Forced by her siblings to sell the family cottage against her wishes, Agnes Whitfield's, picturesque vision of her childhood began to unravel. This unpleasant family feud triggered her first repressed memory of abuse. A few days later, using a self-guided process, Agnes claims to have recovered many more repressed memories of these childhood abuses, which spanned fifteen years. These memories, Agnes claimed, brought intense emotions of fear and rage, which induced physical responses in her body. Without any evidence or validation from her siblings to back up her claims, she formally accused her brother, Bryan, of the most horrific of the abuses, consisting of torture, rape, and prostitution among other things. (Brean, 2016)
In 2012, Agnes, acting as her own counsel, brought a civil case before a judge. Demanding that to protect her emotional health the trial be …show more content…
It may cause emotional turmoil that can disrupt their life. The accusation of wrongdoing may cause rifts in relationships.
While I believe there may be a version of memory repression with some truth to it, I do not think that it is possible for all traces of the conscious memory to disappear. I think that we can block out many of the specific details of an event, but we still have at least a vague knowledge that an event occurred. Memories can be distorted over time. Every time we recall a memory, it is subject to change(Dobrin, 2013). Research conducted by Schiller at NYU suggests, “If mitigating information about a traumatic or unhappy event is introduced within a narrow window of opportunity after its recall—during the few hours it takes for the brain to rebuild the memory in the biological brick and mortar of molecules—the emotional experience of the memory can essentially be rewritten.”(Hall, 2013). Findings such as this call into question the credibility of our memories and show just how malleable they
In 2012, Agnes, acting as her own counsel, brought a civil case before a judge. Demanding that to protect her emotional health the trial be …show more content…
It may cause emotional turmoil that can disrupt their life. The accusation of wrongdoing may cause rifts in relationships.
While I believe there may be a version of memory repression with some truth to it, I do not think that it is possible for all traces of the conscious memory to disappear. I think that we can block out many of the specific details of an event, but we still have at least a vague knowledge that an event occurred. Memories can be distorted over time. Every time we recall a memory, it is subject to change(Dobrin, 2013). Research conducted by Schiller at NYU suggests, “If mitigating information about a traumatic or unhappy event is introduced within a narrow window of opportunity after its recall—during the few hours it takes for the brain to rebuild the memory in the biological brick and mortar of molecules—the emotional experience of the memory can essentially be rewritten.”(Hall, 2013). Findings such as this call into question the credibility of our memories and show just how malleable they