Recovering Memory

This text analyzes the practices involved in procuring human tissue, and examines how the German past and present-day situation within the European Union are key in understanding the form that medical practices take within various contexts.

Recovered memory therapy, which has become a rapidly-growing industry in the past ten years, is based on the controversial theory that adults often suffer emotional problems because of forgotten childhood traumas. People who experience everyday difficulties like anxiety of overeating are now often told by therapists that the root of their trouble is a 'repressed memory' of abuse in childhood. The cure is to bring back the memory - a process that usually takes many months - and then publicly humiliate the alleged perpetrators of the abuse, most often the victim's parents. But are the supposed memories recovered in therapy genuine? Or are they concocted by therapists and clients in the course of therapy? Attempts to find independent corroboration of recovered memories have drawn a blank. Contrary to folklore, there is not a shred of scientific evidence for the notion that a memory can be repressed, and there is plenty of evidence that false memories can be created.

From an award-winning writer and linguist, a scientific and personal meditation on the phenomenon of language loss and the possibility of renewal. As a child Julie Sedivy left Czechoslovakia for Canada, and English soon took over her life. By early adulthood she spoke Czech rarely and badly, and when her father died unexpectedly, she lost not only a beloved parent but also her firmest point of connection to her native language. As Sedivy realized, more is at stake here than the loss of language: there is also the loss of identity. Language is an important part of adaptation to a new culture, and immigrants everywhere face pressure to assimilate. Recognizing this tension, Sedivy set out to understand the science of language loss and the potential for renewal. In Memory Speaks, she takes on the psychological and social world of multilingualism, exploring the human brainÕs capacity to learnÑand forgetÑlanguages at various stages of life. But while studies of multilingual experience provide resources for the teaching and preservation of languages, Sedivy finds that the challenges facing multilingual people are largely political. Countering the widespread view that linguistic pluralism splinters loyalties and communities, Sedivy argues that the struggle to remain connected to an ancestral language and culture is a site of common ground, as people from all backgrounds can recognize the crucial role of language in forming a sense of self. Distinctive and timely, Memory Speaks combines a rich body of psychological research with a moving story at once personal and universally resonant. As citizens debate the merits of bilingual education, as the worldÕs less dominant languages are driven to extinction, and as many people confront the pain of language loss, this is badly needed wisdom.

Revolutionary Memory is the most important book yet to be published about the vital tradition of leftwing American Poetry. As Cary Nelson shows, it is not only our image of the past but also our sense of the present and future that changes when we recover these revolutionary memories. Making a forceful case for political poetry as poetry, Nelson brings to bear his extraordinary knowledge of American poets, radical movements, and social struggles in order to bring out an undervalued strength in a literature often left at the canon's edge. Focused in part of the red decade of the 1930s, RevolutionaryMemory revitalizes biographical criticism for writers on the margin and shows us for the first time how progressive poets fused their work into a powerful chorus of political voices. Richly detailed and beautifully illustrated with period engravings and woodcuts, Revolutionary Memory brings that chorus dramatically to life and set a cultural agenda for future work.

The question of whether memories can be lost, particularly as a result of trauma, and then "recovered" through psychotherapy has polarised the field of memory research. This is the first volume to bring together leading memory researchers and clinicians with the aiming of facilitating aresolution to this question. The volume offers a unique and timely summary of the theories of memory recovery, and how false memories may be created. Some of the first research relating to the phenomenal characteristics of memory recovered is reported in detail, suggesting important avenues fornew research. Theories of autobiographical memory, implicit memory, reminiscence, and the effects of repeated recall on memory are included. Recovered memories and false memories provides the most current and authoritative thinking in this area, and will be an essential sourcebook for memoryresearchers and psychotherapists.

Various ways of collecting, storing and recovering memories have been the focus of the most recent joint research project carried out by a group of Irish Studies scholars, all based in the Nordic countries and members of the Nordic Irish Studies Network (NISN). The result of the project, Recovering Memory: Irish Representations of Past and Present, is a collection of essays which examines the theme of memory in Irish literature and culture against the theoretical background of the philosophical discourse of modernity. Offering a wide range of perspectives, this volume examines a plurality of representations—past and present—of memory, both public and private, and the intersection between collective memory and individual in modern Ireland. Also explored is the relation between memory and identity—national and private—as well as questions of subjectivity and the construction of the self. Given Ireland’s tragic past and its long history of colonisation, it is inevitable that various aspects of memory in terms of nationality, post-colonialism, and politics also have bearing on this study. The volume is divided into five sections, each of which examines one broadly defined aspect of memory. The introductory section focuses on memory and history, and is followed by sections on memory and autobiography, place, identity, and memory in the work of novelist John Banville. Within each section, the individual writers engage in a fruitful dialogue with each other and with the approaches of such theorists as Arendt, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, and Baudrillard.

Maintains that there is no controlled scientific evidence that memories of trauma may be "recovered" years later.

The question of memory recovery is now more important than ever with the controversy over delayed recall and false memory having spilled over from psychology to the courts and the public media. The Recovery of Unconscious Memories provides a comprehensive scientific treatment of a century of research that integrates for the first time the findings of the clinic and the laboratory. Included are authoritative treatments of hypnotic hypermnesia, free association and forced recall, the recovery of subliminal stimuli in dreams and fantasy, electrical recall, recovery of sensory-motor skills (also symptoms or "sick skills"), and modern mathematical decision theory analyses of true and false memories. Erdelyi's own ground-breaking research is presented, including his recent discovery of striking memory recoveries in long-delayed recall probes administered months after last testing. In a technical appendix, Erdelyi unveils for the first time a methodological solution to the problem of response bias in narrative recall.

A proven program from #1 New York Times bestselling author and brain researcher Dr. Daniel Amen to help you change your brain and improve your memory today! Brain imaging research demonstrates that memory loss actually starts in the brain decades before you have any symptoms. Learn the actions you can take to help not just prevent memory loss later in life . . . but to begin restoring the memory you may have already lost. Expert physician Dr. Amen reveals how a multipronged strategy—including dietary changes, physical and mental exercises, and spiritual practices—can improve your brain health, enhance your memory, and reduce the likelihood that you’ll develop Alzheimer’s and other memory loss–related conditions. Keeping your brain healthy isn’t just a medical issue; it’s a God-given capacity and an essential building block for physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Take action against the fast-increasing memory crisis that threatens this crucial part of who you are—and help your brain, body, and soul stay strong for the rest of your life.

In 1988 Ericka and Julie Ingram began making a series of accusations of sexual abuse against their father, Paul Ingram, who was a respected deputy sheriff in Olympia, Washington. At first the accusations were confined to molestations in their childhood, but they grew to include torture and rape as recently as the month before. At a time when reported incidents of "recovered memories" had become widespread, these accusations were not unusual. What captured national attention in this case is that, under questioning, Ingram appeared to remember participating in bizarre satanic rites involving his whole family and other members of the sheriff's department. Remembering Satan is a lucid, measured, yet absolutely riveting inquest into a case that destroyed a family, engulfed a small town, and captivated an America obsessed by rumors of a satanic underground. As it follows the increasingly bizarre accusations and confessions, the claims and counterclaims of police, FBI investigators, and mental health professionals. Remembering Satan gives us what is at once a psychological detective story and a domestic tragedy about what happens when modern science is subsumed by our most archaic fears.