The Psychological Disorder of False Memory Syndrome
The Psychological Disorder of False Memory Syndrome
Memory is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences. A
repressed memory is one that is retained in the sub conscious mind, where
one is not aware of it but where it can still affect both conscious thoughts
and behavior.
When memory is distorted or confabulated, the result can be what has been
called the False Memory Syndrome: a condition in which a person's identity
and interpersonal relationships are entered around a memory of traumatic
experience which is objectively false but in which the person strongly
believes. Note that the syndrome is not characterized by false memories as
such. We all have memories that are inaccurate. Rather, the syndrome may be
diagnosed when the memory is so deeply ingrained that it orients the
individual's entire personality and lifestyle, in turn disrupting all sorts
of other adaptive behaviors. The analogy to personality disorder is
intentional. False memory syndrome is especially destructive because the
person assiduously avoids confrontation with any evidence that might
challenge the memory. Thus it takes on a life of its own, encapsulated and
resistant to correction. The person may become so focused on the memory that
he or she may be effectively distracted from coping with real problems in
his or her life.
-- John F. Kihlstrom, Ph.D.
There are many models which try to explain how memory works. Nevertheless, we do not know exactly how memory works. One of the most questionable models of memory is the one which assumes that every experience a person has had is 'recorded' in memory and that some of these memories are of traumatic events too terrible to want to remember. These terrible memories are locked away in the sub conscious mind, i.e. repressed, only to be remembered in adulthood when some triggering event opens the door to the unconscious. And, both before and after the repressed memory is remembered, it causes physical and mental disorders in a person.
Some people have made an effort to explain their pain, even cancer, as coming from repressed memories of incest in the body. Scientists have studied related phenomenon such as people whose hands bleed in certain religious settings. Presumably such people, called stigmatics, "are not revealing unconscious memories of being crucified as young children, but rather are demonstrating a fascinating psychogenic anomaly that springs from their conscious fixation on the suffering of Christ. Similarly,...