Posted by special_k on April 6, 2006, at 20:44:29
In reply to Re: old memory » special_k, posted by pseudoname on April 6, 2006, at 17:28:30
> FREUD found cases of repression before his own time. He found them wherever he looked.
tee hee.
> The McLean contest seeks reports of something bygone people could certainly see and describe perfectly well, even if they lacked a Freudian explanation for it. Ancient people talked about both remembering and forgetting; there are dozens of such references in the Bible, for example. An instance of such an unusual and provocative pattern of forgetting and remembering as the McLean researchers seek would be well within the capacity of ancient, medieval, renaissance, and enlightment writers to observe, distinguish as unusual, and report.
but you need to believe people before you would report it. how many cases of csa are reported prior to 1800? if the traumatic memories that are repressed are typically reports of csa then it would make sense that if society didn't acknowledge csa then even if someone did forget and then remember others (and perhaps even they themselves) would write it off as rubbish.
also... i don't think we tend to go around talking about traumatic memories with people we meet on the streets... not until the advent of therapy did people have a place where they would be listened to and taken seriously...
i just mean to say that there are a variety of reasons why there might not be records...
> The absence of such reports would be noteworthy in this situation and could be *part* of a persuasive argument against recovered memory's metaphysical claims. Why don't I believe in UFOs? Absence of evidence for them where evidence can reasonably be expected is certainly part of my thinking.
though i think the idea about ufo's is why posit a new entity when old entities will do the trick? with repressed memories... well... i think some people try and make a repressed memory / dissociated memory distinction though best i can figure dissociated memories would seem to fulfill their criteria as much as repressed memories would.
they are taking denial... to be the measure of repression. that means somebody needs to ask them about the trauma and they need to say 'no no no didn't happen to me' a fair bit... and then later to change their mind and say 'oh yeah i remember'. who would ask them? (before therapists)? repression was observed... dissociation was observed... and as for the rest... i don't think csa was talked about... and other traumas... maybe more focus on moving on...
poster:special_k
thread:629255
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060406/msgs/629847.html