The Reality of Repressed Memories Elizabeth F Loftus Repression is one of the most haunting concepts in psychology Something shocking happens and the mind pushes it into some inaccessible comer of the unconscious Later the memory may emerge into consciousness Repression is one of the foundation stones on which the structure ofpsychoanalysis rests Recently there has been a rise in reported memories of childhood sexual abuse that were allegedly repressedfor many years With recent changes in legislation people with recently unearthed memories are suing alleged perpetrators for events that happened 20 30 even 40 or more years earlier These new developments give rise to a number of questions a How common is it for memories of child abuse to be repressed b How are jurors and judges likely to react to these repressed memory claims c When the memories surface what are they like and d How authentic are the memories I n 1990 a landmark case went to trial in Redwood City California The defendant George Franklin Sr 51 years old stood trial for a murder that had occurred more than 20 years earlier The victim 8 year old Susan Kay Nason was murdered on September 22 1969 Franklin s daughter Eileen only 8 years old herself at the time of the murder provided the major evidence against her father What was unusual about the case is that Eileen s memory of witnessing the murder had been repressed for more than 20 years Eileen s memory did not come back all at once She claimed that her first flashback came one afternoon in January 1989 when she was playing with her two yearold son Aaron and her five year old daughter Jessica At one moment Jessica looked up and asked her mother a question like Isn t that right Mommy A memory of Susan Nason suddenly came back Eileen recalled the look of betrayal in Susie s eyes just before the murder Later more fragments would return until Eileen had a rich and detailed memory She remembered her father sexually assaulting Susie in the back of a van She remembered that Susie was struggling as she said No don t and Stop She remembered her father saying Now Susie and she even mimicked his precise intonation Next her memory took the three of them outside the van where she saw her father with his hands raised above his head with a rock in them She remembered screaming She remembered walking back to where Susie lay covered with blood the silver ring on her finger smashed Eileen s memory report was believed by her therapist by several members of her family and by the San 518 Mateo County district attorney s office which chose to prosecute her father It was also believed by the jury which convicted George Franklin Sr of murder The jury began its deliberations on November 29 1990 and returned a verdict the next day Impressed by Eileen s detailed and confident memory they found her father guilty of murder in the first degree Eileen s detailed and confident memory impressed a number of people But is her memory authentic Did she really witness the murder of her best friend 20 years earlier The idea of repression of early traumatic memories is a concept that many psychotherapists readily accept Bruhn 1990 In fact it has been said that repression is the foundation on which psychoanalysis rests Bower 1990 According to the theory something happens that is so shocking that the mind grabs hold of the memory and pushes it underground into some inaccessible corner of the unconscious There it sleeps for years or even decades or even forever isolated from the rest of mental life Then one day it may rise up and emerge into consciousness Numerous clinical examples fitting this model can be readily found Many of these examples involve not memory of murder but rather memory of other sorts of childhood trauma such as sexual abuse that allegedly has been repressed for decades until recovered in therapy Rieker and Carmen 1986 described a woman who entered psychotherapy for sexual dysfunction and recovered memories of incest committed by her father Schuker 1979 described a woman who entered psychotherapy for chronic insomnia low self esteem and other problems and recovered memories of her father sexually assaulting her M Williams 1987 described a man who entered therapy for depression and sleep disturbances and recovered memories of a servant molesting him These anecdotal reports constitute the clinical evidence that clients do indeed manage later to remember some earlier inacStanley L Brodsky served as action editor for this article This article is an expanded version of an invited address the Psi Chi Frederick Howell Lewis Distinguished Lecture presented at the 100th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association Washington DC August 1992 1 thank Geoffrey Loftus Ilene Bernstein Lucy Berliner Robert Koscielny and Richard Ofshe for very helpful comments on earlier drafts I thank many others especially Ellen Bass Mark Demos Judie Alpert Marsha Linehan and Denise Park for illuminating discussion of the issues My gratitude for the vast efforts of the members of the Repressed Memory Research Group at the University of Washington is beyond measure The National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation have generously supported the underlying research on memory Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elizabeth F Loftus Department of Psychology University of Washington Seattle WA 98195 May 1993 American Psychologist Copyright 1993 by the American Psychological Association Inc OO03 066X 93 S2 00 Vol 48 No 5 518 537 cessible painful experience Erdelyi 1985 The reports constitute evidence for the core ideas inherent in the theory of repression Several respected scholars once made the point that from a clinical standpoint the evidence for repression is overwhelming and obvious Erdelyi Goldberg 1979 p 384 On the other hand the clinical anecdotes and the loose theory used to explain them remain unconvincing to some psychotherapists and to many laboratory researchers One psychiatrist who has seen more than 200 severely dissociative patients explicitly referred to such anecdotes as empirical observations lacking in scientific underpinnings Ganaway 1992 p 203 One researcher described them as impressionistic case studies and claimed that they could not be counted as anything more than unconfirmed clinical speculations Holmes 1990 p 97 After reviewing 60 years of research and finding no controlled laboratory support for the concept of repression Holmes
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