ASSOCIATION FOR
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Belief in Unconscious Repressed
Memory Persists
Perspectives on Psychological Science
2021, Vol. 16(2) 454–460
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691621990628
DOI: 10.1177/1745691621990628
www.psychologicalscience.org/PPS
Henry Otgaar1,2,3 , Mark L. Howe1,2, Olivier Dodier4 ,
Scott O. Lilienfeld5 , Elizabeth F. Loftus6, Steven Jay Lynn7,
Harald Merckelbach1 , and Lawrence Patihis8
1
Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Section of Forensic Psychology, Maastricht University;
Department of Psychology, City, University of London; 3Leuvens Institute for Criminology, Faculty of
Law, KU Leuven; 4Department of Psychology, University of Nantes, France; 5Department of Psychology,
Emory University; 6Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine; 7Laboratory
of Consciousness, Cognition, and Psychopathology, Binghamton University; and 8Department of
Psychology, University of Portsmouth
2
Abstract
On the basis of converging research, we concluded that the controversial topic of unconscious blockage of psychological
trauma (i.e., repressed memory) remains very much alive in clinical, legal, and academic contexts. In his commentary,
Brewin (this issue, p. 443) conducted a cocitation analysis and concluded that scholars do not adhere to the concept of
unconscious repression. Furthermore, he argued that previous survey research did not specifically assess unconscious
repression. Here, we present critical evidence that runs counter to his claims. First, we inspected his cocitation analysis
and found that some scholars support notions that are closely related to unconscious repression. Furthermore, we
conducted another analysis on the basis of articles’ similarity. Again, we found examples of scholars specifically
endorsing unconscious repressed memories. Second, as opposed to what Brewin reports, recent survey research now
exists that bears directly on people’s beliefs regarding unconscious repression. This work reveals that large percentages
of people (e.g., students and eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing [EMDR] clinicians) endorse the concept
of unconscious repressed memories. The belief in unconscious repressed memory can continue to contribute to
harmful consequences in clinical, legal, and academic domains (e.g., false accusations of abuse).
Keywords
repressed memory, memory wars, unconscious, false memory
In a previous review, we (Otgaar et al., 2019) concluded
that the controversial issue of unconscious blockage of
psychological trauma or repressed memory remains very
much alive in clinical, legal, and academic contexts. In
response to our claim, Brewin (2021) offered evidence
that he argued is “incompatible” (p. 449) with our conclusions. For example, Brewin claimed that few if any
scholars refer to unconscious repression. In addition,
he asserted that survey research on repressed memories
does not assess unconscious repression. Here, we present several lines of evidence indicating that the topic of
repressed memory persists.
As Holmes (1994) anticipated, the terminology used
to describe repressed memories has changed and broadened greatly over time; theorists and researchers have
used a variety of terms (e.g., dissociation, dissociative
amnesia, engrams, and body memories) as substitutes
for the monolithic and often vaguely defined term
“repressed memory” to refer to the unconscious banishment of memories from consciousness. The terms listed
do not necessarily convey whether “repressed memories” refer to the process or outcome of unconscious
repression. Nevertheless, we suggest that the general
construct of unconscious repressed memories can be
encompassed by diverse hypotheses and claims regarding memory, even though the exact term “repressed
memory” is not invoked.
Corresponding Author:
Henry Otgaar, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Section of
Forensic Psychology, Maastricht University
E-mail: henry.otgaar@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Beliefs About Repressed Memories
What Do Scholars Mean by Repressed
Memory?
Recently, we presented evidence that many people in
clinical, legal, and academic fields continue to believe
in repressed memories (Otgaar et al., 2019). This belief
lay at the heart of the so-called “memory wars” of the
1990s (Loftus & Ketcham, 1994). On the basis of converging research, we argued that the memory wars still
endure in multiple quarters. According to repressedmemory proponents, repression can involve the automatic and unconscious blockage of autobiographical
experiences of trauma (e.g., sexual abuse). Furthermore, unconscious repressed memories are said to lead
to physical and mental health problems, and recovery
of the repressed memory is crucial to symptom relief
(e.g., van der Kolk & Fisler, 1995). As we observed
(Otgaar et al., 2019), the scientific support for unconscious repressed memories is weak or even nonexistent.
In this respect, we find it encouraging that Brewin
similarly appears to express skepticism regarding
unconscious repression (see also Brewin & Andrews,
2014). Apart from plausible alternative explanations for
people not remembering trauma (e.g., encoding failures, ordinary forgetting, reinterpretation of traumatic
experiences), a wealth of research demonstrates that
traumatic experiences are not repressed but actually
well remembered (e.g., McNally, 2005).
Brewin conducted a cocitation analysis to examine
the major publications agreeing with the concept of
repression. He argued that none of the articles detected
in this analysis supported the controversial unconscious
version of repression. He proceeded to conclude that,
in contrast to what we proposed, scholars do not
endorse this unconscious variant of repression. However, there are several problems with Brewin’s analysis.
First, although Brewin stated that none of the sources
endorsed the unconscious variant of repression, this
contention cannot be verified with the information he
presented. More specifically, he presented only a table
with the author names of books and articles without
describing their content (e.g., writings on conscious
suppression). Second, when we inspected the content
of these sources, we found clear evidence of references
to unconscious repression and problematic assumptions
related to the construct. 1 For example, Herman and
Schatzow (1987) wrote that
Patients were categorized as having severe
memory deficits if they could recall very little from
childhood, if they reported recent eruption into
consciousness of memories that had been entirely
repressed, or if this kind of recall occurred during
the course of group treatment. (p. 4)
455
These authors endorse the idea of unconscious
repression (e.g., “eruption into consciousness of memories that had been entirely repressed”). Likewise,
although we agree with Brewin (2021) that “clinical
evidence” (p. 443) shows that there are many types of
memories elicited without suggestion, “clinical evidence” is no guarantee that recovered memories are
true.
To give another example, Terr (1991) argued that
“spontaneous dissociation” could underlie “amnesia for
certain periods of childhood life” (p. 330).
Here, one might quibble with whether repression is
isomorphic with dissociation. Yet the idea of “spontaneous dissociation” is arguably indistinguishable from
unconscious repression, in which large blocks of experience are banned from memory. In addition, contrary
to Brewin’s assertions, the notion of unconscious
repression remains accepted by many scholars under
the guise of dissociative amnesia in the influential fifth
edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2013;
DSM–5). According to the DSM–5, dissociative amnesia
“involves a period of time when there is an inability to
recall important biographical information” (p. 298) and
is “always potentially reversible because the memory
has been successfully stored (p. 298). (These quotes
appeared in our original article [Otgaar et al., 2019] as
well.) These statements again imply the unconscious
version of repression. The inclusion of dissociative
amnesia in the DSM–5—so tightly aligned with the concept of unconscious repression—may be one of the
most important reasons why this debate is likely to
extend for years to come.
Furthermore, a limitation of cocitation analysis (as
used in Brewin, 2021) is that it includes only sources
that cite each other. An alternative analysis, using the
website https://www.connectedpapers.com, not only
takes advantage of the principles of cocitation and bibliographic coupling but also rearranges sources according to their similarity. The benefit of such an analysis
is that it can encompass more sources related to unconscious repression. To conduct such an analysis, an
article identifier (e.g., DOI number, title) needs to be
inserted, after which a graph is created in which articles
are visually displayed in terms of their similarity to the
source in question. Our strategy was to include an
identifier of an article that contains problematic assumptions concerning repressed memory. We elected to use
the widely cited (over 1,700 citations as of this writing
according to the Google Scholar database) article by
Van der Kolk and Fisler (1995), which maintained that
repressed memories of trauma can exert a physical toll.
According to this body-keeps-the-score hypothesis,
trauma can be “entirely organized on an implicit or
456
Otgaar et al.
Fig. 1. Graph of papers arranged according to their similarity. Darker colors represent more recent articles; lighter colors represent older
articles. Hart = van der Hart; Kolk = Van der Kolk; Minnen = Van Minnen.
perceptual level, without an accompanying narrative
about what happened” (Van der Kolk & Fisler, 1995,
p. 512). We selected this article given that we used it
prominently in our previous article as an example of
the prevalence of the idea of unconscious repressed
memory (Otgaar et al., 2019; see also McNally, 2005).
Figure 1 displays a visual representation of articles that
share similarities with Van der Kolk and Fisler. We
inspected these papers and, in contrast to Brewin,
found clear indications that scholars referred to unconscious repression. For example, Van der Hart and
Nijenhuis (1995)2 wrote that memory loss due to trauma
“involves a reversible memory impairment in which
memories of personal experience cannot be retrieved
in a verbal form, or, if temporarily retrieved, cannot be
wholly retained in consciousness” (p. 1).
Another example: Van der Kolk et al. (2001) postulated that “traumatic memories persist primarily
as implicit, behavioral, and somatic memories”
(p. 24). There are also examples of scholarly mention
of unconscious repression that were not part of our
analysis. For example, Axmacher et al. (2010) argued
that there are
two problematic cases involving extremely
negative emotions: the emergence of an unconscious conflict, which is subject to repression, and
traumatic events that overstress a person’s
executive capabilities and thus lead to dissociation.
As a result, conscious recall of these contents is
impaired, but they continue to exert an unconscious
effect which dramatically influences subsequent
life—for example, by uncontrollably occurring
intrusions and dissociative flashbacks, panic
attacks, or psychosomatic symptoms. (para. 4)
In sharp contrast with Brewin, we find substantial
evidence to the contrary and further contend that the
concept is very much alive and is likely to endure in
the future. Even though the terminology has seemingly
Beliefs About Repressed Memories
changed over time (from repressed memory to dissociation and dissociative amnesia), the idea persists that a
person can be physically or sexually abused, somehow
unconsciously extirpate the disturbing experience from
memory, and then recall it year later in pristine detail.
Problematically, scholars and clinicians who endorse a
belief in unconscious repression might advocate for
associated and problematic practices, such as attempting to unearth repressed traumatic memories using suggestive procedures in psychotherapy (Loftus & Ketcham,
1994).
Surveys on Unconscious Repressed
Memory
Many researchers have surveyed people from the general public, clinicians, students, and legal professionals
regarding their beliefs in repressed memories (e.g.,
Magnussen & Melinder, 2012; Ost et al., 2017; Patihis
et al., 2014). Combining data from all surveys, we
reported that the belief in repressed memories is widespread (58%; n = 4,745; Otgaar et al., 2019). Brewin
criticized this research because it relied on a single
questionnaire item to assess repressed memory (e.g.,
“Traumatic memories can be repressed for many years
and then recovered”; Kassin et al., 2001) that does not
refer specifically to unconscious repression.
There are several flaws in his criticism. First, several
researchers have explicitly asked participants about
their belief in unconscious repressed memory. For
example, Houben and colleagues (2019) asked therapists who practice the widely used technique of eyemovement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
whether “the mind is capable of unconsciously blocking
out memories of traumatic events.” EMDR is a highly
popular intervention for posttraumatic stress disorder
(Cuijpers et al., 2020). In two studies, Houben and colleagues showed that large percentages of small samples
of EMDR therapists agreed with this statement (Study
1: 91.6%, 11/12; Study 2: 70.7%, 29/41).
Second, Brewin referred to recent work that he and
colleagues published (Brewin et al., 2019) asking participants to respond to two items concerning repressed
memory, one that has frequently been used in previous
work (“Traumatic memories can be repressed for many
years and then recovered”) and one focusing on conscious repression (“Traumatic experiences can be deliberately blocked out for many years and then recovered”).
Participants agreed to these statements at similar rates.
Brewin and colleagues argued that one explanation for
this finding was that participants actually endorse a belief
in conscious repression. In a recent study, we commented
on Brewin et al.’s research as they did not specifically
ask participants about their beliefs in unconscious
457
repression (Otgaar, Wang, Howe, et al., 2020). We corrected this shortcoming and also surveyed participants
(Study 1: N = 230; Study 2: N = 79) about their belief
in unconscious repression. We found that many people
endorse this belief (Study 1: 59.2%; 45/86; Study 2:
67.1%; 53/79).
Furthermore, to examine more specific beliefs concerning the issue of repressed memory (e.g., whether
repressed memories can lead to psychopathological
symptoms), we also surveyed people from the (French)
general public (N = 1,125) and provided them with
more specific statements related to the topic of
repressed memories. It is important to note that we
presented them with statements such as “Unconscious
repressed memories can cause mental health problems
(e.g., depressive symptoms),” “Unconscious repressed
memories are memories of events that people are
unaware that they happened to them,” “Unconscious
repressed memories can be retrieved in therapy accurately,” and “When unconscious repressed traumatic
memories cause mental health problems, it is necessary
to recover the repressed memories to heal.”
Participants had to rate these statements on a 6-point
Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 =
slightly disagree, 4 = slightly agree, 5 = agree, 6 = strongly
agree). We found that 91.6% (934/1020) of the participants agreed (i.e., provided ratings of 4, 5, or 6) that
repressed memories can lead to mental health problems. Furthermore, we found that 51.9% (523/1008) of
participants agreed with the statement that repressed
memories concern memories of events that people are
unaware of. In addition, 55.6% (567/1020) of participants indicated that repressed memories can be accurately retrieved in therapy. Finally, 66% (661/1003) of
the participants endorsed the idea that the recovery of
repressed memories is needed to heal (for more information, including demographics, see https://osf.io/
n9fbg/).
Third, in another recent study, we asked follow-up
questions about what people mean when they endorse
repressed memory (Otgaar, Wang, Dodier, et al., 2020;
see https://osf.io/puzdy/). Specifically, we asked participants whether “traumatic memories are often repressed.”
If people agreed with this item, they received additional
questions that checked whether they meant those traumatic memories are (a) accessible during repression
and (b) unconscious during repression. We found that
89.5% (n = 909) agreed to some extent that traumatic
memories can be repressed and, of those, 73.7% (n =
670) agreed that such memories are inaccessible and
80.9% (n = 735) agreed that such memories are unconscious. Both follow-up questions’ results are strongly
consistent with the controversial concept of unconscious repression.
458
Taken together, these data show that many people
believe in (unconscious) repressed memory. Furthermore,
high percentages of students and perhaps clinicians—at
least those who use EMDR—endorse notions highly
consistent with unconscious repression. These beliefs
lie at the heart of the memory wars and are strongly
consistent with our conclusion that these wars are far
from over (see also Otgaar et al., 2019).
Memory Suppression and False
Memories
We have shown that, contrary to Brewin’s assertions,
many scholars continue to refer to unconscious repression. Furthermore, large percentages of people endorse
this concept (e.g., Otgaar, Wang, Howe, et al., 2020).
Apart from problems concerning the notion of unconscious repression, it is also important to discuss memory phenomena related to unconscious repression (i.e.,
memory suppression) and the memory wars (i.e., false
memories).
Specifically, a critical prong in the memory wars
concerns the controversial idea that trauma can unconsciously block autobiographical experiences. However,
an alternative variant of repression presumably happens through conscious control and is sometimes
referred to as memory suppression or motivated forgetting (e.g., Anderson & Green, 2001). Brewin, Li, et al.
(2020) argued that memory suppression serves as a
likely candidate for the forgetting of autobiographical
memories and their recovery after many years. Nevertheless, no research has convincingly demonstrated
memory suppression for autobiographical experiences
in the laboratory (Otgaar et al., 2019), let alone for
years or decades in everyday life. Furthermore, recent
research suggests that memory suppression has been
difficult to replicate (e.g., Bulevich et al., 2006). Adding
to these doubts, Wessel et al. (2020) conducted a multiverse analysis3 on several memory-suppression experiments and failed to find evidence for consistent
suppression effects. They concluded that their analysis
“raises problems for inhibition theory and its implication that repression is a viable mechanism of forgetting” (p. 870).
Another important aspect of the memory wars is that
legal cases have revealed that, in certain cases, the
“recovery” of false memories of childhood abuse was
the by-product of therapist suggestions that clients had
repressed such memories (Loftus, 1993, 1994). 4 A consequence of these legal cases was that memory researchers started to examine the conditions under which
people could create autobiographical false memories.
Loftus and Pickrell (1995) were among the first to show
that people can be led to falsely believe and remember
an autobiographical event that never happened.
Otgaar et al.
Brewin, Andrews, & Mickes (2020) criticized research
using such paradigms by suggesting that only a “small
minority” (p. 123) of participants are susceptible to
false-memory implantation. However, a recent review
of studies of false-memory implantation showed that
when transcripts of these studies were scored using a
detailed coding scheme, 30.4% were classified as false
memories and another 23% were classified as accepting
the false event (Scoboria et al., 2017). These percentages combined are surely not a small minority. Even
setting aside these high percentages and the point that
different implantation procedures might have led to
different percentages, the crucial take-home message
from memory implantation studies is that it is possible
to make people falsely remember a nonexperienced
autobiographical event (Nash et al., 2017; Smeets et al.,
2017). Furthermore, recent research shows that falsememory implantation occurs at similar rates for repeated
and single occurring events (Calado et al., 2020).
We are in agreement with Brewin that we must be
careful (a) not to discredit genuine cases of sexual
trauma and (b) to take corroborated claims of such
trauma seriously. Nevertheless, what are the dangers of
dismissing evidence demonstrating that the memory
wars are still being fought? A case in point concerns
the time within which sexual-abuse crimes can be prosecuted, also called the statute of limitation period.
Recently, several European countries have extended or
even abolished these limitation periods on the basis of
the premise that repressed memories exist (for an
example of extension in France, see Dodier & Tomas,
2019). The rationale is that because traumatic experiences can make people unconsciously forget the experience for decades, they cannot know of the crime until
the “memory” is recovered in therapy or in everyday
life. Therefore, because of unconscious repression, the
statute of limitations cannot begin at the time of the
alleged abuse or at a starting point set out in the law
(e.g., 18th birthday), but must instead begin when the
memory of that abuse is recovered. An adverse side
effect of the removal of these limits or extensions of
limitation periods is that they may pave the way for
therapeutically induced false recovered memories of
abuse and consequent miscarriages of justice.
Concluding Remarks
We have shown, contrary to Brewin’s assertions, that
(a) some major scholars, including contemporary
authors, do continue to refer to the controversial phenomenon of unconscious repression and (b) large proportions of people, including students and EMDR
clinicians, endorse unconscious repression (likely in the
forms of the Freudian version, the DSM diagnosis of
dissociative amnesia, or both). Such evidence suggests
459
Beliefs About Repressed Memories
that the memory wars are far from over. The ongoing
belief in unconscious repression (but also its ostensible
conscious form) can be harmful in multiple contexts.
For example, undergraduate and graduate psychology
students, informed that there is good evidence for
unconscious repression, may be inclined to use suggestive techniques to excavate purported repressed memories of abuse when they become practicing clinicians.
A second example: Legal professionals (e.g., judges)
who believe in unconscious repression may uncritically
accept the claims of alleged victims of abuse reporting
dissociative amnesia, in turn contributing to wrongful
convictions. We hope that Brewin would agree with us
that it is worthwhile to inform students, clinicians, and
legal professionals about research that casts doubt on
this phenomenon, including studies of retractors (i.e.,
people who have repudiated earlier claims of being
abused; e.g., de Rivera, 2000). Furthermore, we should
draw their attention to case and experimental studies
of how certain therapeutic techniques may inadvertently
create false memories (e.g., Houben et al., 2020).
In one article, Brewin, Andrews, and Mickes (2020)
warned of the dangers of “overenthusiastically championing conclusions based on limited data” (p. 125). We
agree. Nevertheless, it can be at least equally dangerous
to omit conclusions based on available data that reveals
that the idea of unconscious repression continues to be
accepted among many scholars and laypersons.
Transparency
Action Editor: Laura A. King
Editor: Laura A. King
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared that there were no conflicts of
interest with respect to the authorship or the publication
of this article.
Funding
This work was supported by C1 Grant ZKD6430–
C14/19/013 and Research Foundation–Flanders (FWO)
Research Project Grant G0D3621N.
ORCID iDs
Henry Otgaar
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2782-2181
Olivier Dodier
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8855-6860
Scott O. Lilienfeld
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4501-8629
Harald Merckelbach
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5116-7826
Lawrence Patihis
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2870-8986
Acknowledgments
In memory of our colleague and coauthor, Scott O. Lilienfeld.
Notes
1. We identified other references to unconscious repression and
problematic assumptions related to repressed memory. For the
sake of brevity, we have not included them in the manuscript
text, but they can be accessed at https://osf.io/2yck8/
2. In the graph, this article was designated as “Nijenhuis (2005)”
but refers to Van der Hart and Nijenhuis (1995).
3. A multiverse analysis examines all possible and plausible analyses (i.e., universes) that exist for testing a certain hypothesis
4. For a legal case on therapist-induced false memories, see
“Shrink implanted false memories” (2012).
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