The Reality of Repressed MemoriesElizabeth F. LoftusRepression is one of the most haunting concepts in psy-chology. Something shocking happens, and the mindpushes it into some inaccessible comer of the unconscious.Later, the memory may emerge into consciousness.Repression is one of the foundation stones on which thestructure of psychoanalysis rests. Recently there has beena rise in reported memories of childhood sexual abusethat were allegedly repressed for many years. With recentchanges in legislation, people with recently unearthedmemories are suing alleged perpetrators for events thathappened 20, 30, even 40 or more years earlier. Thesenew developments give rise to a number of questions: (a)How common is it for memories of child abuse to be re-pressed? (b) How are jurors and judges likely to react tothese repressed memory claims? (c) When the memoriessurface, what are they like? and (d) How authentic are thememories?In 1990, a landmark case went to trial in RedwoodCity, California. The defendant, George Franklin, Sr.,51 years old, stood trial for a murder that had occurredmore than 20 years earlier. The victim, 8-year-old SusanKay Nason, was murdered on September 22, 1969.Franklin's daughter, Eileen, only 8 years old herself atthe time of the murder, provided the major evidenceagainst her father. What was unusual about the case isthat Eileen's memory of witnessing the murder had beenrepressed for more than 20 years.Eileen's memory did not come back all at once. Sheclaimed that her first flashback came one afternoon inJanuary 1989 when she was playing with her two-year-old son, Aaron, and her five-year-old daughter, Jessica.At one moment, Jessica looked up and asked her mothera question like "Isn't that right, Mommy?" A memoryof Susan Nason suddenly came back. Eileen recalled thelook of betrayal in Susie's eyes just before the murder.Later, more fragments would return, until Eileen had arich and detailed memory. She remembered her fathersexually assaulting Susie in the back of a van. She re-membered that Susie was struggling as she said "Nodon't" and "Stop." She remembered her father saying"Now Susie," and she even mimicked his precise into-nation. Next, her memory took the three of them outsidethe van, where she saw her father with his hands raisedabove his head with a rock in them. She rememberedscreaming. She remembered walking back to where Susielay, covered with blood, the silver ring on her fingersmashed.Eileen's memory report was believed by her thera-pist, by several members of her family, and by the SanMateo County district attorney's office, which chose toprosecute her father. It was also believed by the jury, whichconvicted George Franklin, Sr., of murder. The jury beganits deliberations on November 29, 1990, and returned averdict the next day. Impressed by Eileen's detailed andconfident memory, they found her father guilty of murderin the first degree.Eileen's detailed and confident memory impresseda number of people. But is her memory authentic? Didshe really witness the murder of her best friend 20 yearsearlier? The idea of repression of early traumatic mem-ories is a concept that many psychotherapists readily ac-cept (Bruhn, 1990). In fact, it has been said that repressionis the foundation on which psychoanalysis rests (Bower,1990). According to the theory, something happens thatis so shocking that the mind grabs hold of the memoryand pushes it underground, into some inaccessible cornerof the unconscious. There it sleeps for years, or even de-cades, or even forever—isolated from the rest of mentallife. Then, one day, it may rise up and emerge into con-sciousness. Numerous clinical examples fitting this modelcan be readily found. Many of these examples involvenot memory of murder but rather memory of other sortsof childhood trauma, such as sexual abuse, that allegedlyhas been repressed for decades until recovered in therapy.Rieker and Carmen (1986) described a woman who en-tered psychotherapy for sexual dysfunction and recoveredmemories of incest committed by her father. Schuker(1979) described a woman who entered psychotherapyfor chronic insomnia, low self-esteem, and other problemsand recovered memories of her father sexually assaultingher. M. Williams (1987) described a man who enteredtherapy for depression and sleep disturbances and recov-ered memories of a servant molesting him. These anec-dotal reports constitute the clinical evidence that clientsdo indeed manage later to remember some earlier inac-Stanley L. Brodsky served as action editor for this article.This article is an expanded version of an invited address, the PsiChi/Frederick Howell Lewis Distinguished Lecture, presented at the100th 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 helpfulcomments on earlier drafts. I thank many others, especially Ellen Bass,Mark Demos, Judie Alpert, Marsha Linehan, and Denise Park for il-luminating discussion of the issues. My gratitude for the vast efforts ofthe members of the Repressed Memory Research Group at the Universityof Washington is beyond measure. The National Institute of MentalHealth and the National Science Foundation have generously supportedthe underlying research on memory.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed toElizabeth F. Loftus, Department of Psychology, University of Washington,Seattle, WA 98195.518May 1993 • American PsychologistCopyright 1993 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. OO03-066X/93/S2.00Vol.48. No. 5. 518-537cessible painful experience (Erdelyi, 1985). The reportsconstitute evidence for the core ideas inherent in the the-ory of repression. Several respected scholars once madethe point that, from a clinical standpoint, "the evidencefor repression is overwhelming and obvious" (Erdelyi &Goldberg, 1979, p. 384).On the other hand, the clinical anecdotes and theloose theory used to explain them remain unconvincingto some psychotherapists and to many laboratory re-searchers. One psychiatrist who has seen more than 200severely dissociative patients explicitly referred to suchanecdotes as "empirical observations lacking in scientificunderpinnings" (Ganaway, 1992, p. 203). One researcherdescribed them as "impressionistic case studies" andclaimed that they could not be counted as "anything morethan unconfirmed clinical speculations" (Holmes, 1990,p. 97). After
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