Posted by Larry Hoover on October 27, 2004, at 7:50:03
In reply to Re: Take a test » lifeworthliving, posted by fires on October 26, 2004, at 16:47:34
> ... and like a poster mentioned previously about the bank robbery, all might not recall the more "minor" details, or describe them the same way, but all would agree that they had witnessed a robbery. i'm confident that what i remember is true... even when i doubt.
> > life
>
> Yeah, but it's so easy to be fooled by one's "memories":
>
> Great article:
> http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/39/features-abramsky.phpWell, yes and no.
I find it intriguing that Loftus was alleged to have manipulated the respondent in the legal action, the child's mother, "...Loftus went beyond the bounds of academic research, by “befriending” Jane Doe’s mother to the point where she would provide a willing audience for poetry the mother had written, by coaching her to believe she had not abused her daughter decades earlier..." Let's see, an expert in the manipulation of memory tampering with a witness' memory, to win a legal action, and to "prove" a point?
We'll leave that aside for now, but I really think you should also read Heaps and Nash, and Huffman et al. (Pubmed abstracts #'s 11486925, 12199217, 9479481. Just plug the numbers into the search bar).
About memory in therapy (e.g. cognitive behavioural therapy)....
One of the goals of CBT is to change the interpretion of life experiences, the process I summarize as "same facts, different conclusions". In this case, the "facts" are memories, plain and simple. For good or ill, that is all there is to work from. With respect to memories from childhood, there are certain features of a child's perspective that do not carry over into adulthood (cognitive schemae unique to periods of development, as described by e.g. Piaget), but the memory itself retains them. Without realizing it, an adult is also remembering the viewpoint of the child. That can be reassessed. There are many factors influencing the emotional impact of a memory that can be reassessed. The point is to diminish the maladaptive characteristics of memory, and to enhance the adaptive.
I think it is an exceedingly important issue to consider the use to which those memories are to be put. In the general case, I do not believe that memories ought to be used to blame another person for causing hurt. Attribution, distinct from blame, is part of the process of defining boundaries, i.e. that which is in your private realm, and that which is not. "I am hurt" is not equivalent to "You hurt me". The important issue with the memories is what they mean to you, their private meaning, and how they influence current states of mind.
The second aspect of CBT, and the one least often adequately explored (IMHO), is the behavioural component. All the thinking in the world will not effect the changes that one seeks in therapy. One must act differently to become different. You must have new types of experience to serve as memories to enable new thinking. As I was taught, "You can't think your way into a new way of acting, you act your way into a new way of thinking." You may have to think your way towards preparing yourself for new acts, but in the end, you must act.
All in all, these reflections on memory, in the therapeutic process, are private acts. The external validity of the memories is moot.
It seems to me that what you protest is the use of memory alone to cast blame. And in particular, the special case of recovered memories.
I agree with you that this use of memory, to cast blame, takes us towards the limits to which memory alone can reasonably be taken. Absent external validation or corroboration, we are left with the classic conundrum of who to believe. Judges, for example, make these decisions for a living. Again, for good or ill, this is sometimes all that we have to work with. An aphorism in the legal realm is that there are three sides to every story...your side, the other guy's side, and the truth.
Innocent people do get convicted, sometimes of horrific crimes for which there is no evidence beyond the circumstantial.
This leads me to what I see to be the nexus of our own disputations, fires. It would seem to me (I'm left with implications, as you do not present clear positions)....it would seem to me that you are suggesting that all criminal/civil actions for which there is no corroborative evidence be suppressed....that memory ought never to be given credence.....perhaps even in that private realm of insight-based therapies?
Yes, it is indeed possible that memories, even detailed traumatic memories, can be fabricated. However, it is also possible that fabricated memories can be distinguished from factual ones. That's why I suggested you follow up on those other memory researchers' work. There are distinctive attributes of false memories.
I have made explicit reference to this before, but in closing, I'm going to refer to it again. The issue of the veracity of memory is not a black and white issue. The limiting conditions are fully true and fully false, but there is an infinite realm of shades of gray, a continuum, in between. And it matters, too, to what purpose recall is put.
The collective of human thought is not a stable entity. Recent advances in DNA technology have forced us to reconsider eye-witness testimony, for example. What has come clear is that the very sort of specific recall most relied on in eye-witness testimony is also the most frangible, the most subject to external influence, the "minor" details that combine to uniquely identify a stranger, for example. That does not invalidate the entirety of the testimony. That doesn't mean the witness wasn't there, and didn't see what happened. Describing what happened with 100% accuracy is more difficult than anyone realized before. The devil is in the details.
We are still left with what we had before, though. There is no absolute test for credibility, yet we have no choice but to decide. The decision in criminal law is "beyond any reasonable doubt", not "beyond any doubt". In civil law, the decision is "on the balance of probabilities".
We have a legal system, not a justice system. We will not have the latter until we infallibility in the people who participate. Rest assured, those who need to know that, already do.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:406646
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041026/msgs/407820.html