Psychology

This article discussed the clashing view of Richard P. Kluft and Elizabeth F. Lottus regarding repressed memories.  Repressed memories are those events that were once forgotten but are subsequently remembered, often during the process of therapy (157). The content of repressed memories are often disturbing and traumatic events such as incest, gang rape and abuse.
    Richard P. Klufts argues that people who experiences traumatic events may repress their recollections of those events. The author presented some clinical experiences he encountered in his practice as a psychiatrist that confirms his hypothesis. One example is a woman who cannot establish a good relationship with the opposite sex recalled through hypnosis that her therapists seduced her (the therapist confessed to the incident). Another is a Marine who served in Vietnam claimed to have not seen any combat but recovered memories of his base being attacked and how he killed some of the enemies. Although the patient disbelieved them, military record and his war buddy attested to it.  The author cited other examples demonstrating that people can shield themselves from undesirable memories. Kluft discredited the work of Holmes about students reaction to failing French test as a proof that the impact of negative experiences declines over time. According to Kluft, failing a French test is different from sexual abuse or gang rape. Also, Loftus lost-in-the-mall experiment suggested that memories can be suggested or distorted but it does not show that all recovered memories are false. Kruft noted that memory recollection and complete abolition may both occur. 
In the second article, Elizabeth Loftus, a cognitive psychologist contends that false memories can be created. The author cited incidents where hypnosis and suggestive techniques done by psychiatrists created false memories for the patients. One of the cases is that of Nadean Cool who became convinced that she was sexually and physically abused but was found to be a virgin. Loftus mentioned three other cases where therapy awakened false memories from the patients. According to Loftus, these are evidences that memories can be instilled. To further prove her claim, she conducted various experiments about false memories. In one experiment, she tested the misinformation effect from witnesses of a simulated accident in an intersection with a stop sign. After viewing the incident, half of the participants were told the sign was a yield sign. Result showed that those who were not given the false suggestion had more accurate memory of the sign.
In the lost-in-the-mall experiment, 24 participants from 18 to 53 years of age were asked to recall childhood incidents retold by their relatives. Each participant was given three true incidents and a false story about being lost in the mall. The participants recalled 68 percent of the true events when asked in the preceding interviews and seven of the participants recalled partially or fully the false event. The study showed that people can be persuaded to remember events that never happened. This is consistent with the results of a study conducted by Hyman, Husband and Billing using false memory of hospitalization where 84 percent of the participants recalled the true events and none recalled the false event during the first interview but 88 percent recalled the true events and 20 percent recalled the false event during the second interview. The author cited similar studies done on the power of false memory implantation.