Repression

1. Repression Michaela Valdez

2. Definition • The rejection from consciousness of painful or disagreeable ideas, memories, feelings, or impulses. • According to the theory, something happens that is so shocking that the mind grabs hold of the memory and pushes it underground, into some inaccessible corner of the unconscious. There it sleeps for years, or even decades, or even forever–isolated from the rest of mental life. Then, one day, it may rise up and emerge into consciousness

3. Sigmund Freud • Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, noted a number of ego defenses. • Repression was the first defense mechanism that Freud discovered. Repression is an unconscious mechanism employed by the ego to keep disturbing or threatening thoughts from becoming conscious. Thoughts that are often repressed are those that would result in feeling of guilt from the superego. • This is not a very successful defense in the long term since it involves forcing disturbing wishes, ideas or memories into the unconscious, where, although hidden, they will create anxiety.

4. Repressed memory therapy (RMT) • RMT assumes that a healthy psychological state can be restored only by recovering and facing the repressed memories • It uses a variety of methods--including hypnosis, visualization, group therapy, and trance writing--to assist the patient in 'remembering' the traumatic event. • Psychologist Joseph de Rivera claims that in RMT "rather than help the patient separate truth from fantasy, the therapist encourages the patient to 'remember' more about the alleged trauma. And when the patient has an image--a dream or a feeling that something may have happened--the therapist is encouraged, praises the patient's efforts and assures him or her that it really did happen." This kind of therapy, he says, “confuses the differences between real and fantasized abuse and encourages destruction of families”.

5. George Franklin Case The first case that an American citizen had been tried and convicted of murder on the basis of a freshly unearthed repressed memory.

6. Repression • There is much controversy over repressed memories and many court cases as a result of this. • Recently there has been a rise in reported memories of childhood sexual abuse that were allegedly repressed for many years. With recent changes in legislation, people with recently unearthed memories are suing alleged perpetrators for events that happened 20, 30, even 40 or more years earlier. • Lawyers started calling psychologists to obtain assistance with a puzzling new type of legal case.

7. statutes of limitations • Before, plaintiffs who claimed to be survivors of childhood sexual abuse would have been barred from suing by statutes of limitations. • Statutes of limitations force plaintiffs to initiate claims promptly. • They protect people from having to defend themselves against stale claims. • They exist in recognition that with the passage of time, memories fade and evidence becomes more difficult to obtain.

8. Repression • In 1989, things changed for plaintiffs in the state of Washington. Legislation went into effect that permitted people to sue for recovery of damages for injury suffered as a result of childhood sexual abuse at any time within three years of the time they remembered the abuse. • The statute of limitations does not begin to run until the plaintiff has discovered the facts that are essential to the cause of action. • Victims sue for damages rather than file criminal complaints, because criminal charges are often too difficult to prove.

9. Repression • Some trials ended in defense verdicts. • Others ended in plaintiff verdicts. • In 1992 a 39-year-old woman sued her father in Los Angeles, and the jury awarded $500,000. • A 33-year-old woman sued her uncle in Akron, Ohio, and the jury awarded $5.15 million ($150,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.)

10. Are the Memories Authentic?