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Article published In: Journal of Narrative and Life History
Vol. 5:1 (1995) ► pp.51–66

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A Narrative Approach to "Repressed Memories"

 | Sarbin Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Criminology, University of California, Santa Cruz
Published online: 4 August 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.5.1.03ana
Abstract I make use of insights from narrative psychology to illuminate claims made by advocates of the controversial multiple personality doctrine. The notion of "repressed memories" of childhood abuse is one of the foundations of the claim that one body can host two or more personalities. Until recently, a therapist could help a client reconstruct a failing self-narrative without being concerned with the historical truth of recovered memories. In the current litigious climate, clients bring suits in courts of law for damages supposedly caused by long-unremembered childhood instances of abuse by parents or other adults. In the forensic setting, the narrative truth that flows from the recovery of repressed memories is not enough; historical truth is required. I discuss the role of imagining in the construction of rememberings and the difficulties in establish-ing the historical truth of any remembering.(Psychology)
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