No need for repression

Abstract

The recent paper by B.J. Levy and M.C. Anderson on ‘Inhibitory processes and the control of memory retrieval’ [1xInhibitory processes and the control of memory retrieval. Levy, B.L. and Anderson, M.C. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2002; 6: 299–305Abstract | Full Text | Full Text PDF | PubMed | Scopus (230)See all References[1] describes interesting new developments in the study of the self-regulation of memory, but the authors’ reach exceeds their grasp when they suggest that the processes they have studied might ‘provid[e] a mechanistic basis for the voluntary form of repression (suppression) proposed by Freud’ (p. 303).According to psychoanalytic theory, repression operates unconsciously on threatening mental contents, especially those related to primitive sexual and aggressive instincts, so that the person can avoid conscious conflict and anxiety. Moreover, the ‘repressed’ material must continue to affect the person's ongoing experience, thought and action implicitly, outside of awareness (Freud called this ‘the return of the repressed’). Finally, repressed memories have to be recoverable (this was what psychoanalytic interpretation was all about). Consider, for example, the study by Anderson and Green [2xSuppressing unwanted memories by executive control. Anderson, M.C. and Green. Nature. 2001; 410: 131–134Crossref | PubMed | Scopus (423)See all References[2], which also has been touted as revealing a mechanism for repression. In that study, the memories in question were pairs of innocuous words, deliberately suppressed by the subjects at the request of the experimenter. Even after 16 suppression trials, the average subject still recalled more than 70% of the targets (and note the worst recall performance depicted in Levy and Anderson's Fig. 3 is still above 65% [1xInhibitory processes and the control of memory retrieval. Levy, B.L. and Anderson, M.C. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2002; 6: 299–305Abstract | Full Text | Full Text PDF | PubMed | Scopus (230)See all References[1]). There was no evidence presented of persisting unconscious influence of the suppressed items. And there was no evidence that the ‘amnesia’ could be ‘reversed’. Finally, although Anderson and Green apparently did not ask this question in their study, it is doubtful that any of their subjects forgot that they had participated in a laboratory experiment.Of course, Levy and Anderson refer to ‘voluntary’ suppression, not unconscious repression, but even this turn of phrase assumes that traumatic memories are in fact forgotten, even if they are not repressed in the classically Freudian sense. The fact is, as Piper et al. document convincingly [3xCuster's last stand: Brown, Schefflin, and Whitfield's latest attempt to salvage ‘dissociative amnesia’. Piper et al. J. Psychiatry Law. 2000; 28: 149–213See all References[3], the vast majority of trauma victims remember all too well what happened to them, and when we observe instances in which trauma has been forgotten, we rarely if ever need to resort to concepts such as repression, or even ‘suppression’, to explain what has happened. That is not to say that there are no genuine cases of functional, psychogenic amnesia; there are [4xFunctional amnesia. Kihlstrom, J. and Schacter, D. : 409–427See all References[4]. It is only to say that trauma and repression have little or nothing to do with them.The repression (or suppression) of trauma appears to be a clinical myth in search of scientific support. It is unfortunate that Levy and Anderson apparently feel the need to supply it.