Flash Memory Essay, Research Paper

Flash Memory

PSYCHOLOGY TERM PAPER

Memory is the main faculty of retaining and recalling past experiences.

A repressed memory, is one that is retained in the sub conscious mind, in which

one is not aware of it but where it can still affect both conscious thoughts,

memory, and behavior. When memory is distorted, the result can be referred to

what has been called the “False Memory Syndrome”(Thomas Billing Publishing

1995) : a condition in which a person’s identity and interpersonal

relationships are entered around a memory of traumatic experience which is

obviously false but the person strongly believes that it isn’t. However, the

syndrome is not only characterized by false memories alone. We all have

memories that are inaccurate. Instead, the syndrome may be diagnosed when the

memory is so severely disoriented that it changes the individual’s entire

personality and lifestyle, therefore, disrupting all sorts of other behaviors.

The means of personality disorder is on purpose. False memory syndrome is

especially destructive because the person carefully avoids any confrontation

what so ever with any evidence that might challenge the memory. So this

syndrome takes on a life of its own, keeping itself to be alone 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.

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

from traumatic events too terrible to want to remember”(Thomas Billings

Publishing 1995). . 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). 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, was

known to form in some through 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 psychogenic abnormality that springs from their conscious

fixation on the suffering of Christ(Copeland Publishing 1989). Similarly, it is

possible the idea, that “one was sexually abused might increase the frequency

of some physical symptoms, regardless of whether or not the abuse really

occurred”(Peter Bedricks Publishing 1994).

This view of memory has two elements: (1) the accuracy element and (2)

the causal element. The reason why this memory is questionable is not because

people don’t have unpleasant or painful experiences they would rather forget,

nor is it claiming that children often experience both wonderful and brutal

things for which they have no right or wrong sense for and are incapable of

understanding them, much less relating it to others. It is questionable because,

(a) one is having problems of functioning as a healthy human being and (b) one

remembers being abused as a child therefore, (A) one was abused as a child and

(B) the childhood abuse is the cause of one’s adulthood problems. There is no

evidence that supports the claim that we remember everything that we experience.

In fact, there is plenty of evidence to support the claim that it is impossible

for us to even recall to all the elements of any given experience. There is no

evidence to support the claim that all memories of experiences happened as they

remembered to have happened or that they have even happened at all. We can never

even say how accurate our memories really are. Finally, “the connection between

abuse and health or behavior does not conclude that ill health, mental pain, is

a ’sign’ of having been abused.”(Peter Bedricks Publishing 1994). However many

psychologists don’t believe in this theory by the ‘False Memory” experts. Here

are a few of the unproved, unscientifically researched notions that are being

discussed by the doubtful psychologists: “If you doubt that you were abused as

a child or think that it might be your imagination, this is a sign of ‘post-

incest syndrome’. If you can not remember any specific instances of being

abused, but still have a feeling that something abusive happened to you, ‘it

probably did’. When a person can not remember his or her childhood or have very

fuzzy memories, ‘incest must always be considered as a possibility’. (last), If

you have any suspicion at all, if you have any memory, no matter how vague, it

probably really happened”(Copeland Publishings 1989). It is said, that it is

more likely that you are blocking the memories, denying and that it ever

happened.

There have been many symptoms that suggest that they were from past

abuse. These symptoms range from headaches to irritable bladder. In fact, there

was a list of over 900 different symptoms that had been presented as proof of

early abuse. When they researched the expert view, they found that not one of

the symptoms could be shown to be a solid indication of a previous abuse.

Therapists must be careful in declaring that abuse has in fact occurred.

Whole industries have been built up to really look into the cases of

sexual abuse of children. Therapists who are supposed to help children recover

from the trauma of the abuse are hired to interrogate the child, in order to

find out if they have been abused. But often the therapist suggests the abuse to

the child, has ‘memories’ of being abused.

Increasingly throughout the continent, grown children under going

therapeutic programs have come to believe that they suffer from “repressed

memories” of incest and sexual abuse. While some reports of incest and sexual

abuse are surely true, these delayed memories are too often the result of False

Memory Syndrome caused by a disastrous “therapeutic” program(Thomas & Billing

Publishing 1995) . False Memory Syndrome has a devastating effect on the victim

and produces a continuing dependency on the very program that creates the

syndrome. False Memory Syndrome proceeds to destroy the psychological well

being not only of the victim but through false accusations of incest and sexual

abuse on other members of the victim’s family.

The dangers of the memory are visible: not only are false memories

treated as real memories, but real memories of real abuse may be treated as

false memories and may provide real abusers with a believable defense. In the

end, no one benefits from a memory which is untrue. Whatever the theory of

memory, if it does not support evidence and attempt to verify claims of

recollected abuse, it is a theory which will cause more harm than good.

Carl Jung, an early Freudian disciple, extended this model of memory, by

adding another area of repressed memories to the unconscious mind, an area that

was not based on past experiences at all: the “collection unconscious” (Peter

Bedricks Publishing 1995). The collective unconscious is the deposit for acts

and mental patterns shared either by members of a culture or by all humans.

Under certain conditions these become viewed as: images, patterns and symbols,

that are often seen in dreams or fantasies and that appear as themes in

mythology, religion and fairy tales. Under these conditions it avoids the

problem of determining whether or not a memory is accurate by claiming that the

memory is not of a personal experience at all. It also confuses several types

of mental states. It completely blurs the distinction between dream states and

conscious states by eliminating the difference between remembering a sense

experience one actually had and remembering a sense experience one never

actually had. The story of Hansel and Gretel might be pulled in for “scientific”

support of the idea. Assumptions might be made regarding the unconscious desire

of all children to be loved by their parents: as children, love could only be

understood in terms of ego satisfaction but as adults love is understood

primarily in sexual terms. Because of our mental restrictions, we can not bear

the thought of wanting to be loved sexually by our parents, so this desire must

be expressed in a totally different way: our parents love us sexually. But there

is no evidence for this based upon our past or current relationship with our

parents, so the mind creates the evidence by remembering being sexually abused

as a child.(Copeland Publishings 1989)

Thus, the memory we have as adults of being sexually abused by our

parents is actually the expression of the desire to be loved by our mother and

father (in most cases). It has nothing to do with any real experience; it has

everything to do with a human desire. It also serves as a convenient excuse to

relieve us of all responsibility for our failures and incompetence.

How accurate and reliable is memory? We’re often wrong in thinking we

accurately remember things. Studies on memory have shown that we often

construct our memories from others that help us fill in the gaps in our memories

of certain events.(Thomas & Billings Publishing 1995) That is why, for example,

a police officer investigating a crime should not show a picture of a single

individual to a victim and ask if the victim recognizes the assailant. If the

victim is then presented a line up and picks out the individual whose picture

the victim had been shown, there is no way of knowing whether the victim is

remembering the assailant or the picture.

Another interesting fact about memory is that studies have shown that

there is no connection between the result feeling a person has about memory and

that memory being accurate. Also, opposed to what many believe, hypnosis does

not aid memory’s accuracy because subjects are unconscience while under

hypnosis.(Copeland Publishing 1989) It is possible to create false memories in

people’s minds by suggestion.

Why would someone remember something so horrible if it really did not

happen? This is a haunting question, but there are several possible

explanations which might shed light on some of the false memories. A

pseudomemory, for example, may be a kind of symbolic expression of troubled

family relationships. It may be that in such a position people more readily

believe things happened when they didn’t. When people enter therapy, they do so

to get better. They want to change. People also tend to look for some

explanation for why they have a problem. Victims come to trust the person they

have chosen to help them.