for want of written proof of their existence before the nineteenth century, but its results were disputed by some psychologists, and a work discussing a repressed memory from 1786 was eventually acknowledged, though the others stand by their hypothesis.[4][5]
According to the American Psychological Association, it is not possible to distinguish repressed memories from false ones without corroborating evidence.[2] The term repressed memory is sometimes compared to the term dissociative amnesia, which is defined in the DSM-V as an "inability to recall autobiographical information. This amnesia may be localized (i.e., an event or period of time), selective (i.e., a specific aspect of an event), or generalized (i.e., identity and life history)."