Posted by fires on October 29, 2004, at 20:39:15
In reply to Re: What all this repeated info is really saying.... » fires, posted by Mark H. on October 29, 2004, at 17:21:15
Of course I can't prove that the facts you reported are incorrect. Then again you can't prove that aliens didn't abduct me last night.
Here's a concise and clear explanation of what I've been talking about:
from: http://tinyurl.com/3kwjw
________________________________________________>>>>Memory: How Reliable Is It?
Carol Tavris, a psychologist and author from Los Angeles, opened the session called "Memory: How Reliable Is It?" by answering: "Not very." Tavris has recently examined the "pop- psych" books about recovered memory. She found there was "no overlap" between what the books were promoting and what the academic researchers were discovering. Tavris metaphorically described memory as a putting together of tattered pieces that were initially experienced as seamless.
Stephen Ceci, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, and the session's first speaker, was praised by Tavris for his extensive research on memory. Ceci cited some common types of memory errors and their interesting though sometimes sad results. He provided examples to illustrate how remembrances of contemporaneous events can frequently be mixed together, how experiences can occasionally be remembered in a self-serving way, and how highly emotional or aroused states can cause false recollections.Ceci also described various studies in which the memories of numerous children were altered by repeated suggestive questioning. He pointed out that, according to national averages, children in court cases will often receive three and a half to eleven formal interviews prior to testifying. The number of informal, and possibly highly suggestive, discussions with worried parents and therapists is unknown. Given the fact that between 18 and 28 percent of children testifying in criminal and civil court cases are of preschool age, Ceci believes the use of children's memories in the courts is potentially very dangerous.
"Suggestive techniques work very well if there's something to elicit," Ceci concluded. "The problem is the price you pay if there isn't something there."
Richard Ofshe, professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, compared the proliferation of recovered- memory therapists to the grim lobotomy operations that occurred at the rate of five thousand a year during the thirties, forties, and fifties. "We are in the midst of a crisis," Ofshe said. "[Therapists] are subjecting people to the closest thing to the experience of rape and brutalization that can ever be done without actually touching them." He pointed out that some of these harmful persuasion techniques are being used not only by recovered-memory therapists but also in past-life therapy, alien- abduction therapy, and during police interrogations that, in some cases, have led to sincerely believed false confessions of crimes, including murder.
Ofshe said that prior to 1980 "no human society has ever noted this supposed ability to remove from consciousness vast amounts of information." He said that while there is no evidence for the existence of recovered memories, there is data establishing the dangers of hypnotherapy as well as the ease with which therapists can produce false memories. <<<<<<<<<<
_________________________________________________
poster:fires
thread:406646
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041026/msgs/408906.html