Repressed Memory Essay -- Psychology Essays Memory Neurology

Repressed Memory If someone asks me, "Where were you on September 11, 2001?" I would be able to give that person an accurate answer. It seems impossible to ever forget the events of that day. How could one forget such a traumatic day? It seems like life changing events would stay with a person forever. However, there are many victims of, let's say, child abuse that cannot remember the actual abuse. The memories of such horrors have been erased so there is no recollection of the events. Being a skeptic, I am not sure if I would be able to forget such horrific events. Repressed memories can also be recovered, through therapeutic treatment. It seems odd how people can forget certain traumas, but still able to remember others. How does memory actually work, and how can one selectively repress certain memories? Memory and the I-function seem to be closely related. Memory allows individuals to store and retrieve information gained from previous experience. It can then be used to predict human response to certain stimuli. Optic neurons often "make things up as it goes along". The I-function relies on memory in order to do this. Memory is used to perform tasks such as comprehension and production of language, reasoning, and recognition of declarative. Memory is also necessary for skill acquisition. Different models of memory have been proposed. One is that there is a limited capacity for the amount of information that can be stored. Memory can decay, and the longer a memory has been stored and not used, the less available it will be. As new information enters the memory, it may be harder to access other information and cognitive system seems to be less efficient (2). Memory consists of three basic functions: enco... ...althier than repressing them. I do not quite fully understand why the brain would repress memories in order to protect the person. The mind is a web of mysteries, and memory repression is just on thread of the web. References 1)Elizabeth Loftus, http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web3/www.muskingum.edu/psychology/psyweb/history/loftus.htm 2)About Memory, http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web3/www.acm.org/sigchi/chi96/proceedings/doctoral/Bryne/mbd_txt.htm 3)Mechanim of Memory http://www.wm.edu/psych/psy201efr/intro_72.htm 4)Encoding memory, http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web3/www.brainchannel.com/Memory/encoding/encoding.html 5)Skeptic's Dictionary, http://skepdic.com/repressedmemory.html 6)Process Healing, http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro02/web3/www.process-healing.com/description.htm