Repressed Memory Versus False Memory - Victims' Perception Of Their Forgetting Experiences

Michelle A. Epstein and Bette L. Bottoms investigated the temporary forgetting of past abuse and trauma to determine victims' own explanations for their forgetting experiences ("Explaining the Forgetting and Recovery of Abuse and Trauma Memories: Possible Mechanisms," Child Maltreatment, vol. 7, no. 3, August 2002). The researchers observed that many studies of forgetting experiences involve mainly childhood sexual abuse. In this study Epstein and Bottoms added other childhood traumatic experiences, including being in a serious car accident, experiencing other severe accidents, being at a fire, being a victim of a major crime, emotional or verbal abuse, severe neglect, and surgery/hospitalization.

Study participants were 1,411 college women, consisting of 37% whites, 22% Asian Americans, 21% African-Americans, 14% Hispanics, and 6% other ethnic/racial groups. The women ranged in age from eighteen to sixty years, with a median age of twenty-one (half were younger than twenty-one and half were older than twenty-one).

About one-quarter (26%) of the women reported at least one incident of childhood sexual abuse, 27% reported childhood physical abuse, and 54% reported one or more other traumatic experiences. The authors found no statistical difference in women who reported experiencing "a time when they could not remember" sexual abuse (14%) and physical abuse (11%). Compared to women who temporarily "forgot" having experienced other types of trauma (6%), those who reported sexual abuse and multiple traumas experienced temporary forgetting at much higher rates, 14% and 17%, respectively.

A majority of participants attributed their temporary forgetting to mechanisms other than the "classic Freudian repression" (complete lack of conscious memories and forgetting these memories, followed by memory recovery of the abuse or trauma). These mechanisms included active cognitive avoidance (actively not thinking of abuse or trauma), retrieval failure (simple forgetting), and relabeling (looking at an experience in a different light "because its negative implications are less likely to be understood during childhood"). Epstein and Bottoms concluded that, when they counted only women who reported classic Freudian repression, just 4%, or two sexual abuse victims; 10%, or three physical abuse victims; and 11%, or four victims of other traumas, represented such repression. Nevertheless, the authors pointed out that they were not claiming that repression does not occur.