Repressed memories: Just the facts.

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Insights from the author's previous systematic research and psychoanalytic observations are summarized. In a nationwide Gallup sample, segregation was found destructive to African Americans and Whites, although differently so. Clinical experience delineated the number 4 as a symbol, the helpfulness of psychoanalysis, and meanings of schizophrenic symptoms. Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) pathogenesis (unconsciously based hurtful parenting) differentiated both parents of schizophrenics and inadequate therapists. A controlled project demonstrated that 70 sessions of psychoanalytic therapy were more helpful than medication with respect to schizophrenic thought disorder, hospitalization, and living a more human life. Masked clinical judgments from Rorschachs, TATs, and interviews were found to be valid. Clinical papers described treating lower socioeconomic status patients, not eating, the 4 bases of delusions, and the necessity to be kind, tolerant, stubborn, and confused and to avoid abstractions.For the American Psychological Association centenary, Division 39 asked me to give a paper on the state of the art of psychoanalysis; its title was "Science, Hope, and Kindness in Psychoanalytic Technique" (Karon, 1989b), because all three aspects are important. Although all of the research techniques in psychology have been useful, psychoanalytic clinical observations, including free association, have yielded the most information about what it means to be human.My introduction to psychoanalysis came from my brother, who shortly after World War II treated my uncle. This apparent breach of the rules came about because my uncle,

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confidence: 99%

Insights, Hope, Kindness, and Confusion: Odyssey of a Psychoanalyst.

Karon¹

2004

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“…It is absurd to say there is no evidence for repression (Karon & Widener, 2001). Despite the organized campaign of the False Memory society, there is ample evidence from the clinical observations of every psychoanalytic therapist, from the data from World War II (Karon & Widener, 1997, 1998, 1999) and in the experiments of Diven (1937); Haggard (1943); Lacey, Smith, and Green (1955); and Shevrin, Bond, Brakel, Hertel, and Williams (1996). (For a long time, the electronic databases did not go back before 1970, and computer-based reviews of the literature did not include the older studies.…”

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confidence: 99%

Psychoanalysis: Legitimate and illegitimate concerns.

Karon¹

2002

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R. F. Bornstein (2001) points to real problems but underestimates what is going on now clinically and scientifically, exaggerates the past acceptance, and undervalues the scientific value of clinical observations. He ignores the role of economic factors in determining the status of psychoanalysis. He rejects repression, castration anxiety, penis envy, free association, and dream analysis. Clinical observations from World War II, ordinary clinical practice, and experiments amply demonstrate the phenomena of repression (painful memories, fantasies, impulses, feelings, or connections being kept out of awareness). Free association and dream analyses are powerful therapeutic techniques. Castration anxiety and penis envy (not innate) can sometimes be observed. Psychoanalysis includes powerful ideas and effective therapy as experienced by patients and reflected in research. Bornstein (2001), who has done solid research himself, is legitimately concerned that the lack of nomothetic research acceptable to experimental psychologists may mean the needless death of psychoanalysis. He believes that the problem is due to the insularity, inaccuracy, indifference, irrelevance, inefficiency, indeterminacy, and insolence of psychoanalysts. Certainly, we all know psychoanalysts with one or more of these problems, but are they universal? Psychoanalysts differ in these respects as they do

“…In previous articles, we (Karon & Widener, 1997, 1998, 1999a) have discussed the hundreds of documented battlefield neuroses in World War II regularly discussed in the textbooks of the 1950s, where memories of battlefield trauma (witnessed by others) were repressed and retrieved in treatment with symptomatic improvement. Usually, the symptoms were of conversion hysteria.…”

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confidence: 99%

Repressed memories: Avoiding the obvious.

Karon¹,

Widener²

2001

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Sorting out the distinctions between reality and fantasy in terms of apparently recovered memories and reconstructions is at least as puzzling as sorting out current realities. In responding to C. B. Brenneis's (1997Brenneis's ( , 2000 challenge to the existence of the phenomena of repression and of recovered or reconstructed memories, the authors point out the data from the Recovered Memory Archive web site, the data from World War I and World War II battlefield neuroses, as well as the clinical observations of psychoanalysts.The articles by Brenneis seem very thoughtful and carefully elucidated. But they avoid the obvious. Brenneis (1997Brenneis ( , 2000 reviewed some of the relevant studies, citing some data and logic that supposedly discount the evidence for repressed memories. He says there are very few real cases, and "no larger sample of verified cases exist" (Brenneis, 2000, p.74).