Memory is imperfect and susceptible to suggestion. It is because of this fact that dissociative amnesia (repressed-recovered memories) is such a contested matter, particularly when it is being used as grounds for a court case. Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Harrison Pope took it upon himself and his team at the Biological Psychiatry Lab at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital to find out whether or not dissociative amnesia is present in written works throughout history. Under the umbrella of The Recovered Memory Project they argue that if this type of amnesia is a native capability of the brain, akin to depression, dementia and hallucinations, they would be able to source incidences of its presence in historical literature (Pettus, 2008).
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A 1993 Supreme Court case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, set the standard for judges to decide whether or not expert testimony is allowed in the court instead of an academic or scientific community (Cox, 2009). This places the burden of decision on the judges, who aren’t necessarily proficient in the varied fields of the expert testimonies they’re appraising. This poses an ethical dilemma because they have the power to allow or deny evidence based upon their own personal review, considering they may not be qualified in the eyes of the medical/scientific community to do so, they may be ill-equipped to make an accurate decision at …show more content…
She is responsible for groundbreaking work on the nature of false memories, the misinformation effect and has done extensive research into recovered memories of childhood abuse. In her paper, “The Reality of Repressed Memories” she recounts countless stories of repressed memories resurfacing and driving wedges between families, bringing criminal charges against the accused, causing mental instability in the individual recovering the ‘memories’ and bringing some seemingly innocent people to conviction. She argues that we are not yet capable of reliably distinguishing between true repressed memories and false ones (n.d.). It is because of this that she suggests therapists should consider whether or not they are suggesting to a patient that childhood trauma occurred which would then promote the idea to the patient, suggesting they should be remembering some repressed childhood events even when they would not have naturally come up on their own. This induces false memories and this is the exact reason we see so many overturned convictions whose charges were based upon ‘recovered’ memories (Loftus,
A 1993 Supreme Court case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, set the standard for judges to decide whether or not expert testimony is allowed in the court instead of an academic or scientific community (Cox, 2009). This places the burden of decision on the judges, who aren’t necessarily proficient in the varied fields of the expert testimonies they’re appraising. This poses an ethical dilemma because they have the power to allow or deny evidence based upon their own personal review, considering they may not be qualified in the eyes of the medical/scientific community to do so, they may be ill-equipped to make an accurate decision at …show more content…
She is responsible for groundbreaking work on the nature of false memories, the misinformation effect and has done extensive research into recovered memories of childhood abuse. In her paper, “The Reality of Repressed Memories” she recounts countless stories of repressed memories resurfacing and driving wedges between families, bringing criminal charges against the accused, causing mental instability in the individual recovering the ‘memories’ and bringing some seemingly innocent people to conviction. She argues that we are not yet capable of reliably distinguishing between true repressed memories and false ones (n.d.). It is because of this that she suggests therapists should consider whether or not they are suggesting to a patient that childhood trauma occurred which would then promote the idea to the patient, suggesting they should be remembering some repressed childhood events even when they would not have naturally come up on their own. This induces false memories and this is the exact reason we see so many overturned convictions whose charges were based upon ‘recovered’ memories (Loftus,