Research False Memories Not As Easy To Plant As Touted

[Gs172003]

OMG, I still struggle with this.

Shortest answer I can give would be...
When I was 15 I completely...

I understand completely. My mom never told me why she divorced my dad so I spent my childhood blaming myself. Why? I don't know. She knew this. I was almost grown before she told me. It still pisses me off she waited that long and let me go through all those years thinking it was my fault. I don't know that she told the whole truth but still. I get where you are coming from.

 

[shimmerz]

And did her giving you this new information change your world view at all? Or more importantly, your view of yourself in relation to it? I think that this is when it turned around for me. Entirely.

 

[Gs172003]

And did her giving you this new information change your world view at all? Or more importantly, your...

Not really. I still longed for him until I was an adult and realized what a piece of crap he is and let him go.

 

[Gs172003]

I also realize she thought she was protecting me in her own weird way.

 

[Hope1969]

I think what helped me a lot was when I questioned my T about how I could accept all that was coming up, she suggested an approach of, " what if," let's move on like it is.

Exactly what my T said to me. "Let's work with what we have".
It helped me for a while but I still have self doubt. I believe myself only when I experience the flashbacks. But an hour later I fill self doubt again.

 

[anthony]

I don't think anyone should really put a whole bunch of weight into anything one doctor says about memory... especially someone on a promo tour to sell a book.

A director of the NIMH, who I would cite as a responsible, reputable source of information for anything traumatic:

Dr. Thomas Insel, former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) said it best at the 2015 Smithsonian "Future is Here" festival: "In 2015, I can’t tell you -- nor can anyone else -- how the brain functions as an information processing organ. How does it do it? What is meaning, how is it stored, where does it exist, what does it look like in the brain?"

I really wouldn't put much weight into what you're writing here as though memory implantation is possible, or not possible. No doctor knows the answer. It has been done, it has been proven when done. Then there are cases where the same thing has failed.

The brain is complicated...

 

[sun seeker]

Thanks for asking this. It is the very first time that I can say with 100% certainty, YES, I would have been better off to know. But my parents couldn't have handled telling me the truth on their own. I needed a professional to help me work it out.

And they did have play therapy back then. Maybe not as commonly as they do now, but there are ways to help young children work through trauma without retraumatizing them by making them consciously relive the trauma.

 

[Gs172003]

I don't think anyone should really put a whole bunch of weight into anything one doctor says about memory.....

Exactly. I personally buy the first article more because to me it makes more sense. But even it admits they don't really know.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

It’s Shockingly Easy to Create False Memories

This is why I dont call my trauma SRA and its also why my therapist doesnt do hypnosis, dream interpretation, and imagination exercises.

Ive had a false memory and its a horrid feeling when you are so sure this memory is correct and then the process of correcting it.

 

[Gs172003]

I think there is a huge difference in a stranger telling you you did something as a kid then a family member which is what that "experiment" did and very few people actually "remembered" it per the first article.

I remember none of my childhood in Florida. None of it. All of my "memories" are what my mom told me. They could be lies. If somebody else came along and told me different I could question what she told me simply because I flat out don't remember. But I will never be able to have "pictures" of it just because somebody told me.

As far as the hot air balloon one? I'd never buy that in a million years. I won't get on a plane much less a damn balloon.

 

[clouds]

yeah definitely true and very interesting and confusing. recently I was sexually assaulted by a stranger while I was very drunk and the next day in a special facility I haven't slept through the whole night. I couldn't remember what happened at the time although I do now after seeing the place and time for it to get to me.

I had bruises on my neck which looked like hickies and on that day I had a memory of him doing these although they were really strangle marks. although this fake memory was in third person.

 

[Gs172003]

yeah definitely true and very interesting and confusing. recently I was sexually assaulted by a strange...

It's known that the memory might not be accurate. What the article is saying is that the idea that something that never happened period could be implanted into people ( such as a murder, an abuse, etc) that never happened by a separate person. But apparently it's not as easy to do as being said. Who knows.