Chapter 6 Walking into the Eye of the Storm: Encountering “Repressed Memories” in the Therapeutic Context

The clinical phenomenon of “repressed memory” has become a subject of controversy that extends far beyond the therapeutic context in which it originates. Problems occur as society struggles to determine the “truth” of such memories. Are they relics from the past, unburied in their original form from the depths? Does such an archeological metaphor fit the recall of memories as they occur in the therapeutic context? Or, as current theorists would suggest (Stolorow, Brandchaft, and Atwood, 1987), can “truth” actually be a concretized version of subjective experience? When memories resurface in the therapeutic context and are taken as pieces of truth beyond this context, a process occurs that is similar to that of the repressed memory in the personality structure: isolated, affectively charged pieces of experience are taken out of context and literalized as if they were solid pieces of “truth.”

Making sense of the clinical phenomenon of “repressed memories” within the therapeutic context is a challenging endeavor. A very intriguing case will be presented that has led me to address the following questions in reference to “repressed memories.” From a self-psychological perspective, what is a “repressed memory”? What is its relationship to dissociation? What is the impact upon the developing self? How does the therapeutic process contribute to the recall of such memories? What clinical response is therapeutic? In other words, can we understand the