Editing Repressed memory (section)

===Authenticity===
Memories ''can'' be accurate, but they are not ''always'' accurate. For example, [[eyewitness testimony]] even of relatively recent dramatic events is notoriously unreliable.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Gonsalves B, Paller KA | title = Mistaken memories: remembering events that never happened | journal = The Neuroscientist | volume = 8 | issue = 5 | pages = 391–5 | date = October 2002 | pmid = 12374423 | doi = 10.1177/107385802236964 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.24.8545 | s2cid = 6625293 }}</ref> Memories of events are a mix of fact overlaid with emotions, mingled with interpretation and "filled in" with imaginings. Skepticism regarding the validity of a memory as factual detail is warranted.<ref name="pmid22577300">{{cite journal | vauthors = Schacter DL | title = Constructive memory: past and future | journal = Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience | volume = 14 | issue = 1 | pages = 7–18 | date = March 2012 | doi = 10.31887/DCNS.2012.14.1/dschacter | pmid = 22577300 | pmc = 3341652 }}</ref> For example, one study where victims of documented child abuse were reinterviewed many years later as adults, 38% of the women denied any memory of the abuse.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Williams LM | title = Recall of childhood trauma: a prospective study of women's memories of child sexual abuse | journal = Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology | volume = 62 | issue = 6 | pages = 1167–76 | date = December 1994 | pmid = 7860814 | doi = 10.1037/0022-006X.62.6.1167 | url = http://www.hss.caltech.edu/courses/2004-05/winter/psy130/Debate2Williams1.pdf | access-date = June 21, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150924031703/http://www.hss.caltech.edu/courses/2004-05/winter/psy130/Debate2Williams1.pdf | archive-date = September 24, 2015 | url-status = dead }}</ref>

Various manipulations are considered to be able to implant false memories (sometimes called "pseudomemories"). Psychologist [[Elizabeth Loftus]] has noted that some of the techniques that some therapists use in order to supposedly help the patients recover memories of early trauma (including such techniques as age regression, guided visualization, trance writing, dream work, body work, and hypnosis) are particularly likely to contribute to the creation of false or pseudo memories.<ref name=loftus1993>{{cite journal | vauthors = Loftus EF | title = The reality of repressed memories | journal = The American Psychologist | volume = 48 | issue = 5 | pages = 518–37 | date = May 1993 | pmid = 8507050 | doi = 10.1037/0003-066x.48.5.518 | s2cid = 2015626 }}</ref> Such therapy-created memories can be quite compelling for those who develop them, and can include details that make them seem credible to others.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Laney C, Loftus EF | title = Traumatic memories are not necessarily accurate memories | journal = Canadian Journal of Psychiatry | volume = 50 | issue = 13 | pages = 823–8 | date = November 2005 | pmid = 16483115 | doi = 10.1177/070674370505001303 | s2cid = 27653977 | doi-access = free }}</ref> In a now classic experiment by Loftus (widely known as the "Lost in the Mall" study), participants were given a booklet containing three accounts of real childhood events written by family members and a fourth account of a wholly fictitious event of being lost in a shopping mall. A quarter of the subjects reported remembering the fictitious event, and elaborated on it with extensive circumstantial detail.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm| vauthors = Loftus E |author-link=Elizabeth Loftus |year=1997|title= Creating false memories |journal=Scientific American|volume= 227|issue=3|pages=71–75 | doi = 10.1038/scientificamerican0997-70 | pmid = 9274041 | bibcode = 1997SciAm.277c..70L |url-access=subscription }}</ref> This experiment inspired many others, and in one of these, Porter et al. convinced about half of the participants that they had survived a vicious animal attack in childhood.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Porter S, Yuille JC, Lehman DR | title = The nature of real, implanted, and fabricated memories for emotional childhood events: implications for the recovered memory debate | journal = Law and Human Behavior | volume = 23 | issue = 5 | pages = 517–37 | date = October 1999 | pmid = 10487147 | doi = 10.1023/A:1022344128649 | s2cid = 19385416 }}</ref>

Critics of these experimental studies<ref name=Crook>{{cite journal | vauthors = Crook LS, Dean MC | title = "Lost in a shopping mall" -- a breach of professional ethics | journal = Ethics & Behavior | volume = 9 | issue = 1 | pages = 39–50 | year = 1999 | pmid = 11657487 | doi = 10.1207/s15327019eb0901_3 | url = http://users.owt.com/crook/memory/ | url-access = subscription }}</ref> have questioned whether their findings generalize to memories for real-world trauma or to what occurs in psychotherapeutic contexts.<ref name=Pope>{{cite journal | vauthors = Pope KS | title = Memory, abuse, and science. Questioning claims about the false memory syndrome epidemic | journal = The American Psychologist | volume = 51 | issue = 9 | pages = 957–74 | date = September 1996 | pmid = 8819364 | doi = 10.1037/0003-066X.51.9.957 }}</ref> However, when memories are "recovered" after long periods of amnesia, particularly when extraordinary means were used to secure the recovery of memory, it is now widely (but not universally) accepted that the memories have a high likelihood of being false, i.e. "memories" of incidents that had not actually occurred.<ref name=Brandon>{{cite journal | vauthors = Brandon S, Boakes J, Glaser D, Green R | title = Recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Implications for clinical practice | journal = The British Journal of Psychiatry | volume = 172 | issue = 4 | pages = 296–307 | date = April 1998 | pmid = 9722329 | doi = 10.1192/bjp.172.4.296 | s2cid = 41360156 }}</ref> It is thus recognised by professional organizations that a risk of implanting false memories is associated with some similar types of therapy. The ''American Psychological Association'' advises: "...most leaders in the field agree that although it is a rare occurrence, a memory of early childhood abuse that has been forgotten can be remembered later; however, these leaders also agree that it is possible to construct convincing pseudomemories for events that never occurred."<ref name=":4" />

Not all therapists agree that false memories are a major risk of psychotherapy and they argue that this idea overstates the data and is untested.<ref name="chu" /><ref name=Hammond>{{cite book |vauthors=Brown DP, Scheflin AW, Hammond DC |title=Memory, trauma treatment, and the law |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-393-70254-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m6P7HAAACAAJ }}{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name=Dalenberg>{{cite journal | vauthors = Dalenberg C | title = Recovered memory and the Daubert criteria: recovered memory as professionally tested, peer reviewed, and accepted in the relevant scientific community | journal = Trauma, Violence & Abuse | volume = 7 | issue = 4 | pages = 274–310 | date = October 2006 | pmid = 17065548 | doi = 10.1177/1524838006294572 | s2cid = 9964936 }}</ref> Several studies have reported high percentages of the corroboration of recovered memories,<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Kluft RP |year=1995 |title=The confirmation and disconfirmation of memories of abuse in Dissociative Identity Disorder patients: A naturalistic study |journal=Dissociation |volume=8 |pages=253–8 |url=https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/1155/Dis_8_4_9_ocr.pdf?sequence=1 }}{{Dead link|date=July 2020 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name=Van1995>{{cite journal | vauthors = van der Kolk BA, Fisler R | title = Dissociation and the fragmentary nature of traumatic memories: overview and exploratory study | journal = Journal of Traumatic Stress | volume = 8 | issue = 4 | pages = 505–25 | date = October 1995 | pmid = 8564271 | doi = 10.1002/jts.2490080402 | url = http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~peterson/psy430s2001/Van%20der%20Kolk%20Fragmentary%20Nature%20of%20Traumatic%20Memory%20J%20Traumatic%20Stress%201995.pdf | citeseerx = 10.1.1.487.1607 | access-date = June 21, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200302150756/https://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~peterson/psy430s2001/Van%20der%20Kolk%20Fragmentary%20Nature%20of%20Traumatic%20Memory%20J%20Traumatic%20Stress%201995.pdf | archive-date = March 2, 2020 | url-status = dead }}</ref> and some authors have claimed that among skeptics of idea of recovered memory there is a "tendency to conceal or omit evidence of corroboration" of recovered memories.<ref name="Skeptics" />

A difficult issue for the field is that there is no evidence that reliable discriminations can be made between true and false memories.<ref name=":4">[https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma/memories Questions and Answers about Memories of Childhood Abuse] ''American Psychiatric Association''</ref><ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Stocks JT | title = Recovered memory therapy: a dubious practice technique | journal = Social Work | volume = 43 | issue = 5 | pages = 423–36 | date = September 1998 | pmid = 9739631 | doi = 10.1093/sw/43.5.423 }}</ref> Some believe that memories "recovered" under [[hypnosis]] are particularly likely to be false.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Kihlstrom JF | title = Hypnosis, memory and amnesia | journal = Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences | volume = 352 | issue = 1362 | pages = 1727–32 | date = November 1997 | pmid = 9415925 | pmc = 1692104 | doi = 10.1098/rstb.1997.0155 | bibcode = 1997RSPTB.352.1727K }}</ref>
According to The Council on Scientific Affairs for the American Medical Association, recollections obtained during hypnosis can involve [[confabulations]] and pseudomemories and appear to be less reliable than nonhypnotic recall.<ref>{{cite journal | title = Scientific status of refreshing recollection by the use of hypnosis. Council on Scientific Affairs | journal = JAMA | volume = 253 | issue = 13 | pages = 1918–23 | date = April 1985 | pmid = 3974082 | doi = 10.1001/jama.253.13.1918 }}</ref>
Brown et al. estimate that 3 to 5% of laboratory subjects are vulnerable to post-event misinformation suggestions. They state that 5–8% of the general population is the range of high-hypnotizability. Twenty-five percent of those in this range are vulnerable to suggestion of pseudomemories for peripheral details, which can rise to 80% with a combination of other social influence factors. They conclude that the rates of memory errors run 0–5% in adult studies, 3–5% in children's studies and that the rates of false allegations of child abuse allegations run 4–8% in the general population.<ref name=Hammond/>