Cerri, Mark M. (Author)
Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center
Taylor, Eugene
Edition Details: Advisor: Taylor, Eugene
Physical Details: 206 pp.
Language: English
False memory syndrome is a current topic of extensive debate, but as yet there has been no systematic study of its historical foundations. Such investigations might shed new light not only on recovered memories and whether or not these memories are true or false, but also on how they are inextricably entwined with other phenomena, such as dissociation, trauma, multiple personality, and childhood sexual abuse. Beginning with a discussion of its historical context, a review of contemporary research on recovered memory, both pro and con, is then presented. However, while the question arises, whether or not the current literature adequately accounts for the phenomenon of recovered memory, the focus of this dissertation is on the nineteenth century foundations of the debate. Freud's recantation of the seduction theory, which postulated that his female patients had been sexually victimized as children but then had repressed their memory of the event, is reviewed and provides one theoretical viewpoint for understanding recovered memory. Pierre Janet and French dissociationism provide a second historical-theoretical line of inquiry. Janet has had a strong influence upon contemporary dissociationists, traumatologists, and researchers in multiple personality, such as Hilgard, Putnam, van der Kolk and van der Hart, and Herman among others. While Freud viewed repression as the primary mechanism by which childhood memories of abuse were forgotten, before Freud, Janet postulated that dissociation, which often caused a split in the personality, was the primary cause of this amnesia. However, in reviewing the history of dissociationism, it is apparent that F. W. H. Myers, a British psychical researcher, offered an alternative theory of dissociation that took issue with Janet's strictly pathological conceptualization of the subconscious. Myers, followed by William James and Theodore Flournoy, postulated that what he called the "subliminal consciousness" might also have superconscious aspects. Hence, the question arises, why is this subliminal point of view, which could be conceptualized as a precursor of transpersonal psychology, absent from the current debate, when it was so obviously influential during the nineteenth century discussions of the same problem? At present, the question remains unanswered.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. B 65/09 (2005): 4820. UMI pub. no. 3148988.
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