A note on recovered memories: if you lost your car keys a year ago and then suddenly remembered that you left them in your hockey bag, is that a "recovered" memory? It might be, if you never knew that your keys were missing until you "recovered" the memory. But of course, you can't remember that ever happening.
You know and I know that you are not going to remember where you left your car keys if you don't know they are missing.
And chances are very, very good that if you were not able to remember where your car keys were at the time they went missing, you will not be able to "recover" that memory a year later. What you might recover, with the blatant encouragement of a counselor, is a constructed memory. Your keys won't be there.
We don't think of all memories at once. Never. Memories come into consciousness as they are prompted by the mind, in search of a missing item, a moment with a fondly remembered friend, a smell or sound, or a piece of music. Memories are not like tape recordings: we often blend elements of different past experiences or present perceptions into recalled activities.
There are many people who fervently believe that some memories, especially of trauma, can be "repressed". These people are rarely not advocates for some social action of some kind.
I don't believe it. I believe that bad experiences, in fact, provide vivid memories. You may choose to not bring them forward in your mind very often, but they are not hidden or buried.
Have you ever heard a Holocaust victim speak about his or her experiences? Have you read "Maus"? Or any of a hundred books on wartime experiences in Europe? If "repression" were possible, it beggars the imagination that these witnesses bear such voluminous, eloquent testimony.
