After reading Roxana’s vignette, it is apparent that she has dissociative amnesia, with possible dissociative fugue (XXXX; XXXX). Roxana symptoms that she presents in the vignette are trouble remembering events, loss of recollection of several days, inflated confidence when retroactively determined that she was in a dissociative state, followed by a markedly dazed state following coming out of the dissociative state. She also presents feelings of being “old”, cultural and familial stressors, as well as domestic abuse followed by separation with the boyfriend and a miscarriage. It is also worth noting that she has been taking Ambien periodically, which was prescribed to her mother. To meet full diagnostic criteria for dissociative amnesia, Roxana…
To begin, I do not believe that repressed memories should be allowed for use in court to prosecute the alleged abuser. After reading the article by Elizabeth Loftus, I came to this conclusion because memories have the ability to be manipulated and abused, which studies and analysis's have proven. For example, some professionals contain the ability to provide false memories in which the manipulated person never experienced. The court system could be working with material that has no substantial value what so ever for the prosecution of the abuser. Therefore, I strongly believe the gathered resources to prosecute someone should be accountable or proven information instead of just memories.…
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.…
Although denying or repressing memories doesn't appear logical,…
Physical violence has been proven to be detrimental towards the attacker and the victim. Recent studies link physical violence, especially domestic violence, to amnesia, the memory loss disease. Psychogenic amnesia is the term used for an abnormal memory loss, and it is often caused by extreme stress and trauma. For instance, a person who suffers lots of extreme trauma at home may suddenly lose their memory, which is also known as Situation-specific amnesia. Additionally, amnesia that is often associated with violent experiences can bring back sudden memories and cause a lot of stress on the person.…
American novelist, Barbara Kingsolver once said, “Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin” (Kingsolver). Memories and truth are intertwined, one does not exist without the other. Sure, most memories bring comfortable and peace of mind when altered and modified into what one desires the truth to be. However, to keep the truth suppressed within will only prolong the inevitable. The truth cannot be suppressed for long; in time truth will surface and cause a greatly devastation as one will realize that the memory was a mere fantasy.…
There is a bit more to PTSD and it will be explained a little later. We have all had some sort of trauma in our lives at one time and sometimes remember it because of something that happens to make us remember the event. Granted, this is not…
Psychogenic Amnesia Dissociative Disorders Definition: According to the Cleveland Clinic, "dissociative amnesia is a condition in which a person cannot remember important information about his or her life. " Their forgetfulness may be specific to certain areas or may include much of the person's life history and identity. Possible Causes: Overwhelming stress Traumatic events like war, abuse, accidents, and disasters Traumas could be witnessed or suffered Genetics Affects 1% of men and 2.6% of women Rates increase after natural disasters and during war Signs and Symptoms: Memory loss of certain time periods, events, and people Depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts and attempts Sense of being detached from self…
One of the most popular subjects on the big screen and television that takes our attention very often, is a form of memory loss known as amnesia. People refer to amnesia usually as a mental illness that makes you forget everything about the past. But that is not right, and it is not wrong either. Yes, amnesia has to do with memory loss, but that does not mean that if a person is diagnosed with amnesia he/she will not remember anything at all from the past. Forgetting everything is only the primary aspect of amnesia.…
The psychology field has debated about the concept of repressed and recovered memories. The biggest contest comes from two major standpoints: repressed memories are a safety mechanism by the body or that they are implanted by an outside source (Geraerts, 2009). The strongest side seems to come for the “debunking” of this medical phenomenon. It has been shown many times of therapists…
The resurfacing of repressed memories has been studied largely in the past twenty plus years when many alleged repressed memories were reported causing many criminal ramifications. Many articles have been published and numerous studies done across cultural paradigms with one common denominator, therapy. Whether it is psychological or counseling therapy it has proven a great influence over the ability of people accessing repressed memories over a long period of time. Most often therapist focus on memories, mainly because of the emotions memories elicit in people. It is believed that in order for an individual to overcome any obstacle preventing them from moving on and functioning in everyday life with a semblance of normalcy, one needs to become a survivor rather than a…
Recovering from false memory syndrome is often devastating to the victim. Victims now estranged from their families due to the false allegations against them, have no one to go to and in the end give up on living. Their families destroyed by false imprisonment and in some cases losing even their children. Studies have shown during therapy patients get sicker instead of better and large sums of money are spent for years of therapy after these memories are recovered (Loftus, 1997). Statistically, victims of false memory syndrome never recovery.…
Often, initial attempts to verbalize the experience deliver chronologically-disorganized details given without emotion while missing several episodes, and failing to include an interpretive aspect necessary to build meaning and integrate the event into the life-narrative. In counseling sessions, patient and therapist work together to identify and then reassemble the pieces of a large and complex puzzle. At times, when traumatic amnesia takes part or all of the memory, altered states like hypnosis can be used, but rarely is this necessary as the process of reassembling known pieces may summon the obscured details (Herman…
In the 1980s and 1990s, repressed memory was one of the most controvercial topics in psychology and law. Repressed memory is the psychological process or unconsciously keeping something out of awareness for extended periods of time because of the unpleasant emotions associated with it. In other words, keeping a memory hidden for a long time because it is an unpleasant memory. My father has some repressed memories. After my parent's divorce, my dad was dating a younger women.…
When something traumatic happens to someone, he or she may be motivated to forget about it because it is too emotionally painful to think about. The process of consciously or unconsciously blocking or burying memories is called repressing memories. Victims of sexual abuse are a case of when repressed memory is very common and around one third of sexually abused people don’t remember a large part of what they experienced. Naturally, people don’t want to remember the stressful and traumatic memories of sexual abuse so they repress them. This happens when they forcefully stop from thinking about anything that occurred during the trauma to a point where the memories are almost completely forgotten.…