There was a recent Facebook post concerning a statement of the American Psychological Association (APA) on recovered memory. That statement reflects a misunderstanding of the etiology of DID. It ends with a statement that many researchers say there is no empirical evidence for even the idea of dissociation sheltering memories from ordinary conscious access. That misunderstanding continues to guide therapists (and their patients) in the wrong direction.
The APA statement asserts that certain questions “lie at the heart of the memory of childhood abuse issue.” The first question noted is: “Can a memory be forgotten and then remembered?” This question presumes that a traumatic memory is actually forgotten. That presumption is a fundamental misunderstanding of dissociation resulting from early childhood abuse.
A more correct question is a bit longer and more to the point. It would be something along the following lines: “Can memories be compartmentalized so as to be rendered inaccessible to the conscious mind so long as amnestic barriers created as a function of that compartmentalization persist?”
Why is this important? From the very beginning of psychiatry, it has been clear that there are many memories of events which are not readily accessible to the conscious mind. This is true whether you consider distinguishing between the conscious and subconscious mind or whether you are analyzing dissociative experiences involving alters.
This then puts the second posed question in its appropriate context: “Can a memory be ‘suggested” and then rendered as true?” Without the above re-framing of the first question, this second question sets up the false inference that recovered memories are equivalent to hypnotic suggestion.
Once again, context is critical to understanding. Yes, there are similarities between hypnotic states and dissociative states. Should one take from those similarities that hypnotic suggestion and dissociation resulting from trauma are identical? No. One should understand that human minds have the capacity to act in the world without those actions always being consciously accessible and controllable. Hypnotic suggestion is one way that can happen. Dissociation resulting from trauma is another.
Clarifying that this is a fundamental ability of mind should enable psychiatrists, therapists and others to understand why certain memories would be inaccessible for periods of time or only be accessible in particular situations. They are conventionally inaccessible, not forgotten. It should be clear that under the pressure of massive early childhood trauma, such a fundamental ability of mind would necessarily be used to allow a child to survive the abusive onslaught.
