Growing New Brain Cells - How Memory Changes With Age: Improving Memory Understanding Age Related Memory Loss

Are recovered memories real?

Recovered memories are vivid, emotionally powerful recollections of events or occurrences from the distant past that a person has not thought of in years. These memories are frequently recovered in the course of psychotherapy. The use of such memories — in particular, as evidence of past child abuse, incest, or other traumatic events — has engendered considerable controversy.

Critics of the concept of recovered memory point out that memory is not a literal register of experience. What we remember — and how we remember it — is influenced by our personalities, as well as our beliefs, hopes, and needs. New experiences interact with old memories and cause them to distort or decay, and we may fill in the gaps, merge the memories of several events, or confuse what we had imagined or heard about with what we actually witnessed or experienced. Critics charge that recovered memories often reflect the power of suggestion during psychotherapy sessions and that the therapist, an authority figure, plays the key role in encouraging false memories to emerge. Similarly, when the memory of distant events is a vital aspect of a criminal investigation, police, social workers, and other officials can intentionally or unintentionally influence what a person remembers.

Champions of the recovered memory concept, on the other hand, insist that the more unusual and disturbing the memory, the less likely it is to be false. If anything, they say, people tend to doubt recovered memories of child abuse longer than they should. Advocates say that most recovered memories are spontaneous and are not generated as the result of a therapist's intervention, although they may be revealed in that context because the therapist creates a safe environment in which to disclose them.

Both sides in this dispute have tried to support their positions with evidence from neurology and cognitive neuroscience, including animal experiments, brain scans, neuropsychological tests, and the examination of brain-damaged patients. The majority of mental health professionals take a position between the two extremes.

Although there is no established consensus, we know that memories can contain varying elements of truth, partial truth, or distortion, and individuals have different capacities for remembering and forgetting. A true memory (recovered or persistent) cannot be distinguished from a false one on the basis of internal evidence alone. Instead, people must tolerate some uncertainty. More research is needed on the prevalence of false memories and delayed recall. As research clarifies the subtle nuances of how normal memory works, scientists will gain a better understanding of the interplay between knowledge and emotion in the recollection of traumatic experiences and may reach a consensus on the usefulness and reliability of recovered memories.